{"id":52509,"date":"2025-11-26T03:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T03:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/52509\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T03:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T03:37:07","slug":"nyc-council-changes-law-to-allow-juvenile-detention-sex-abuse-cases-to-proceed-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/52509\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Council changes law to allow juvenile detention sex-abuse cases to proceed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of child sex-abuse claims against New York City\u2019s juvenile detention facilities<\/a> were set to be revived after the City Council tweaked a law Tuesday that allows survivors to pursue damages.<\/p>\n

Roughly 450 former detainees had filed the cases under the city\u2019s gender-based violence law<\/a>, which in 2022 created a window for litigants to bring civil suits against individuals or institutions that may have facilitated the abuse, even if the allegations are from years or even decades ago.<\/p>\n

But a court last summer found the law as it was written did not clearly cover such claims and started tossing their cases<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s legislation<\/a> effectively overturned the court\u2019s decision to hold city agencies accountable for enabling gender-based violence beyond the statute of limitations. Any person who brought a claim during the original window \u2014 but meets the new requirements \u2014 is explicitly permitted to amend or refile their case under the revised law.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday is a victory for survivors,\u201d said Jerome Block, a partner at the law firm Levy Konigsberg and the lead attorney for the former detainees. \u201cWe applaud the City Council for passing Intro. 1297 to provide survivors a fair pathway to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legislation had widespread support in the Council, including 41 members who signed onto the bill as sponsors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill reopens and clarifies the Gender-Motivated Violence Act,\u201d Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers, the bill\u2019s lead sponsor, said at a press conference before the formal vote, \u201cso that survivors, many of whom were abused in city-run facilities \u2026, do not lose their cases because of a court-created loophole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSurvivors deserve justice, not legal technicality. With hundreds of cases at risk, the urgency could not be clearer,\u201d Brooks-Powers added.<\/p>\n

The lawsuits, some going back as far as the 1960s, accuse New York City of not doing enough to protect young people in custody from gender-based violence.<\/p>\n

A Daily News investigation last year found that many of the former detainees say they endured sexual abuse by a repeat offender<\/a>. More than 20 people\u2019s claims involved Natalie Medford<\/a>, a former staff member at Horizon Juvenile Center in the Bronx, The News reported. Seven litigants filed lawsuits that named a male registered sex offender who served time for sexually assaulting young girls<\/a>, according to their lawyers.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Mayor Adams said his administration will review the legislation, which budget officials have warned has \u201csubstantial financial implications for the city.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand with survivors of gender-motivated violence in their quest for justice,\u201d said Daniel Marans, Adams\u2019 deputy press secretary.<\/p>\n

With Josephine Stratman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of child sex-abuse claims against New York City\u2019s juvenile detention facilities were set to be revived after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[97,301,9339,29079,29078,9,24,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-52509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-cases","tag-city-council","tag-detainees","tag-gender-based-violence","tag-juvenile-detention-facilities","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52509","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=52509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}