Rikers Island jail complex. Photo: Wikimedia

A lawsuit filed against New York City claiming it is liable for systemic problems at the women's facility in the Rikers Island jail will continue after U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan of the Southern District of New York denied significant portions of they city's summary judgment motion.

The Jane Doe plaintiff in the suit claims she was repeatedly and brutally sexually assaulted by male correction officers at the Rose M. Singer Center in 2013 and 2014. While the surviving claims are a clear win in the specific suit, the plaintiff's attorneys in The Law Offices of Alan Futerfas say their ability to defeat a Monell claim represents a significant win that could reverberate throughout the district and beyond.

“This is the first case in New York in which a court has ruled that a Monell claim relating to the city's lack of oversight of Rikers Island survives summary judgment,” said Ellen Resnick, attorney for the plaintiff. “The record we have presented to the court shows inadequate investigation and discipline of correction officers who are alleged to have committed sexual assault.”

The unnamed plaintiff sued the city in 2015, the Department of Correction and numerous correction officers on behalf of herself and other female inmates. She claimed that during her two separate stints at the island jail she was sexually assaulted by multiple COs, naming Cpt. Pablo Porter and CO Emma Williams as being directly involved in one or both instances.

As it pertains to Nathan's decision to let the case move forward, the plaintiff is seeking to hold the city responsible for the inadequate investigation and discipline of municipal employees. The claims come under the holding by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1978's Monell v. Department of Social Services.

Under the decision, municipalities can be held liable for the unconstitutional deprivation of rights. The Doe plaintiff claimed the city was deliberately indifferent in the investigation and discipline of DOC staff with respect to sexual assault of female inmates.

In finding for the plaintiff, Nathan said enough evidence was introduced to make a deliberate indifference claim against the city viable. Deposition testimony backed up claims that, despite a policy against undue familiarity with female inmates, COs regularly fraternized with incarcerated women, including claims that inmates were providing sexual favors in exchange for cigarettes.

Perhaps most substantively, Nathan found a report by Timothy Ryan, an expert witness with an extensive background in the criminal justice field, to be credible. The report found that sexual assault is reported at a level double the national average, despite almost assuredly still being underreported. Methods for reporting sexual assault are rare, and those that are in place are inadequate, according to the report.

Ryan's report further found COs hold to a code of silence about their actions, leading to a belief they are unlikely to be held accountable, and that retaliation for reporting sexual assault is frequent. The city's internal investigation process showed deficiencies as well, as the vast majority of claims were deemed unsubstantiated or unfounded.

These findings appeared to support the plaintiff's own claims that she was told by her assailants that if she said anything about the assault “nobody will believe you,” and any claims heard by superiors would mean “things are going to get worse” for her.

Nathan dispatched with the city's arguments, including that the report didn't specifically allege how deficiencies it found in the city's practices caused the plaintiff's injuries.

“A reasonable juror could conclude that the failures to investigate and discipline officers accused of sexual assault that are described in the Ryan Report caused defendants Porter and Williams to determine that they would not be investigated or punished for participating in sexual assault of Doe,” the judge wrote.

In a statement, a spokesman for the city's Law Department said it takes allegations of sexual assault seriously, “but each case must be evaluated on its merits.”

“At this stage, the court has not determined the credibility of the plaintiff's claims, but has ruled that a jury must decide whether the allegations are true,” the spokesman said. “We will have no further comment while this litigation is pending.”

New York University School of Law professor Claudia Angelos said the “absolutely tragic” details in Doe's case were all too familiar to those legal advocates looking to address “the utter indifference of the entire system” toward sexual assault of inmates.

“Judge Nathan has sat up and done the right thing” by imposing on the city “an obligation to do more than shrug and say, 'let the justice system go were it does.'”

Beyond the temporal victory in Nathan allowing the claims to go forward, Doe's attorneys see the larger impact of having a district court order like the one drafted by Nathan.

“This decision has the potential to provide a wider group of inmates with a means to recover from the city for sexual abuse and harm suffered at Rikers Island,” attorney Alan Futerfas said. “It is our hope that this decision, and the new legal exposure that it represents, will induce the city to take aggressive, meaningful steps to remedy this situation and make Rikers safe for women.”

John Jay College of Criminal Justice law professor Gloria Browne-Marshall likewise saw the order as a key step in a larger push, likening it to the strategic legal wins against the city over its police department's unconstitutional practice of stop-and-frisk.

“This is going to actually invigorate groups across the country to fight harder for the protection of female inmates,” she said, tying the fight into the #MeToo social movement.

“These are people being held for trial, many of these people haven't been convicted for anything,” she said, adding that even if they had, “part of their sentence is not sexual assault.”

“You can have it at CBS, you can have it at Rikers Island. You can have it at any institution,” Browne-Marshall said.

Related:

The Daily Abuse of Women at Rikers

Opposition to New Jails Complicates Plan for Closing Rikers Island

Female Prisoners at Rikers Appeal Denial of Class Status