A federal judge yesterday said he is “frankly shocked and disturbed” by allegations that a federal detainee who died in immigration custody last week was mistreated by guards at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility and denied medical treatment and access to his lawyers.

U.S. District Judge William E. Smith reacted to a New York Times report that appeared in Tuesday’s editions of The Journal about the death of Hiu Lui Ng on Aug. 6 at Rhode Island Hospital. Ng’s lawyers said he died as a result of complications from advanced cancer and a fractured spine, while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Ng (pronounced “Eng”) spent his last month at the Wyatt facility in Central Falls before dying two days after his 34th birthday. A hearing on his case had been scheduled for this afternoon.

Ng’s death marked the second known death in Rhode Island of a detainee in ICE custody in a year. On Aug. 7, 2007 — almost a year to the day that Ng died — Edimar Alves De Araujo died after suffering a seizure at the ICE processing center in Providence.

A medical examiner concluded that De Araujo died of “acute intoxication” from cocaine and an anti-anxiety drug, and that his chronic seizure disorder contributed significantly to his death. An ICE internal investigation cleared ICE personnel of any wrongdoing.

The Times story chronicled Ng’s odyssey, from his arrest last year on a deportation order that court records state he never received; to his being shuttled to and from jails and other facilities around New England where ICE detainees are held; to his last weeks at Wyatt as his medical condition allegedly went untreated and undiagnosed. Ng’s lawyers said Wyatt officials accused Ng of faking his medical condition.

“The fact that this man died as a direct result of the conditions he was experiencing.… That is very disturbing, and I don’t understand how it happened,” Smith said in a phone interview.

“What I’m concerned about was what was represented to me in chambers. I was told that he had received extensive medical evaluation and treatment. Now, I read a very different version of events in The New York Times, and I don’t know how to reconcile these things.”

Through a spokesman, U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente took exception.

“Others involved in this matter have said that The New York Times article omitted crucial facts with respect to the treatment that Mr. Ng received while he was at Wyatt for approximately a month,” said Corrente spokesman Tom Connell.

Connell also reacted to Judge Smith’s criticism of statements made in court by Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Myrus, noting, “We stand 100 percent behind what Assistant U.S. Attorney Myrus said and did. Knowing what he knew, he did absolutely the right thing.”

Meanwhile, Ng’s lawyers have called for a criminal investigation into his death. They said his family was declining comment at this time.

ICE spokeswoman Paula Grenier said the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility is conducting an investigation.

Grenier said, “ICE takes great care to ensure the safety and well-being of each of the individuals who come through our detention facilities each year. Any detainee death is a sad and unfortunate situation.”

Wyatt authorities released a statement that called “wholly without merit” allegations that Ng was not provided medical care while detained there. The statement said that “contrary to the published report” in the Times, Ng’s diagnoses “came as the direct result of medical care and special diagnostic evaluation recommended by the facility’s medical staff.” At that point, “Mr. Ng’s illness had already progressed to a stage where doctors could not treat the illness.”

NG’S ODYSSEY began on July 19, 2007. Homeland Security officials arrested him that day when he and his wife, a U.S. citizen, arrived at a New York City immigration court to adjust Ng’s status to “lawful permanent resident.”

Federal court documents filed by Ng’s lawyers state that Ng had legally entered the country from Hong Kong with his family when he was 17, but overstayed his visa. His lawyers petitioned unsuccessfully for his release last year on grounds that he was being denied due process.

In April of this year, Ng began experiencing back pain and a skin irritation while being held at a Vermont jail that also houses ICE detainees. He was transferred back to Wyatt on July 3.

An affidavit by Andy Wong — one of Ng’s lawyers — states that Ng’s condition worsened until Ng could not walk or stand, pick up his medicine or food, call his family or get to the bathroom on his own. He lost weight, sustained a leg injury from climbing up and down from an upper bunk, and went days without medication. Wong also said prison officials denied Ng’s repeated requests for a wheelchair.

The affidavit states that when Wong traveled from New York on July 26 to meet Ng, he was unable to see him “because Mr. Ng could not move without a wheelchair and the facility refused to give him one.” Wong said Wyatt officials also denied his requests to visit Ng in his cell or speak with him by phone, and he left without seeing his client.

Days later, Ng told Wong in a phone interview that he had missed scheduled medical tests at a local hospital because prison officials failed to take him there.

On July 28, as Ng’s condition worsened, his attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus so Ng could seek justification for why he was being held. The lawyers pressed for an expedited hearing.

Ng was transferred to an ICE lockup in Hartford on July 30. The affidavit states that Ng told Wong he was forcibly dragged from his cell into an ICE transport van by five agents that morning, bruising his feet and legs. He was brought back to Wyatt later that day.

SMITH, THE JUDGE, said lawyers from both sides met in his chambers July 31. Yesterday, reading from a transcript of the July 31 meeting, Smith said federal prosecutor Myrus claimed Ng had refused to go to the hospital on one occasion for a test; Ng’s lawyers disputed this and said Ng required a wheelchair for the trip and had been denied one by Wyatt officials. Ng’s lawyers also questioned why their client had been taken to an ICE office in Hartford July 30.

“I said, ‘I don’t get why he was sent to Hartford,’ ” and I didn’t get much of a response,” Smith said. “So I pressed [Myrus], and he said he understood the client was brought there to have extensive access to his counsel, and that in fact he had talked to his counsel and perhaps some family members for several hours on the phone in a private room.”

Smith added, “But then I said, ‘that doesn’t make any sense, because all those facilities are at Wyatt.’ ” Smith also said Myrus told him Ng had received “a lot of medical attention, from doctors and nurses and an emergency visit to Memorial Hospital [of Rhode Island, Pawtucket].”

Smith did not grant Ng’s lawyers’ request to release him, but scheduled a hearing for tomorrow and meanwhile asked Myrus to instruct Wyatt officials to get Ng a wheelchair and ensure he would be brought to a scheduled CT scan appointment.

On Aug. 1, Ng was admitted to Rhode Island Hospital, where an MRI detected cancer in his liver, lungs and bones, and a fractured spine, according to his lawyers. A statement released by Wyatt’s warden yesterday cited a preliminary autopsy that determined Ng died of “previously undiagnosed advanced stage cancer.”

“If this is true,” Smith said, “that raises some really serious issues about the treatment and care of this person while he was detained, and I want to know more about that.”

tmooney@projo.com