Rikers officer accused by multiple women of sex abuse fired after conviction

A former Rikers Island correctional officer will be fired by the Department of Correction after he was found guilty this week of sexually abusing a woman in his parents’ Queens home. The officer, Anthony Martin Jr., was previously accused by multiple detained women of sexual abuse.  AP file photo Seth Wenig

By Jacob Kaye

A Rikers Island correctional officer will be fired after being found guilty this week of sexually abusing a woman in his Queens home – a decision that comes years after he was first accused by multiple detained women of sexually abusing them while on the job.

The Department of Correction said on Wednesday that Anthony Martin Jr., a 33-year-old who worked for nearly a decade on Rikers, will be terminated from his job after a Queens jury found him guilty of sexually abusing a 20-year-old woman inside his parents’ home in March 2024.

Martin Jr., who was acquitted of two rape charges in the same case, told the woman that he was a TV producer and invited her to the home to discuss a role in a show he was developing before sexually abusing her.

He now faces up to seven years in prison.

The guilty verdict came several years after at least two women accused Martin Jr. of committing similar crimes against them while they were locked up on Rikers Island. Gothamist, which conducted an investigation into the over 700 claims of sexual assault in the city’s jails made by former detainees as part of the Adult Survivors Act, was the first to report on the multiple allegations made against Martin Jr.

Among the women who accused Martin Jr. of sexual abuse was Karina Collado, who said the then-officer forced his fingers into her vagina while holding her down inside an office in the jail complex. The claims made in the civil lawsuit brought by Collado in May 2023 were filed around a year before he was arrested for the assault of the 20-year-old woman, who made nearly identical allegations against Martin Jr.

The DOC allowed Martin Jr. to continue his work as a correctional officer after the lawsuit was filed by Collado in 2023. It wasn’t until the officer’s arrest in April 2024 that the DOC suspended Martin Jr. without pay.

The agency said it began processing his termination after the guilty verdict on Tuesday.

“The charges that Mr. Martin were convicted of are egregious and in no way a reflection of the men and women who work day in and day out to ensure the safety and security of the individuals who work and live in our facilities,” DOC Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie said in a statement to the Eagle. “We will not tolerate such behavior from any individual who tarnishes the solemnity of the oath of office they were sworn to uphold.”

‘I was telling you to stop and you didn’t’

Prosecutors said that Martin Jr. reached out to the 20-year-old woman, whose name is being withheld by the Eagle, weeks before the pair eventually met up. Martin Jr. found the woman, a dancer and aspiring actress, on social media and sent her an email, falsely claiming that someone had referred the woman to him. In his message, the Rikers guard said that he was working on creating a TV show and that he had contacts at HBO and Netflix. While Martin Jr.’s former high school counselor, who himself is a filmmaker, testified at trial that the guard had previously reached out to him to discuss developing the show, it’s unclear if Martin Jr. was lying about his connections at the companies.

“He positioned himself as someone who could give something to her,” Assistant District Attorney Samantha Delao said during the four-day trial. “And she believed him.”

The pair texted for weeks before meeting up. While the woman consistently attempted to keep the conversation about the role, Martin Jr. often moved the exchanges from professional to personal. Shortly after they began talking, Martin Jr. referred to the woman 12 years his junior as “sleeping beauty.”

Martin Jr. sent an Uber to pick the actress up and take her to his parents home, where he lived, on March 26, 2024. The plan was to discuss the role and develop the character Martin Jr. purportedly wanted the woman to play, prosecutors said.

For hours, the two ran acting drills in Martin Jr.’s bedroom in the Springfield Gardens home while his father sat in the adjoining room.

At some point in the afternoon, Martin Jr., who had told the woman he was also a licensed massage therapist, said that the 20-year-old’s beauty was distracting him and that he could no longer talk about the show. That’s when the woman began to feel uncomfortable, she said during the trial.

Nonetheless, they continued to hang out, and when Martin Jr. offered to give the victim a massage, the woman, who as a dancer had received dozens of massages over the course of her life, removed her pants.

The encounter quickly became non-consensual when Martin Jr. put his fingers into the woman’s vagina and held her legs up by her head with his other hand, prosecutors said.

The woman, who said during the trial that she had a history of “disassociating” during traumatic experiences, temporarily froze, unsure of what to do. Eventually, she kicked up her legs and ran to the bathroom to dress herself and order an Uber. Once in the car, she texted her friend about the incident.

“This man literally assaulted me,” her text read.

After reporting the incident to the police, the woman was told by officers to make a “controlled call” to Martin Jr. in an attempt to get him to admit to the assault.

“I was telling you to stop and you didn’t,” the woman said to Martin Jr. on the recorded call, which was played for jurors during the trial.

“Yeah, I apologize for that,” he replied.

The correctional officer continued to text the victim days after the call. He also sent her two dozen roses and a basket of fruits and chocolates on April 3, the day after he was arrested and suspended by the DOC.

The trial against Martin Jr., who pleaded not guilty to all four of the charges brought against him, was relatively quick, running for about a week. About a dozen of Martin Jr.’s friends and family watched each day of the proceeding and were, at one point, scolded by Queens Supreme Court Justice Gia Morris for laughing while the victim was on the stand.

After deliberating for several days, the jury found Martin Jr. guilty of sexual abuse and unlawful imprisonment. The jury acquitted him of the two rape charges he was facing after the victim gave conflicting testimony about whether or not Martin Jr. forcibly penetrated her with his penis during the assault.

“Anthony Martin lured a young woman to his Springfield Gardens home by claiming he was a television producer and that he was casting for roles in an upcoming television show,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement. “Instead, the defendant – a sworn correction officer – sexually abused the 20-year-old and held her against her will.”

“I thank the brave woman for coming forward and confronting her attacker in court,” she added.

Martin’s attorney, Jason Russo, did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

Similar allegations

While the recently-concluded trial was the only criminal case Martin Jr. was facing, he was also accused by several women of similar behavior in civil cases. He has denied all the allegations against him.

Filed as part of the Adult Survivors Act – a New York law that opened a window for people to file sexual abuse claims in Civil Court regardless of whether or not the statute of limitations on the allegations had expired – at least three women who were once detained on Rikers Island said Martin Jr. sexually assaulted them while he was working as a guard.

Collado, the woman who filed a lawsuit against Martin Jr. a year before he was arrested, claimed that the officer sexually abused her when she was locked up in 2020.

During her incarceration, Collado was assigned to work in the social services office, where she was told to organize and restock supplies under Martin Jr.’s supervision.

At one point during her work, Martin Jr. allegedly asked her if she was “ready to play.”

“He then forced his fingers into her vagina while physically holding her down,” the lawsuit reads.

Collado claimed that despite being threatened by Martin Jr., she reported the assault to another correctional officer, who allegedly told her that she was “not the first and would probably not be the last inmate that CO Martin Jr. sexually assaulted.”

Collado’s lawsuit is ongoing.

Collado’s attorney, Anna Kull, whose firm, Levy Konigsberg, brought over 200 cases alleging abuse on Rikers as part of the Adult Survivors Act, said that she felt it was “almost unbelievable" that the DOC didn’t take action to suspend or fire Martin Jr. after Collado brought her case.

“There were these allegations from the Karina Collado case out there, and he's just showing up to work every day,” Kull told the Eagle. “I don't think that incarcerated women who come forward about sexual abuse claims are taken seriously. I think that's the message it sends.”

Martin Jr. was also accused of sexual abuse by Simone Morgan, a woman also represented by Levy Konigsberg.

In the suit filed in December 2024, Morgan accused Martin Jr. of grabbing her breasts and buttocks both over and under her clothing on five to 10 occasions in 2018. The lawsuit also claims he forced his fingers into her vagina and that he would peek into the showers to watch Morgan and other female detainees bathe.

A third former detainee, Jessica Brenner, accused Martin of sexual abuse in a federal lawsuit brought in September 2024. The lawsuit was settled on Oct. 31, a couple of weeks before Martin Jr.’s criminal trial began.

Brenner, whose attorney did not respond to a request for comment for this story, said in the suit that she was assigned to help organize DOC files alongside three other women in June 2023. At the end of the project, Martin Jr. allegedly escorted the women to an office instead of their housing area.

The lawsuit claims that Martin Jr. told the women that they were going to play “Simon Says” and demanded Brenner take off her pants, dance and allow the other women to touch her.

One of the women later reported the incident to a counselor, who in turn told Martin Jr.’s supervisor, according to the lawsuit. Martin Jr. then allegedly confronted Brenner and asked that she write a statement claiming the incident did not happen. Though Brenner told him she would, she never did, the lawsuit claims.

It’s unclear to what extent the DOC has investigated the claims against Martin Jr.

A spokesperson for the DOC said that because of the ongoing lawsuits, they were unable to answer questions about whether any internal investigation into Martin Jr.’s alleged abuses on Rikers had begun or would continue after his firing.

The DOC’s efforts to investigate sexual abuse claims made against guards has been inconsistent over the past four years. According to an August report, not a single investigation into sexual abuse allegations was completed by the agency in either 2022 or 2023, the first two years of Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.

In 2024, the DOC closed 38 cases, substantiating the allegations in three of them. This year, the agency has closed 31 cases, substantiating only one.

“What happened with Anthony Martin, I think it demonstrates that there is a systemic problem with screening the prison guards, supervising the prison guards and investigating the prison guards,” Kull said. “Anthony Martin is exemplary of the inaction entirely.”