City Blamed For 'Systemic' Rape At Rikers Jail In Lawsuit

NEW YORK — A woman who says she was sexually assaulted by two correction officers on Rikers Island has accused New York City of fostering a "culture of systemic rape" at the infamous complex's women's jail.

The woman, identified in court papers only as Jane Doe, filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Manhattan federal court against the city and two correction officers who allegedly raped her — one of whom still works for the city.

The 31-page complaint details the woman's brutal November 2015 rape at the Rose M. Singer Center at the hands of Jose Cosme, who pleaded guilty to a felony sex crime last year. She also had several sexual encounters with another officer, Leonard McNeil, which cannot be consensual according to New York State law, the suit says.

To add insult to injury, the suit alleges, other Department of Correction staff retaliated against the woman by firing her from work assignments, refusing to take her to church services and denying her basic necessities such as soap.

The case is just one of many that shows how widespread sexual abuses are at Rikers despite the city's insistence otherwise, said Marlen Bodden, one of the woman's Legal Aid Society lawyers.

"She actually would like to have some justice done and she would like for things to change," Bodden said of her client, who she said is currently serving time in an upstate prison.

The Department of Correction's press secretary said the agency takes claims of abuse, sexual or otherwise, "with the utmost seriousness."

Cosme had resigned from the DOC as of June 7, 2017 — the day before his guilty plea was announced, the department said. McNeil still works for the department but has been barred from contact with inmates since August 2016, according to the DOC.

"The vast majority of our officers carry out their duties with care and integrity, and we are taking many steps to ensure that all staff adhere to the highest professionalism," the press secretary, Jason Kersten, said in a statement. "If these claims are proven to be true, the defendant will face the consequences."

According to her complaint, Jane Doe was jailed at the Rose M. Singer Center while awaiting trial from July 2015 to February 2016. She began working for McNeil, who "targeted" her so he could rape, abuse and harass her, the suit says.

McNeil allegedly touched the woman sexually and had sex with her on several occasions. Cosme learned of what he was doing by November 2015 and threatened to report him in a note to Jane Doe, the suit says.

McNeil then left Jane Doe alone in a hallway on Nov. 30, 2015 so Cosme could lure her into his office, where he proceeded to savagely rape her, the complaint alleges. She didn't fight back out of fear Cosme would accuse her of assaulting an officer and put her in solitary confinement, the suit says.

When Jane Doe told McNeil about the rape soon afterward, he allegedly told her not to report it until he went on vacation two weeks later. The doctor who examined her after she reported it did not perform a rape kit because it had been too long since the attack, the suit says.

But the woman had mailed pieces of a T-shirt with Cosme's semen on it to people outside the jail, evidence which was turned over to the Bronx District Attorney's Office, the suit says. Cosme's guilty plea last year to a criminal sex act came with a sentence of 10 years probation and forced him to register as a sex offender.

Correction officers berated and mistreated Jane Doe after she reported the rape, the suit says, calling her names and refusing to escort her. The harassment continued after she was transferred to the Bedford Hills state prison in Westchester County, where one officer called her a "white b----," according to the complaint.

"The retaliation is really fierce," Bodden said. "Once somebody complains about one (correction officer) it’s like the blue wall of silence."

The suit accuses the city of "deliberate indifference" to the safety of women in its custody despite revelations of cases like Jane Doe's. Male correction officers, for instance, are often assigned to monitor incarcerated women alone and given "complete discretion and control" over them, the suit says.

"The City’s system for the reporting and investigation of rape, sexual abuse, and sexual harassment is grossly inadequate, and the City fails to take appropriate action to protect those who do manage to come forward or to punish their abusers," the complaint says.

The city has embarked on a 10-year plan to close Rikers, which is notorious for violence and inhumane conditions.

The Department of Correction pointed to its efforts to address sexual violence under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA. The department said it plans to increase its number of PREA investigators to 30 from 19 by January 2019, and its Investigations Division created a new division to respond to sexual allegations.

The department said it has several confidential ways for detainees to report assault. It offers a confidential 24-hour crisis counseling hotline through a partnership with the nonprofit group Safe Horizon, the DOC said.

(Lead image: A man enters the road to Rikers Island in March 2017. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)