Frank Parlato
The Flynn Doctrine “Grandfathered In”
Ryan Flynn Describes Jail Conditions While Held Without Bail
This is the third installment in a series examining former Erie County District Attorney John Flynn and the doctrine he established in prosecuting political consultant, and former Erie County Democratic Chairman Steve Pigeon: believe the accuser, disregard denials, act without corroboration.
In Parts 1 and 2, I examined Flynn’s prosecution of political adversary Steve Pigeon and his cousin Ryan’s accusation against Flynn.
Ryan Flynn remains jailed on charges tied to an anonymous social media post prosecutors claim he made threatening John Flynn’s wife.
Flynn publicly stated he required no corroboration to believe an accuser. He said he had “no need” to interview Pigeon before charging him because “I know what he’s going to say—he’s going to deny it, of course.”
But when Ryan Flynn accused John Flynn of sexual abuse and filed a police report with Buffalo Police in April 2025, the system did not believe the accuser. It jailed him instead.
Ryan has now spent more than two months in the Erie County Holding Center. During recorded calls from the facility, he described conditions that would violate current New York State correctional standards—and a pattern of treatment he believes is designed to punish him for naming the wrong person.
The following account is drawn from recorded phone calls between Ryan Flynn and this reporter. All words in quotation marks are Ryan’s unless otherwise noted.
WHERE THEY PUT HIM
Ryan Flynn was not always in Delta unit.
“When I was brought into the jail I was classified as a level one inmate, which is not dangerous. You’re housed in the pods where it’s like a common area. You get your own cell. There’s a ton of chairs to watch the TVs. It’s a big, much bigger area.”
Level one. The lowest security classification. For inmates who pose no threat.
But that changed.
“After John Flynn got ahold—and I know that when they shipped me to Alden to try to put me in the back of Alden as well, there was a sergeant named Sergeant Callari, and he personally stated to me that John Flynn got him his job in the sheriff’s office about 20 years ago and that John Flynn had a lot of pull.”
Sergeant Callari. A guard telling Ryan directly that Flynn has influence in the jail system.
“When they shipped me out to Alden, they were doing that so I couldn’t get any attorney visits. I’m in the middle of nowhere. They put me in the back of the jail, and basically there’s no cameras in Alden.”
No cameras. No witnesses. Just like Ryan described—isolation in a facility where anything could happen without documentation.
“There’s no cameras in the dorms in Alden, and they’re bunking people on bunk beds, which is illegal under New York state law. It’s been illegal for, I believe, dozens of years. At least 10 years they switched. There’s no two inmates to a cell, and there’s no bunk beds allowed in New York state jails or prisons.”
Under New York law, dormitory-style “double-bunking” is prohibited in state prisons under Correction Law § 607. While county jails like Alden are governed by separate regulations.
ALDEN: FIGHT CLUB
“It’s like a fight club out there. People go around and steal people’s stuff that’s on your bunk because there’s no privacy. There’s no way to lock your stuff in a cell or anything. It’s just on bunk beds.”
Ryan reported the thefts to deputies.
“I reported that to the deputies. They said, ‘Too bad. We’re not doing anything about it.'”
So he filed a grievance. He documented that there were fights. He described what deputies were allowing to happen.
“The deputies allow people to go into the bathrooms in Alden and have 30-second fights, minute fights. They say, ‘You’ve got 30 seconds, you’ve got a minute. Fight it out in the bathroom.”
Thirty seconds. One minute. Fights are sanctioned by guards in a bathroom with no surveillance.
“So it was basically like a fight club. After I reported that, I was retaliated against.”
Ryan requested a transfer back to the holding center. They granted it. But they didn’t send him back to the pods with 30 or 40 other inmates. They sent him to Delta unit.
“When I requested to be brought back to the holding center they put me on this Delta unit, which is basically for homeless people or people with extreme mental health that can’t even function.”
DELTA UNIT
“They’re purposely putting me on a block with only seven people. Before, I was on the pods with 30, 40 people. They want me around as few people as possible, so I can’t tell anyone about what John Flynn’s done to me, and so that there’s no record.”
Seven people. Down from 30 or 40.
Ryan described the space.
“It’s like a 4×6, maybe a 5×6. It’s a tiny space to sleep in at night. And some of the cells on the other side are even smaller. I mean, it’s insane.”
The common area—the shared space outside the cells—is also small.
“The community area? It’s like if I laid across it, you can’t even – my whole body couldn’t even lay across it. So it’s less than 5 foot, 8 feet, and it’s about 20 feet long, and that’s the community area. There’s a few tables. Like it’s the smallest space.”
Ryan referenced a recent news story.
“News 4 had a story on it just recently. And if you see the red bars with the white and red bars, that’s the unit that I’m placed on. The tiny little cell blocks; the worst possible conditions here.
“From what I’ve been told, this prison, if it were constructed today, would be unlawful under New York State law, but they seem to think that Erie County is allowed to grandfather these human rights violations in. They’re basically saying they can grandfather in human rights violations.”
Grandfathered in. Legal only because it predates the law that would prohibit it.
THE OFFICIAL RECORD
On December 9, 2025—just weeks before Ryan’s calls from Delta unit—the Erie County Clergy Jail Visiting Project released a report based on more than 100 interviews conducted during six visits to the facility over two years.
The report identified “antiquated facilities” as a limiting factor in providing adequate conditions. Sheriff John Garcia acknowledged as much in his written response, stating that “the antiquated facilities that we operate, along with budgetary constraints, limit what we can do.”
Antiquated. Grandfathered in. The same language Ryan used.
The clergy report documented complaints about the quantity of food from more than half of respondents. Close to half of those interviewed said they either weren’t getting medication they were taking before incarceration or had to wait “up to three weeks or more” to receive it.
Chistmas dinner: a baloney sandwhich and four ounces of milk.County officials acknowledge the Holding Center needs to be modernized. A proposal to close it and build a new consolidated jail in Alden would cost at least $430 million. It lacks sufficient support among county lawmakers to move forward.
Ryan also described targeted harassment.
THE WATER
“I’ve had no water in my cell for 20 days. Every other cell’s water works except for mine.”
Twenty days. No water in his cell. Not a broken pipe affecting the whole unit. Just his cell.
“The sink, the community sink that’s in here is completely rusted out. It’s covered in black mold. You can see the rust on the inside of the sink.”
The communal sink—the one all seven inmates share—is covered in rust and mold.
“For about one and a half days, they turned off the water. So we had no access to any drinking water.”
A day and a half. No drinking water for anyone in the unit.
When I asked Ryan if there was another vacant cell he could be moved to—one with working water—he said “No, there’s not.”
The guards, Ryan said, have different accommodations.
“On the other side where the guards are, they have heat. They have heat in their own personal bathroom with access to clean drinking water, with a newly renovated sink, newly renovated toilet, and everything like that. If you walk outside of our area, there’s heat right where the guard is sitting.”
Newly renovated. Clean water. Heat. Just not for the inmates on Delta unit.
THE COLD
Ryan has asthma and COPD—chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
“The heat in our unit has been off for the last two days. It’s got to be about 40 degrees. You have to sleep with the blanket over your head, you know, tucked over your head, rolled around your body. They give you one thin blanket with holes in it. It’s not even a solid blanket. It’s like a mesh-type blanket, but obviously of cotton, but mesh, meaning there are holes.
“There’s windows on this unit, but they’re actually opening the windows to make it freezing cold. They turned the heat off and left the windows open overnight when it was like 12 degrees.”
Twelve degrees outside. Windows open. Heat off.
I asked if the heat was off throughout the facility or just in Delta unit.
“Even on the other side of the gate, the heat’s on over there, and in the hallways if you get taken out to go to medical or to meet with a forensic mental health, the heat’s on right in the hallway. They’ve disabled the heaters only in front of the seven cells.”
Only the seven cells. The hallway has heat. The other side of the gate has heat. The guards have heat. Just not Delta unit.
CHRISTMAS MORNING
Barry Workman arrived on Delta unit at 3 a.m. on Christmas morning 2025, according to Ryan Flynn.
“They moved this person, Barry Workman, on Christmas morning. They brought him in at about 3 in the morning. He started yelling, acting crazy, erratic.
“He’s thrown human feces at the people on the block that I’m on and didn’t get written up. He’s thrown wet toilet paper. He’s spit at the deputies, spit at people, spit at me. I was hit with the wet toilet paper.”
Ryan and the six other inmates on Delta unit complained.
“After five days of all seven of us that I’m on this side with complaining, they finally removed him.”
Five days. Seven men complaining. Finally, guards removed Workman from the unit.
“This individual was allowed to come out of his cell two hours after throwing human poop at other inmates. He was allowed to come right back out of his cell, no consequences.”
Ryan described what would happen to other inmates who behaved the way Workman did.
“If anyone else had done stuff like this or does any conduct like this from the time that I’ve been in jail, they immediately get their water shut off. They immediately get taken out in cuffs.”
Not Workman.
THE RAMEN NOODLES
Ryan said guards didn’t just allow Workman’s behavior. They rewarded it.
“Sergeant Webster, Sergeant Drew, and Sergeant Glass, I personally saw them bring him ramen noodles and give him his bowl back to cook them in that he was throwing water with for five days.”
Three sergeants. Bringing ramen noodles to an inmate who had been throwing feces and water at other inmates.
“On Saturday between 6:45 and 7:30, it’s on videotape, the sergeant came up and paid this individual in ramen noodles to do this stuff.”
Videotape. Between 6:45 and 7:30 p.m. on a Saturday. If Ryan is telling the truth, that footage exists. If he is lying, it would be easy to prove.
BARRY WORKMAN
Court records show that ten months earlier, on February 23, 2025, Barry Workman had been arrested in Kenmore and charged with Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Third Degree and Menacing in the Second Degree. At his felony hearing on February 27, Workman behaved so erratically that the judge immediately ordered a forensic competency examination. The judge found his courtroom conduct concerning enough to warrant an evaluation of his mental fitness to proceed.
The court found his behavior concerning enough to order evaluation—yet ten months later, Ryan says, guards allowed this same individual to throw feces for five days with no consequences.
On December 25, Workman was placed on Delta unit, where Ryan Flynn was being held.
Ryan said Workman told him and other inmates something specific.
“He says his family knows Michael Keane and John Flynn and that they’re going to make me pay. John Flynn wants me dead.”
According to Ryan, Workman also made a reference that would be difficult to fabricate.
“And he’s saying stuff like, ‘Why do you think you had dead rats in your driveway? If they can’t get you inside here, they’re going to get you on the outside.'”
Dead rats. Ryan had mentioned this detail before—rats left in his driveway before his arrest. If Workman knew about it, the question is how.
Ryan also said guards had a plan for Workman.
“They were trying to have people moved off my unit so they could open up a cell for him so he could come over here and assault me. That was their plan, essentially.”
FIVE DAYS
For five days, Ryan said, he did not respond to Workman’s provocations.
“The entire five days, I didn’t throw water, I didn’t do anything at all, I didn’t yell at the deputy, you know, nothing to get myself in trouble that would constitute a write-up.”
Ryan stayed in his cell. He did not retaliate. He did not give guards a reason to discipline him.
“After they couldn’t get me to retaliate against him, after they spent five days doing this, they turned off the heat in our unit.”
THE GUARDS
Ryan named four corrections officials he believes are targeting him.
“The Deputy Turner that you wrote about, my uncle has a copy of four people who signed the statement that Deputy Turner offered people to assault me. My uncle has a copy of that. I’ve been begging him to fax it to you.”
Four inmates. Signed statements. Allegations that Deputy Turner solicited violence against Ryan Flynn.
Those statements, if they exist, would be documentary evidence of a coordinated effort to harm Ryan inside the jail.
Ryan also named three sergeants.
“Sergeant Drew, Sergeant Glass, and Sergeant Webster are the main orchestrators of having Barry Workman do this five-day harassment of the inmates in here.”
Sergeant Drew, Ryan said, has been involved in multiple incidents.
“Sergeant Drew is the one who also set me up to be assaulted. He moved me into the unit with Chico Garcia and is believed to be the person who offered him the $1,000 commissary that he said he was receiving to assault me.”
Chico Garcia. The inmate who, according to Ryan, sucker-punched him in the head and gave him a concussion. Ryan filed a police report. No charges were filed against Garcia.
“Sergeant Drew pulled all the strings to have me move to that unit. He attempted to have other people who were threatening me placed in cells next to me. He had other people moved out of the cells and placed individuals who were threatening to assault me in the cells, at which time I remained in my cell until I could be transferred to another side.”
I asked Ryan about Sergeant Drew.
“He’s about 6’2″, bald head, grayish beard. He’s the one who sat in for the recording when I was pressing charges against Chico Garcia and tried to downplay its significance. He’s friends with John Flynn, to my knowledge.”
Friends with John Flynn. That is Ryan’s belief. Whether it is true would require independent confirmation.
“They said Sergeant Drew knows all the tricks. He’s the one who pulled the strings to get me moved off the pod unit that I was moved to. I was moved to the box. I was moved to Fox South. He had one of the deputies make up a lie that I was causing trouble in there. They reviewed the camera. They saw that I did nothing wrong, but because I was already moved they said I couldn’t be moved back to that unit.”
But Ryan was not allowed to return. The reason given?
“The final conclusion of why I was moved is because they said I looked at the deputy funny, which I took as a personal insult because I have a lazy eye. I’m blind in my left eye. And they said that I was moved because I was looking at the deputy funny.”
Ryan has a lazy eye. He is blind in his left eye. They moved him for looking at someone wrong.
Barry Workman threw feces and got ramen noodles.
A DAY
Ryan described his daily routine in Delta unit.
“I wake up at about 7:30. I clean and mop. I sweep and mop the floors now for about the last two weeks, watch TV, and then pretty much we get food at 11 o’clock, and I’m pretty much taking a nap or laying in my cell until about 4 o’clock, watch the news from 4 to 5 typically each day if they’re willing to turn it on, and we get dinner at about 4:15 each day.”
After dinner, there is nowhere to go.
“We’re locked in our cells from 12 to 1 o’clock. You can’t even come out from 12 to 1 o’clock, from 2:30 to 4, and from 5:30 to 6:30, and from 10:30 at night till 7:45 in the morning. So it’s about 14 hours of the day you’re locked in.”
Fourteen hours. In a cell with no water. Recreation is available, Ryan said, but not in any meaningful way.
“At about 8 in the morning, they’ll ask you if you want to go to rec, which is just – they bring you to a part of the jail where it’s cinder blocks or a cage, and it’s outside air. In the wintertime, you basically have to go in the freezing cold air.
“I’m pretty much stuck in here the entire time because if you wanted to go to rec, it’s a cinder block room, and then the top of it is just completely open for freezing cold air to come in. So your only choice is to go walk around in a square for about 30 minutes. There’s no weight room. There’s no basketball. There’s no access to any fitness or anything like that.”
WHAT RYAN WANTS KNOWN
Toward the end of our calls, Ryan’s focus shifted from conditions to the charges against him.
“I also passed the mental health competency exams until they falsified just this one, but I’ve passed all the other evaluations. I don’t want it to seem as if I’m some not competent person because I have a 125 IQ. I own my own house that’s paid off. The estimated the value is $200,000.”
Ryan owns his home outright. No mortgage. Estimated value: $200,000.
“I also own cryptocurrency, not a ton, but I had a lot more before they got me fired, which would make my net worth at almost a quarter million dollars. So for me to be worth $250,000 and not be given any sort of bail and being harassed like this is insane to have my competency questioned and to have more money than the people questioning my competence.”
Ryan’s house was searched twice, he said. Both times, no weapons were found.
“They searched my house in September and they found no weapons or no drugs. And they searched my house in October, 2025, they searched it again and found no weapons, which proves I’m not a danger or a harm to anyone.”
He pointed to other cases where people who made threats were treated differently.
“Multiple people threatened to shoot up the UB school and the Muslim community and they had nine guns in their house. And the Amherst employee who threatened to shoot up the Muslim community had two guns and they got no charges. And I have zero guns and I’m being held with no bail.”
THE QUESTION
Ryan Flynn is being held without bail on charges that rest on a screenshot. No metadata. No forensic evidence.
He has accused John Flynn of sexually abusing him as a child. He filed a police report in April 2025. Six months later, he was arrested.
He now sits in a cell without water, without heat, in a unit that isolates him from other inmates.
The conditions Ryan describes would be unacceptable for any inmate. But they are not being applied to any inmate. They are being applied to the man who named the former district attorney.
John Flynn set the rule: believe the accuser, disregard denials, act without proof.
But when Ryan accused Flynn, the system did not believe the accuser. It jailed him instead.
Next: Part 4 will examine the evidence John Flynn ignored in the Steve Pigeon prosecution—and the evidence Ryan Flynn says he is prepared to present upon his release.
Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.
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