‘Justice denied’: Survivors of sex abuse behind bars call on city, state to address their lawsuits
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Donna Hilton, center, speaks during a rally demanding the city and state prioritize the resolution of the thousands of sexual abuse cases filed by formerly incarcerated New Yorkers under the Adult Survivors Act. Screenshot via Slater Slater Schulman/YouTube
By Jacob Kaye
Around two years ago, state lawmakers passed a bill allowing survivors of sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits against their alleged abuser, regardless of how long ago the allegations occurred.
Known as the Adult Survivors Act, the law prompted a wave of lawsuits from formerly incarcerated women who said that they were sexually harassed, abused and raped by correctional officers while being held behind bars on Rikers Island.
But a year after a bulk of the lawsuits were filed in the state’s courts, few have seen a resolution.
On Wednesday, dozens of survivors of sexual abuse in the city’s jails and state’s prisons called on officials at all levels of government to recognize the hundreds of women and men abused behind bars, expedite the over 2,000 pending lawsuits and generally take the allegations seriously.
“There is a legacy of trauma among every survivor here, near and far, and that needs to be acknowledged and it needs to be rectified,” said Anna Kull, an attorney with law firm Levy Konigsberg, which, alongside Slater Slater Schulman, brought a bulk of the abuse cases.
“To these officials who have turned a blind eye to those cries for justice, your silence sends a message, and it's not one of support,” Kull added. “Every day you ignore these abuses, you tell survivors their pain isn't important enough to demand justice that cannot continue.”
Several women who filed claims under the Adult Survivors Act said during Wednesday’s rally that they were growing tired of having to recount their traumatic experiences in an effort to get their alleged abusers to be held to account.
“A year after the Adult Survivors Act was passed, we’re fighting still to be heard, to be acknowledged, to be recognized and to be valued,” said Donna Hilton, who said she was abused by an officer while being held in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. “It hurts to have to continue to do this over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over and over again. But we are going to keep doing it until you listen to us. We're going to keep doing it until you hear us.”
The lookback window created by the Adult Survivors Act closed nearly a year ago this week after opening in November 2022.
In all, over 2,200 cases were brought by formerly incarcerated women claiming they had been abused behind bars in New York. The cases accounted for a majority of the Adult Survivors Act lawsuits brought during the one-year window.
An analysis conducted by the news outlet Gothamist earlier this year found that over 700 of those cases were brought by those who said they experienced their abuse at Rikers Island.
Combined, the plaintiffs behind the lawsuits are seeking over $14 billion in damages from the city, Gothamist found.
But just when the courts will rule on the cases remains unclear.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who sponsored the bill in the upper chamber. “The delay on the part of New York state is unacceptable.”
“Thousands of cases filed, thousands of cases without any resolution,” he added. “Justice has been denied.”
The delay behind the resolution of some of the cases could be explained by a loophole that was used by attorneys representing government entities to get some of the lawsuits dismissed.
Because of the short time frame victims had to bring their suits, some of them did so without first filing a notice of claim, a document filed with the court to kick off the legal proceeding.
Though some attorneys representing municipal agencies successfully challenged some of the suits using the loophole, the governor over the summer signed a law closing it, allowing for the lawsuits to be brought without first filing a notice of claim.
But attorneys, lawmakers and survivors said Wednesday that it wasn’t just the loophole fueling their frustration.
They chided the court system for not prioritizing the cases, and called on court leaders to expedite the ASA cases. They also blasted several elected officials for not acknowledging the high number of cases filed against correctional officers.
They called on the state and the city to launch individual investigations not only into each of the allegations made against officers they once and, in some cases currently, employ, but into the alleged culture of abuse that exists in their jails and prisons.
Neither Governor Kathy Hochul nor Mayor Eric Adams have made any public substantive comments on the allegations, nor have they ordered any widespread review of officers’ behaviors behind bars.
During a City Council oversight hearing last month, Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, who spent nearly a decade working as an attorney within the department, at first stopped short of saying she believed the claims made by several woman who testified during the hearing. Instead, she said she believed “that we really need to look into it.”
Hundreds of lawsuits filed under the Adult Survivors Act claim sexual abuse at the hands of correctional officers on Rikers Island. AP file photo by Ted Shaffrey
“I do believe that people have raised some serious concerns, and I think that as a department, that we have to truly lean in and make sure that these concerns are addressed,” Maginley-Liddie said.
However, the ways in which the DOC plans to address the claims remains unclear.
While the DOC said during the hearing that all five of the officers who were actively working for the DOC when sexual abuse claims were filed against them last year had been removed from their posts, councilmembers during the October hearing questioned the timeline in which they were removed.
One officer, Anthony Martin, remained working on Rikers for months after multiple women accused him of sexually abusing them. Though he was eventually suspended, his abuse did not stay confined to Rikers.
In August, Martin was arrested after he allegedly lured a woman to his Queens home by telling her that he was a TV producer interested in casting her in a show. When they arrived to his apartment, he allegedly raped her.
Martin now faces up to 25 years in prison.
City Councilmember Sandy Nurse, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Criminal Justice and led the October hearing, said on Wednesday that she was upset by the city’s alleged sluggishness.
“We are just absolutely disgusted by the lack of urgency, the lack of action, the lack of even words, frankly, from this administration about this issue,” Nurse said.
The Eagle reached out to the governor’s office, the mayor’s office, the city’s Department of Correction, the city’s Law Department and the state’s court system seeking a response to the rally-goers’ calls on Wednesday. None responded before press time.
