“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition” took on a new meaning yesterday for a Rikers Island inmate who swallowed a bullet in his bologna sandwich.
Accused drug dealer Louis Olivo will be full of praise if that bullet would just pass out of his body. He can’t leave Rikers Island to see his lawyer until it does – because the slug keeps setting off the prison metal detectors.
“They won’t let him out to see me until he passes the bullet,” said Olivo’s new lawyer, Joseph Tacopina.
A city Correction Department source confirmed Tacopina’s claim.
“He was supposed to be transported [off the island] for an attorney visit [Tuesday], but he’s been unable to clear security,” the source said.
Olivo’s troubles began May 7 when, during a lunch break in a court hearing on heroin-dealing charges, correction officers gave him an apparently pre-packed meal of a bologna and cheese sandwich, Doritos and a soda.
He felt something “crunchy” in his sandwich, and it turned out to be a bullet.
Back at Rikers, medical staff members have been waiting patiently for Olivo to pass the bullet fragment naturally. He’s undergone three X-rays, a rectal exam and other measures, but has not been operated on yet.
“It is absurd to think that Mr. Olivo will be denied access to his lawyer because he was ‘unable to clear the security measures’ of the Department of Correction due solely to the fact that the D.O.C. fed Mr. Olivo a ‘bullet sandwich’ which is now lodged in his intestinal area,” Tacopina wrote in a scathing letter to correction officials.
D.O.C. Deputy Commissioner Sandy Lewis Smith vehemently denied that Olivo was ever refused access to his attorney.