How the hell did he end up in Rikers?!
I thought they saved that for the people who were actually convicted of serious crimes.
Rikers Island is the main jail complex of the entirety of New York City. It's important to note that it's a
jail, not a
prison. In the United States, you're placed in a jailhouse if your sentence is 365 days or less. Once you hit "a year and a day", you're put in a prison. The difference is that prisons are long-term places to keep criminals, while jails hold people with lesser sentences, people awaiting trial, or inmates who are being temporarily held before transfer to a new facility. The idea of Rikers being some tough, gritty, film noir prison for the roughest inmates around is an idea mainly brought about by decades of pulp-style fiction and the early 20th century where the division between prison and jail was less strict.
Because he was technically "awaiting trial", he was never put into a true prison facility. He was basically kept in limbo.