NYC NOW - November 2, 2023 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee, New Jersey has filed a federal lawsuit in an attempt to stop the MTA’s congestion pricing program. Plus, WNYC’s Janae Pierre talked with reporters Jessy Edwards and Jared Marcelle about the Adult Survivors Act which lifted the statute of limitations for people claiming sexual abuse in civil lawsuits. They’ll take a look at some of the cases.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. We begin in New Jersey, where Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich is trying to stop the MTA's congestion pricing program with a federal lawsuit. He says the tolls would cause more drivers to cross the GW bridge in Fort Lee to enter Manhattan north of 60th Street and avoid the new tolls. Our cup is completely full. Not another drip of traffic could we possibly absorb. We can't handle an additional 1%. And, you know, as it is, our emergency first responders are jogging to calls during traffic gridlock.

Sokolich says the increased traffic will create more air pollution, leading to more cases of asthma in his community. An MTA spokesperson says the program will create cleaner air because it'll lead to less traffic. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy filed a separate lawsuit to try to stop congestion pricing back in July. Now to New York, where an important window will close in a few weeks for some survivors of sexual assault in the state. For nearly a year, a law called the Adult Survivors Act has lifted the statute of limitations for people claiming sexual abuse in civil lawsuits. The deadline in the file is November 23rd. To date, a significant number of claims have been filed by people who say they were abused while they were incarcerated by corrections officers.

I talked with WNYC reporters Jesse Edwards and Jared Marcell, who have been filed. been looking into some of those cases. That conversation after the break. Before we get started, I want to warn listeners that we'll be discussing a detailed account of sexual assault. Jared, what is the Adult Survivors Act? The Adult Survivors Act is legislation that allows adult survivors of sexual assault, a one-year window to sue their alleged abusers, regardless of how long ago that abuse occurred. Ultimately, the purpose of the Adult Survivors Act is to help victims get around existing statute of limitation laws. With those limitations now removed, anyone who has been abused at any point in the past

can file a claim until November 23rd. There were a number of key advocates behind the Adult Survivors Act, like Drew Dixon, the former music executive, who accused Russell Simmons of sexual assault over 20 years ago. Evelyn Yang, wife of former New York City mayoral candidate, Andrew Yang, who was abused by Columbia. University, OBGYN and Robert Haddon, and Donna Hilton, a formerly incarcerated woman, now author, who says she was sexually abused in prison.

These are just a few of the women who've helped get this bill passed. And now we're seeing states like California and Maryland enact similar legislation. And Jesse, do we know how many cases have been filed so far? As of last week, more than 2,000 lawsuits had been filed under the Adult Survivors Act. And some of those are class actions, so representing multiple. plaintiffs. And as the deadline fast approaches, State Senator Brad Hoyleman Siegel told us they're expecting a last-minute rush. What's really interesting about this, Jeney, something that surprised legislators and attorneys alike, is the huge impact this has had for formerly incarcerated people. One lawyer who we've been speaking with told us she has 500 individual lawsuits to file on behalf of formerly incarcerated people.

and another firm told us they have 1,100 cases, and that's just two law firms. Oh my. So, Jessie, tell us what you heard from this lawyer who says that she's filing about 500 cases. Anna Kull is a partner at the New York office of the firm Levy Connicksburg. Her firm is largely handling cases of people who say they were victims of sexual assault at the hands of correction staff. She said she's much more focused on the institutions employing these people. instead of the correction staff themselves. You know, they employed the individual who committed the assault. They're the ones who fail to implement certain policies and procedures to prevent the assault.

And in many times, they may have been complicit in covering it up. When you're having women coming forward by the thousands at this point with similar stories, the only thing that really ties them together is the fact that they were incarcerated in the state of New York at some point. point. I know you too spoke with a couple of women who say they faced abuse. What can you tell us about their experiences? As you just heard, a lot of the plaintiffs have similar stories. Anna Kull says many of her clients are women of color. Many are people who face sexual abuse before they were incarcerated. And she speaks about many of her clients reporting abuse behind bars and either being ignored or facing retaliation. So when you're

One of her clients is Vanessa. She spent 17 and a half years incarcerated at Bedford Hills Women's Prison in upstate New York. We're only using her first name because she's on parole and she still fears retaliation. She can describe still in painstaking detail every corner of Bedford Hills where there are no cameras and where abuse frequently took place. So if you listen to her now, she's talking about one of those instances of sexual assault and her attempts to report it. I went up to the bubble and I asked them to open up someone's door and he put his hands over the counter grazes like he rubs against my breasts and I froze. I was so mad. afterwards that I froze, I could have screamed.

So like three different incidents in my life where I tried to report something was shut down and I just gave up. Jared, I want to talk a bit about Anna Cole a little bit more. What did the lawyers say about the challenge of proving these cases so many years later? What's that process like? She says it's really their word versus yours kind of thing. And here she lays out the steps. The primary evidence really is the account by the sex assault survivor. And in many times, the survivor is the exclusive source of that proof, that experience, the memories.

I'm then going to need to prove that these things happened and that the state's legally responsible for them happening. And when the theory is that Department of Corrections as an institution failed, the question then really is how many incidents have there been? And what's the common denominator? What is it about all these cases? And what I'm seeing is the pattern of abuse either by one perpetrator or several under the same authority. And on top of that, she says it's very difficult to obtain records from now-closed facilities that help corroborate these claims. Okay, so I want to talk a bit about the Department of Corrections. Jesse, how is the DOC responding to all of this? Both the state and city departments of corrections say they have zero tolerance for a sexual assault in their facilities. They both told us that they investigate all allegations and that they support criminal charges where warranted.

The New York City Department of Correction, which oversees Rikers Island, it says it's possible it has already investigated some of the claims that are being brought under the Adult Survivors Act, some of them go back decades. The State Department of Correction, it wouldn't comment on the ongoing litigation, but it told us that it implemented new policies against sexual victimization in 2022, and that it recently invested millions of dollars on new cameras in its facilities, including body-worn cameras for guards. So, Jared, you mentioned that the deadline is November 23rd, less than a month away.

If people miss that deadline, what happens? Is there no other recourse? Well, it appears that there's no other recourse, but with one caveat for cases in the five boroughs, New York City recently passed a two-year window earlier this year for victims of gender-motivated violence, And that closes on March 1st, 2025. But it's also unclear just how many cases from the Adult Survivor's Act may even fit into that.

So we'll be monitoring how that plays out. But for those who do want to file a civil suit, you have to act right now and contact the lawyer immediately. That's NYC Now reporter, producer Jared Marcell, and WNYC's public safety reporter, Jesse Edwards. Thank you too so much. Thank you, for listening to NYC now from WMYC, now. from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Junae Pierre.

We'll be back tomorrow.