New York state lawmakers said they will renew their push to reopen a window that allows sexual abuse victims more time to file claims after a new Gothamist investigation revealed a pattern of alleged misconduct and sexual assault at Rikers Island.
The chair of the City Council’s criminal justice committee, which oversees the Department of Correction, also vowed to hold an oversight hearing on “systematic” abuse at the troubled jail complex in response to the investigation.
And New York City Mayor Eric Adams called for a “thorough investigation” into the allegations at press conference on Tuesday,
The reactions from state and city lawmakers come in response to a Gothamist report that found 719 of the 1,256 lawsuits filed in New York City’s state supreme court under the Adult Survivors Act accuse the city and the NYC Department of Correction of turning a blind eye to rampant sexual assault at Rikers. The law opened a one-year window for victims to file civil lawsuits outside the statute of limitations. That window closed in November.
The 719 lawsuits seek a total of over $14.7 billion in damages and come as a federal judge considers whether to strip city officials of their control over the jail complex due to its high rates of violence and dysfunction.
Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, who sponsored the Adult Survivors Act, said lawmakers will be “pushing heavily” to reopen the filing window so people who did not get a chance to file a lawsuit before the deadline will have another opportunity.
Councilmember Sandy Nurse, who chairs the City Council’s criminal justice committee, said she expects to hold an oversight hearing in response to Gothamist’s reporting to question city officials about what she sees as a “systematic” issue on Rikers Island.
Rosenthal called Gothamist’s report “an indictment of the system.”
“All of these charges need to be proven in the court of law. But the fact that there are so many — and so many in the past 20, 30 years — makes me feel even more grateful that we were able to pass this into law,” Rosenthal said in an interview.
She said lawmakers should pass legislation drafted by state Sen. Julia Salazar that would provide extra time specifically for people who have spent time in jail or prison to file lawsuits.
Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who co-sponsored the Adult Survivors Act in the Senate, said he expects even more formerly incarcerated people would come forward if lawmakers extended the deadline to file a sexual assault lawsuit.
“It would suggest, based on the number of filings and the timing, that we’re only scratching the surface of a deep-seated problem within our correctional system,” he said. “That might point to a good reason why we would want to re-open the window for the Adult Survivors Act.”
Nurse said the flood of sexual assault lawsuits adds to a long list of reasons why the City Council voted to close Rikers Island by 2027. Mayor Eric Adams has tried to delay that plan. Nurse urged the mayor and the correction department’s new commissioner, Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, to devise a “strong plan to course correct.”
“The Department of Correction has a problem,” Nurse said. “It has a problem with accountability. It has a problem with supervision. Sexual assault is one of the most horrific problems.”
At Monday’s press conference, Adams said he’d just become aware of the details of the allegations and the amounts sought by the plaintiffs after he read Gothamist’s report. Gothamist sent a detailed list of questions to the mayor’s office before publication, but a spokesperson deferred comment to the Department of Correction.
Adams noted that many of the lawsuits are decades old.
“Abuse in jails, period, is not something that’s new,” he said. “But when you see it, you must address it and face it. And that is what we’re going to do.”
Roughly 30 of the 719 people who filed lawsuits said they were sexually abused at Rikers within the past five years.
The Department of Correction did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. Press Secretary Annais Morales previously said the department has a “zero-tolerance policy” and is working to implement a new case management program to track sexual assault allegations. The department has been pledging to roll out such a system since at least 2019 and told Gothamist its plans were delayed during the COVID pandemic.
Councilmember Carlina Rivera said she plans to reintroduce legislation she previously sponsored that would require the Department of Correction to track all sexual abuse investigations using the type of electronic case management system the department has promised for years.
“I remain committed to increasing accountability for a department with a documented history of obscuring transparency when reporting on the conditions within correctional facilities,” Rivera said in a statement.
Defense attorneys, criminal justice reform proponents and advocates for sexual assault survivors also expressed dismay at Gothamist’s findings and implored city and state officials to take action.
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“This story helps reveal the culture of sexual abuse that so many people have had to shoulder over the years from their time incarcerated at Rikers Island,” said Barbara Hamilton, a supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society, in a written statement. “Moreover, it shows that both the city and DOC’s investigation unit has been unable or unwilling to hold officers who commit sexual violence accountable and to abolish this culture of impunity that has allowed these acts to flourish.”
The city’s public defender organizations issued a joint statement calling the allegations detailed in Gothamist’s reporting “appalling.”
“Sadly, people incarcerated at Rikers continue to experience sexual abuse and other horrifying abuses and conditions,” the Bronx Defenders, Brooklyn Defender Services, the Legal Aid Society, the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, New York County Defender Services, and Queens Defenders said in the statement. “We reaffirm our call for a receivership that addresses the deep-seated culture of corruption and disregard for the health and safety of people in DOC custody, and we believe that ultimately decarceration and closing Rikers is imperative to stopping the harm and violence.”
Emily Miles, executive director of the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, said in a statement that the 719 lawsuits demonstrate a “willful disregard for the needs of survivors and a complicity in allowing this violence to continue.”
Assemblymember Eddie Gibbs, who spent time on Rikers as a teen, said in a statement that safeguards must be put in place to ensure correction officers don’t abuse their power.
“We must take immediate action to address these issues and work towards creating a system that prioritizes the protection of all incarcerated individuals,” he said. “Incarcerated individuals should serve their time without the worry of being assaulted daily.”
Samantha Max
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