- Sean “Diddy” Combs will spend Thanksgiving behind bars at a Brooklyn jail.
- A turkey roast, mashed potatoes, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich will be served to detainees.
- “It’s not top-grade food,” a former federal inmate turned prison consultant told BI.
Sean “Diddy” Combs may be spending this Thanksgiving behind bars at a notorious Brooklyn jail, but at least he won’t miss out on turkey.
A menu obtained by Business Insider through the Federal Bureau of Prisons shows that a turkey roast, a non-meat option of hot and sour tofu, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, cranberry sauce, gravy, dinner rolls, and assorted holiday pie will be served for lunch on Thursday at the Metropolitan Detention Center.
Combs has been locked up at the infamous federal facility since his September arrest and indictment on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
The wealthy hip-hop mogul has denied the charges against him and has made several unsuccessful attempts to be released on bail ahead of his criminal trial scheduled for May.
Thanksgiving Day jailhouse dinner of PB&J
Combs and the more than 1,000 other people housed at the facility — who include crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried — will also be offered a Thanksgiving Day breakfast of fruit, cereal, pastries, and skim milk as well as a dinner option of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, potato chips, whole wheat bread, and more fruit, according to the menu.
“It’s not top-grade food,” Sam Mangel, a former federal inmate turned prison consultant, told Business Insider. “It’s not spoiled or rancid, but it’s leftovers, or food very close to its expiration dates.”
Mangel, who says he has worked with five people currently detained at the Brooklyn jail, including Bankman-Fried, told BI that the Thanksgiving turkey spread, will be served at 11 a.m. and will feature only sliced or “pressed” turkey meat for security reasons.
“A bone from a turkey leg can be fashioned into a knife,” said Mangel. “At an MDC, or detention center, where there are all levels of security mixed together, they’re not going to put turkey bones into an inmate’s hands.”
By 12:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving, detainees can expect to be handed a bag with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich inside for dinner later on, Mangel said.
“And then all the kitchen staff go home early,” he said.
Commissary seasonings help with flavor
Combs and others at the jail will have to use plastic “sporks” and the same plain plastic dishes as any other day when chowing down on the Thanksgiving grub, Mangel said, adding that there will be no Turkey Day decor.
People detained there, the prison consultant said, often get creative with their meals, buying seasonings and cheese from the commissary to add some flavor to the meat.
“They’ll make it into burritos, or nachos, or a wrap,” said Mangel.
Combs is being held in the specialized housing unit of the jail, which is separate from the general population.
A source told BI in September that Bankman-Fried and Combs were bunking in the same dormitory. Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was sentenced to 25 years in prison earlier this year after a jury found him guilty of all seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. He is appealing his conviction.
Combs, Bankman-Fried, who had been on a vegan diet, and a small group of others being housed in the same jail unit will likely share their Thanksgiving meal together, Mangel said.
“When it comes to the holidays, you’d be surprised,” Mangel told BI. “The guys do tend to become very sullen, and they commiserate with each other.”
Attorneys for Combs and Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to a request for comment by BI for this story.
