NYC NOW - March 26, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

Nearly half of New York City's new migrants are from Africa, Asia, and other regions outside of Latin America -- up from roughly a quarter, two years ago. Plus, the city council is prioritizing education, housing and mental health as state leaders move to approve a new state budget. And finally, WNYC’s Sean Carlson talks with reporters Jessy Edwards and Samantha Max about a Gothamist analysis which finds that more than half of all lawsuits filed in New York City's state Supreme Courts under the Adult Survivors Act were brought by hundreds of women who say they were sexually abused by jail employees at Rikers Island.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source, the local news, in and around New York City, from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. The demographics of migrants arriving in New York City are changing. That's according to a WMYC analysis of immigration court data. Nearly half of the city's new migrants are from Africa, Asia, and other parts outside of Latin America, up from roughly a quarter two years ago. Muzafricisti is a senior fellow at the Migration.

Policy Institute. He says the increase in diversity in the city mirrors the growing diversity of migrants arriving at the southern border. This is the fundamental change in the profile of migrants arriving at the border. He says it's mostly because word is spreading that more asylum seekers are being granted entry at the border. You're just seeing the downstream manifestation of a phenomenon that has been unfolding at the border in the last two years. Some of the largest and fastest growing groups were from West Africa, China, India, and Uzbekistan. Housing, education, and mental health are among the New York City Council's priorities for the next state budget. Due next week, WMYC's Julia Hayward has more.

Governor Cathy Hokel and Albany lawmakers are in the midst of negotiating how to spend more than $230 billion in taxpayer money for the state's next fiscal year. That begins April 1st. City Council members are calling for more funding for a host of issues affecting the five boroughs. They include money to address housing affordability, early education, pandemic learning loss, and the migrant crisis. They're also asking for more local control over certain tax expenditures. A budget deal could come within the next week, but housing and other issues remain sticking points in the negotiations. At least 1,200 lawsuits have been filed under New York's Adult Survivors Act in New York City. and more than half of them involved women who say they were sexually abused by jail employees at Rikers Island.

After the break, we hear about a WMYC analysis of those 719 lawsuits and the issues of systemic sexual abuse that exist at Rikers. Stay with us. Nearly 60% of all lawsuits filed in New York City's state Supreme Courts under the Adult Survivors Act were brought by hundreds of women who, say they were sexually abused by jail employees at Rikers Island. Earlier on Tuesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams says those allegations must be addressed. His comments are in response to a WMYC analysis of hundreds of lawsuits. I believe that we need to have a complete investigation to determine the outcome of it. For more, WMIC's Sean Coulson spoke with reporters Samantha Max and Jesse Edwards.

And a warning. This conversation includes descriptions of sexual assault that may not be suitable for some listeners. Jesse, how did you go about reporting the story? And what's the scale of what you found here? Well, our investigation began in December last year when we obtained a list of every lawsuit filed in state Supreme Courts in New York City under the Adult Survivors Act. That was the law that opened up a window for sexual assault survivors to file claims. outside of the statute of limitations. So we've spent months analyzing these lawsuits,

and we identified 719 of these lawsuits that were filed by individuals who alleged sexual assault on Rikers Island. That made up almost 60% of the total Adult Survivors Act lawsuits filed in New York City. Now, the vast majority of the suits come from women who say they were sexually assaulted, groped, kissed, sometimes violently raped even by officers or medical professionals at the Rose M Singer Centre. That's the woman's jail on Rikers Island. It's commonly known as Rosie's.

So this is really a story about Rosie's. The allegations in the lawsuit span from 1976 right through to as recently as last year. This story, it can really been seen in the context of the media. movement. So the allegations, they place New York City's jail system in the company of other institutions that have been played by sexual abuse scandals like the Catholic Church, U.S. gymnastics, and Robert Haddon at Columbia University. Now, both of you have been speaking with some of the women who brought the lawsuits. Sam, what have you heard from them about what they say they experienced?

You know, I think what's important to note is that each of these women have their own very unique story in some ways, but there are also many patterns. that emerged over and over again as we were speaking with these individuals and as we were reading their lawsuits. So one woman named Jenny, who is in our story today, also I should note, we're not using her full name because she is afraid of retaliation from correction officers. She says that when she was on Rikers in 2015, that officers would come into the part of the jail where she and other women were sleeping and would call out a list of names and then walk these women. into another part of the jail in the pitch blackness and then force them to perform oral sex.

Other women that we've spoken to have described this pattern of grooming where officers would compliment them, tell them they were pretty, offered them gum and cigarettes in exchange for coercing them into sexual acts. And then we spoke with another woman named Alexandria Johnson, who about a year ago was at the Rose M Singer Center on a parole violation at the time she was addicted to heroin and just really in a weak and vulnerable state. And she says that one night shortly after she got there, multiple officers came into her cell and raped her. She could hear other women who knew what was going on banging on the walls and yelling. And yet she was completely helpless. And eventually she just had to succumb to what was happening.

I was mostly fighting to get them to start. By then, I was just so much. emotionally exhausted and I didn't even, I just laid there and just passed out after a while. And she says that that trauma has stayed with her. She still has nightmares years later. Yeah. Jesse, what does the potential cost to the city as a result of these lawsuits? Well, in total, the plaintiffs are seeking more than $14.7 billion. dollars. And for context, Sean, that's more than three times what the city says it's spent so far in the migrant crisis.

Potential payouts, if they come, will likely be significantly less than that $14.7 billion figure. But it could pose a significant financial burden to the city. That's what experts have told us. Sam, what more has the mayor said? And how are other lawmakers reacting to your reporting so far? Yeah, so at the mayor's weekly off-topic press conference today, he actually said that he read our report, but that it was the first time that he had heard of these allegations, which was kind of surprising because Jesse and I sent a detailed list of questions before we published this story, well before we published this story, and his office deferred comment to the Department of Correction. Meanwhile, state lawmakers have said that, you know, they're horrified by the reports assembly member Linda Rosenthal and Senator Brad Hoyleman Siegel, who both sponsored the Adult Survivors Act. They have been thinking about potentially reopening the window for the Adult Survivors Act. So after seeing this report, you know, they both told me that they're really hoping to push that forward. Council member Sandy Nurse, who is the chair of the Criminal Justice Committee in the City Council,

she wants to hold a hearing to be able to hold the officials at the Department of Corrections to account and get some answers about whether there really are systemic issues happening related to sexual abuse. We've also been hearing from public defender groups who are saying that this highlights patterns that they've been hearing from their clients for years and also advocates for sexual assault survivors, including the New York. City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, which says that these allegations show that there are more protections that need to be in place specifically to prevent sexual abuse against incarcerated people. That's reporters Samantha Max and Jesse Edwards, speaking with WMYC's Sean Coulson, about their investigation into allegations of sexual abuse at the Rikers Island Jail. To read their full story, go to our news website, Gothamist.

Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.