9 extra former detainees are accusing an ex-staffer at a Bronx juvenile detention heart of sexually abusing them as kids, in line with an avalanche of lawsuits that metropolis legal professionals are attempting to close down by drawing parallels to Sean “Diddy” Combs.
“What we know about sexual abuse in an institutional setting is that often perpetrators sexually abuse multiple victims,” stated Jerome Block of Levy Konigsberg LLP, an lawyer for the plaintiffs. “This is something that’s been seen in the Catholic church cases … and that is something we’re seeing in these cases.”
The most recent filings are a part of a blockbuster authorized declare in search of to carry the town chargeable for the abuse the now-young adults say they skilled as minors within the custody of Horizon and three different websites: Crossroads Juvenile Heart, Rikers Island, and the previous Spofford Juvenile Detention Heart.
As of this week, plaintiffs have introduced 540 instances of sexual violence because the spring. That features upward of 100 new instances that will probably be introduced at a press convention Tuesday in downtown Brooklyn.
Nearly all of the allegations date again to the early 2000s, in line with information from Levy Konigsberg. About 42% of the instances had been alleged to have taken place at Spofford, now the positioning of a 5-acre redevelopment undertaking within the Hunts Level neighborhood of the Bronx.
The Adams administration is making an attempt to dismiss the claims. A spokesman for the town’s Legislation Division didn’t return a request for remark Monday afternoon.
In courtroom paperwork, metropolis attorneys argued an area regulation that survivors are counting on to deliver their claims years, even many years, later doesn’t apply to a majority of these instances.
Their argument depends closely on a latest federal courtroom determination that blocked one in every of Combs’ accusers from suing two company entities below the identical gender-motivated violence regulation for allegedly enabling a decades-old sexual assault.
The Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Safety Legislation — first handed by the Metropolis Council in 2000 — was amended in 2022 to permit plaintiffs to sue over older allegations for a few years and maintain establishments accountable for enabling violence. Legal professionals for the town consider the latter can’t be utilized retroactively, pointing to the Combs case.
Block disagrees and says the Council rightfully acknowledged that it takes time for victims to come back ahead: “The city went so far as to claim its somehow immune from these lawsuits alleging institutionalized sexual abuse, and that really shows the city’s refusal to accept responsibility and their view they’re above the law.”
A rep for the Administration for Youngsters’s Companies, which acquired the juvenile detention facilities after a lot of the allegations, stated it can evaluate the brand new instances when served. Baby welfare employees can face self-discipline as much as and together with firing for sexual abuse.
ACS additionally not too long ago up to date its insurance policies to align with federal steerage on stopping sexual misconduct in correctional services — together with the hiring of on-site compliance managers, unannounced inspections, and trainings.
“Sexual abuse and harassment is abhorrent and unacceptable,” spokeswoman Stephanie Gendell stated in a press release, “and although many of these incidents predate this administration or ACS’ involvement with juvenile justice, we take these allegations very seriously.”
