By Noah Powelson<\/p>\n
A Queens couple is suing a child care center for allowing the abuse of their son to go on for years. <\/p>\n
Queens residents Anil Babbar and Shalini Babbar filed a federal civil lawsuit on Wednesday against Anderson Center for Autism, a residential home for special needs individuals in Dutchess County. Attorneys for the Babbars accused the residential home of doing nothing to stop the reported abuse their son faced while living in the center, despite receiving multiple reports from staff and witnesses.<\/p>\n
The Babbars\u2019 son, a 21-year-old who is identified as A.B. in court documents, has limited speech abilities and requires assistance with bathing, dressing and eating. A.B. first moved to the Anderson Center for Autism operated Chestnut House in May of 2021, and attorneys say he was regularly starved and sexually assaulted by staff during his time there. <\/p>\n
The new 25-page complaint claims that not only was A.B. abused by his caretakers, but supervisors at Chestnut House had been notified of the abuse multiple times and did nothing about it. Additionally, the lawsuit claims that A.B. and other residents had been assaulted by staff at the residential center multiple times, but supervisors covered up these incidents and discouraged employees from reporting them. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re filing this lawsuit to seek accountability,\u201d Sara Estala, an attorney representing the Babbars, told the Eagle during a phone interview. \u201cAnderson has been on notice that residents in their care have been abused, and they’ve played a role in covering it up.”<\/p>\n
According to the lawsuit, A.B.\u2019s parents were informed of the abuse their son was going through by a whistleblower who worked at the Chestnut House.<\/p>\n
The person sent the Babbars a video of an incident that took place on June 5, 2025. The video showed A.B. repeatedly screaming \u201cno\u201d as an Anderson staff member orderedhim to go to his room. The staff member, later identified as Garnet Collins, then grabbed A.B. by his genitals and forcefully moved A.B. down the hall into another room. <\/p>\n
The 28-second video was released to reporters and eventually made public.<\/p>\n
The Hyde Park Police Department investigated the incident and eventually charged Collins with endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person, and a misdemeanor of forcible touching of the sexual\/intimate parts of another person. <\/p>\n
Collins pleaded guilty to the charges in May 2025, and was sentenced to one to three years in prison. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur son went to Anderson Center for Autism because we believed it was a place of safety, expertise, and care. Instead, we learned through a whistleblower\u2019s video that he was subjected to sustained physical and sexual abuse in the very home that was supposed to protect him,\u201d Anil Babbar said. \u201cHis dignity was taken from him, his trust in caregivers shattered, and our family\u2019s life was divided into \u2018before the video\u2019 and \u2018after the video.\u2019 We must hold abusers like Anderson and other institutions responsible for their participation in the criminal ecosystem servicing the special needs community.\u201d <\/p>\n
But A.B.\u2019s parents say the fault doesn\u2019t lie just with Collins, but with Anderson Center for Autism for refusing to notify or act on information of the abuse. The lawsuit names a resident manager at Anderson Center for Autism, Nadine Thompson, as responsible for maintaining a \u201cculture of silence.”<\/p>\n
According to the lawsuit, the incident on June 5 was not the only time A.B. was abused by staff. <\/p>\n
Attorneys say the whistleblower observed Collins hitting other residents and forcing them to take cold showers. Attorneys also said the whistleblower filmed another video of Collins striking another Chestnut House resident on the head with an iPad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Noah Powelson A Queens couple is suing a child care center for allowing the abuse of their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-113129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-queens","12":"tag-queens-headlines","13":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}