Santos v. Cuomo
- Vincent Briccetti
- 7:19-cv-05398
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 14
In Santos v. Feldman, Judge Briccetti denied Santos’s request to stop prison-account deductions, while confirming he had already paid the filing fee.
Byron Santos, whose request for an order against the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision was denied; the agency was not a party to the case.
What happened
In Santos v. Feldman, Byron Santos said he had already paid the case’s $350 filing fee but that the prison system continued deducting money from his inmate account.
Santos asked the court to order the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to return the deductions and stop taking more money. The court confirmed that he had paid the filing fee in full on June 24, 2019, but said it could not order relief against that agency because it was not a party to the case.
Judge Briccetti denied Santos’s request and told him he must address the account problem directly with the agency or Auburn Correctional Facility. The order also confirms the payment and may be used as proof that the fee was paid.
The detailed version
- Santos v. Cuomo · No. 7:19-cv-05398
- Vincent Briccetti
- May 7, 2020
Background
Byron Santos was proceeding without a lawyer and without paying the filing fee in advance. The court had previously approved that status, but the docket shows that Santos paid the $350 filing fee in full on June 24, 2019.
Santos later wrote to the court stating that the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision had continued deducting money from his inmate account to pay the filing fee. The inmate statement attached to his request showed that $93.43 had been deducted and that $256.57 remained listed as due.
Request and Reasoning
Santos asked the court to order the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to return the deducted funds and stop making additional deductions. The court agreed that Santos had already paid the filing fee in full.
The court nevertheless denied the request because the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision was not a party to the case. The court concluded that it therefore lacked authority to stop the agency’s conduct or resolve errors involving Santos’s inmate account at Auburn Correctional Facility. The court stated that Santos must try to resolve the issue directly with the agency or the facility.
Ruling
Judge Vincent L. Briccetti denied Santos’s request. The order separately confirms that the $350 filing fee for this case was paid in full on June 24, 2019, and encourages Santos to provide the order and attached docket materials as proof of payment. The order addresses the filing-fee deductions and does not decide the underlying claims against Correction Officer R. Feldman.
Read the full 14-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.