Several jail guards currently employed at Rikers Island have been accused of raping and sexually assaulting detainees, and city officials do not appear to be investigating the claims – a violation of federal guidelines and the city’s own rules for handling sexual misconduct allegations against correction officers.
A new Gothamist investigation shows that at least five guards currently employed by the Department of Correction are among those named in more than 700 lawsuits filed against the city by people who say they were raped and sexually abused while jailed at Rikers.
Although jail officials will not say whether they plan to investigate the claims, none of the five guards have faced discipline for sexual misconduct, according to correction department and personnel records. Three of the current guards said they only learned about the allegations after being called by a Gothamist reporter.
For the last several months, Gothamist has pored over the details in the hundreds of lawsuits filed under the Adult Survivors Act, a state law that for one year extended the statute of limitations for filing civil claims over sexual assaults. Of more than 1,200 cases filed in the city’s state supreme courts, nearly 60% of them focus on alleged assaults at Rikers. Taken together, the lawsuits describe a pattern of institutionalized abuse akin to the assault scandals at Columbia University and USA Gymnastics.
City officials’ apparent lack of interest in investigating the overwhelming number of allegations against current and former guards potentially runs afoul of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, though there may be few consequences for the city without action from state lawmakers, legal experts said. It is also an indication of failed promises by Mayor Eric Adams and other city leaders to actively investigate the claims, which have been pending for at least a year.
Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie has not made a public statement on the flood of lawsuits filed against her agency, and her team has ignored four interview requests. A department spokesperson, Latima Johnson, refused to answer detailed questions about the employment history of the accused officers currently on the agency’s payroll, whether the department has investigated the allegations against them, or whether measures have been taken to ensure detainees’ safety, given that many of the officers are still working inside the women’s jail. Correction officials also heavily redacted personnel records obtained through public record laws – a decision that Gothamist is challenging. The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for more information about the officers and any measures taken at the city’s jails.
In response to allegations of widespread sexual assault at Rikers, Mayor Adams has stressed that many of the accusations are decades old. But Gothamist has identified accused offers who are still on the city’s payroll.
Adam Gray
After a recent Gothamist story that uncovered the identity of one former guard accused of assaulting and raping 24 women, Adams said he wanted city residents to know that most of the 719 lawsuits described assaults happened decades ago.
However, Gothamist has found that some of the alleged assaults by the current guards occurred during Adams’ administration, and city officials have apparently done nothing to identify guards who pose an ongoing threat to detainees and others.
The mayor, despite earlier promises to “thoroughly investigate” the claims, has said that the city’s Law Department will look into the allegations. Yet that is the agency charged with defending the city against the detainees’ lawsuits, which ask for a total of $14.7 billion.
Rikers detainees may not be the only ones at risk if potentially dangerous guards are not investigated. There are indications that some of those same guards may have attacked women who were not in custody.
One current correction officer, Anthony Martin Jr., was arraigned Aug. 26 on charges he raped a woman at his Queens home in April – months after two former detainees filed lawsuits accusing him of assault. Martin Jr., who has said he is innocent of all wrongdoing, is still employed by Rikers but has been suspended without pay since his arrest.
Three of the other accused guards denied the allegations against them, either in interviews with Gothamist or through the union that represents department captains. The correction officers’ union, which represents most of the city’s jail guards, did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Of the five current guards newly identified by Gothamist, three of them – Terrell Armstead, Anthony Rizzo and Valery Attimy – continue to work in the Rose M. Singer Center, the women’s jail on Rikers Island better known as “Rosie’s.” Edwich Jasmin, who works as a transportation captain, also still works at Rikers.
Gothamist was able to identify the guards through the use of public records, interviews and the lawsuits. However, many of the detainees who sued the city don’t know their attackers’ full names or only know them by surnames that were too common for Gothamist to confirm if the guards were still employed by the city.
As a result, only government investigators with full access to jail records can determine how many current guards may be behind the alleged attacks detailed in the lawsuits.
Capt. Edwich Jasmin
In July 2018, Rosie Cristo, then 34, was due for a regular court appearance in Queens. While waiting for transportation, she sat inside a Rikers holding cell, handcuffed to another woman.
She remembered standing up with the other woman and walking toward the door after hearing her name called for the bus. She said a captain in a white shirt approached her, grabbed her uncuffed hand, and forced her to rub his penis over his uniform pants. His name plate, she said, read “Jasmin.”
Edwich Jasmin is a captain in the correction department’s transportation unit, and he was the only captain named Jasmin at the time of the allegations, according to city payroll records. The correction department veteran has worked for the agency since 1989, records show, and he still worked at Rikers as of 2023. He could not be reached for comment despite numerous attempts to contact him by phone.
Patrick Ferraiuolo, president of the Correction Captains Association, confirmed that Jasmin still works for the Department of Correction and said he was confident any investigation would clear his name.
“I not only represent Capt. Jasmin, I personally know his integrity and he’s an excellent supervisor,” Ferraiuolo said in an email.
Rikers Island is home to the Rose M. Singer Center, the city’s women’s jail that’s better known as Rosie’s. Hundreds of women claim they were sexually assaulted there by jail staff, some as recently as the last several years.
Andrew Lichtenstein
Yet Cristo’s lawsuit isn’t the only complaint against Jasmin. In 2017, the year before Cristo says she was assaulted, one of Jasmin’s fellow guards accused him of sexual assault.
Joanne Vega sued the correction department, Jasmin and union representatives in Brooklyn federal court, alleging assault, discrimination and retaliation. In her lawsuit, Vega said Jasmin ordered her into a men’s locker room, “shoved his tongue in her mouth while grabbing and squeezing her breasts,” and continued to sexually harass her in the months that followed.
According to her lawsuit, Vega tried to report the alleged assault to the correction officers’ union but was turned away by union Vice President Karen Tyson, who allegedly told her: “Capt. Jasmin is a close friend of mine.”
Vega is no longer a Rikers guard and could not be reached for comment. She settled with the city in 2020 for an undisclosed amount. Jasmin kept his job.
Cristo said she was unaware of Vega’s claims against Jasmin when she filed her lawsuit against the city last year.
“He shouldn’t be there. He should be suspended without pay right now,” Cristo said. “But he’s probably going to continue doing it to other women. They’re careless.”
Officer Terrell Armstead
Two women who served time at Rikers more than four years apart say they were sexually assaulted by Officer Terrell Armstead.
Ann is one of those women. She asked to only be identified by her middle name for this article because she does not want her family members to know about the alleged abuse.
Ann said Armstead approached her in the jail twice in 2022 as she awaited trial on weapons charges. Each time, she said, he would lead her away from the other women in her 48-bed dormitory and pull her into a closet where mop buckets were filled. Inside, he groped her breasts, she said, adding that there was no camera in the confined space. Some areas of Rikers remain outside the view of cameras despite a 2015 federal court order that greatly expanded the use of video surveillance at the jails.
“He was so big, and I was scared,” Ann said.
Her allegations are similar to those from another woman, who claims in a lawsuit that Armstead fondled her breasts and buttocks while she was en route to a recreation area at the women’s jail in September 2018. Gothamist was unable to reach her for comment.
Armstead is the only correction officer with that last name who worked at Rikers Island during the time of the alleged attacks, according to payroll records. When reached by phone, he confirmed he worked at Rosie’s in 2018 and 2022 and is still working there. He denied the allegations, said he had no knowledge of them until Gothamist contacted him, and said he is not aware of any internal investigation into his conduct.
Ann said she was “disgusted” that Armstead and other officers identified in the lawsuits still work at the women’s jail.
“It bothers me to think that other women are probably going through the same, if not worse,” she said.
Officer Anthony Martin Jr.
Martin Jr. was arrested in April on charges that he raped a woman at his home in Springfield Gardens, Queens. Prosecutors said he lured her there by posing as a TV producer casting a new show.
But months before Martin Jr.’s arrest, Karina Collado and another woman identified him in separate lawsuits, in which they claimed he sexually assaulted them while they were detained at Rosie’s. Collado also reported the alleged assault in 2021. Now, she wonders whether the rape at Martin Jr.’s home could have been prevented if city officials had properly investigated her claims.
Correction Officer Anthony Martin Jr., pictured in a department personnel file, was arrested in April and charged with raping a woman at his home in Queens.
DOC personnel photo
Collado was detained at Rikers in 2020 on drug and assault charges. She told Gothamist that Martin Jr. selected her for a work assignment in the women’s jail that involved cleaning and organizing a storage room filled with cardboard boxes. Martin Jr. snuck up behind her, she said, grabbed her violently, forced his fingers into her vagina and then began performing oral sex on her. Collado claims he threatened to retaliate if she reported the alleged attack.
The other woman who identified Martin Jr. as the guard who allegedly assaulted her in 2019 told a similar story. Her lawsuit states she was attacked in a storage room with boxes and that Martin Jr. forcibly penetrated her vagina with his fingers. Although the woman initially agreed to an interview, neither Gothamist nor her attorneys could reach her.
Martin Jr. denied their accusations and said he was unaware of them until Gothamist contacted him.
He is the only guard with the “Martin Jr.” surname who worked at Rosie’s during the years when both women said they were assaulted. Yet three additional detainees have filed lawsuits accusing a guard whom they identified only by the last name “Martin.” Those allegations are from 2016, 2018 and 2021 — all years when Martin Jr. worked at Rikers — but the correction department has refused to say whether Martin Jr. was the only officer at Rosie’s with the last name “Martin” at that time.
Collado reported the alleged assault after she was transferred to a prison in Westchester, according to documents viewed by Gothamist. New York prison officials provided the date and the exact time that they forwarded Collado’s complaint to a warden at Rikers, as is required under the same federal guidelines that oblige city officials to investigate the claims. However, the Department of Correction said it had no record of Collado’s report.
Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie would not agree to an interview on the hundreds of lawsuits filed against the city claiming sexual assault at Rikers.
DOC Instagram page
The Queens district attorney’s office said the woman Martin Jr. allegedly raped at his home had arrived there under the impression that she would be meeting with television producers and prospective cast members.
But prosecutors said Martin Jr. was alone, and their account of what happened next is similar to other accounts in the lawsuits. Martin Jr. pushed the woman onto a bed, held her down and then forced his fingers into her vagina before vaginally raping her, according to the criminal complaint against him.
Martin Jr., who is currently out on bail as he awaits trial, could face as much as 25 years in prison if convicted.
Officer Anthony Rizzo
Rizzo is accused of raping one woman twice in areas of the jail that are not monitored by camera surveillance.
Gothamist could not reach the woman for comment. In her lawsuit, however, she said that she was raped once in the jail showers and later raped by the same officer in a cell. A federal court has required “complete camera coverage” at Rikers, but showers, cells and toilets are exempt from that order.
“Plaintiff was highly afraid and terrified of [Correction Officer] Rizzo and feared for her life before, during and after the sexual abuse,” the woman’s lawsuit states. It says he threatened her against speaking out and alleges that he was sexually abusing other female detainees as well.
Rizzo could not be reached for comment.
“I’m concerned that women who go into custody are not safe.”
Rizzo, who is still employed at Rosie’s, began working there in May 2016, according to the Department of Correction and a staff ledger that Gothamist obtained via a records request. He is the only officer with the last name Rizzo who has been working for the agency since 2016, according to payroll records. The Department of Correction said he has never faced discipline for sexual misconduct.
Officer Valery Attimy
Attimy is accused of groping a woman in her cell and then threatening to press charges against her when she tried to stop him.
The former detainee could not be reached for an interview, but her lawsuit details assaults in 2022 and 2023.
On one occasion, the lawsuit claims, she was undressing in her cell when Attimy walked inside. She was naked as he groped her vagina, telling her, “Come on, you know we’re cool. You know we’re friends, I like you,” according to the lawsuit.
The woman claims that when she tried to push Attimy out of her cell, he raised his arm as if to hit her and then threatened to press charges against her. At other times, he groped her breasts and buttocks under her clothing, her complaint says, adding that he assaulted her more than 10 times.
Attimy is the only male officer with that last name at the correction department. He has worked at Rosie’s since December 2022, according to the department’s staff ledger. Correction officials confirmed he still works at the women’s jail.
When reached by phone, Attimy denied the sexual assault allegations and declined to comment further without a lawyer. The Department of Correction said he has never faced discipline for sexual misconduct.
Law and accountability
In 2003, Congress unanimously passed the bipartisan Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA. The federal guidelines formed under the act require correction officials to immediately investigate allegations against current guards.
Betsy Ginsberg, a professor at Cardozo Law School who specializes in prisoner rights, said the city’s apparent disinterest in actively investigating Rikers Island’s guards is concerning and almost certainly illegal. It’s not only a violation of those federal guidelines but also of constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment while a person is incarcerated, she said.
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark’s office said in July that it will review the lawsuits alleging sexual assault at Rikers, but it did not say what that review will ential.
Pacific Press
It’s not enough that the city’s law department investigate the claims as part of its duty to evaluate lawsuits against the city, Ginsberg said. The lawsuits should have triggered the correction department’s investigative process, a practice the Federal Bureau of Prisons follows when allegations are made in litigation, she said.
“PREA doesn’t say a report must come to you on a pink piece of paper, or by telephone, or by email,” Ginsberg said. “This is an allegation, and they’re obligated to investigate it.”
But she said there may be few repercussions for not complying with federal law.
“We have a mayor who has not seemed particularly interested in cleaning up the jails,” Ginsberg said. “Unless the state Legislature decides they want to put some consequences of failure to comply with PREA, there isn’t really a consequence for local jails.”
Other officials could take action as well.
In 2016, when she was the city’s public advocate, Letitia James petitioned the city to start following federal standards to prevent sexual assault at Rikers. But as attorney general, her office said it could only intervene if called upon by Gov. Kathy Hochul or Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, who has jurisdiction over Rikers.
Clark’s office said in July that it would begin examining the lawsuits to determine whether criminal charges are warranted in any of the allegations. But legal experts say that prosecuting years-old rape cases without physical evidence can be difficult in the best circumstances.
Legal Aid Society attorney Barbara Hamilton, who brought a civil lawsuit against the city in 2015 on behalf of other women who alleged they were sexually assaulted at Rikers, said the scale of alleged sexual abuse at Rikers reflects a wider failure to protect detainees.
“I’m concerned that women who go into custody are not safe,” Hamilton said. “They’re sent to an institution where this is commonplace, where it’s expected that they may have to endure sex abuse, rape, dehumanization, degradation, just to survive a stint in city detention.”