NEW YORK RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT CENTER SEXUAL ABUSE LAWSUITS

Fighting for Survivors Sexually Abused in NY Residential Treatment Centers

Residential treatment centers (RTCs) in New York are designed to provide a safe and therapeutic environment for patients dealing with mental health challenges, developmental disabilities, or other behavioral issues. These facilities are meant to offer long-term care, with services that include therapy, education, and rehabilitation. Unfortunately, many of these centers have become sites of widespread abuse, neglect, and misconduct.

In recent years, several New York RTCs have come under scrutiny for failing to protect vulnerable individuals, with instances of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse coming to light. Below, we explore these cases and the legal avenues available for victims to seek justice.

History of Abuse in New York Residential Treatment Centers

New York residential treatment centers have consistently faced allegations of abuse, spanning decades. These cases underscore the urgent need for reform and legal accountability to ensure the safety and well-being of all residents.

In June 2024, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee released a sweeping report detailing abuse at residential treatment facilities operated by major healthcare companies, including Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, which operates such facilities in New York. The report revealed systemic sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, unsafe conditions, inhumane confinement practices, and neglect throughout these facilities.

Examples of alleged abuse, and of conditions likely to lead to abuse, include the following:

Four Winds Hospital

• In February 2017, a woman filed court papers alleging that her then-13-year-old daughter had been repeatedly sexually assaulted at Four Winds Hospital in Katonah in 2015. 

• On February 7, 2017, Dominic R. Sbordone, a 31-year-old employee of the hospital, was arrested and charged with third-degree criminal sexual act, a felony, and second-degree sexual abuse, a misdemeanor, for allegedly engaging in sexual acts with a 19-year-old patient.

Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health

• In August 2024, an employee at the Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health facility in Red Hook was convicted of abusing a non-verbal 14-year-old resident with autism who had recently undergone brain surgery.

The incident occurred in April 2022, when Oscar Sosa Amaya allegedly placed a cup of coffee on the victim’s desk, which the victim knocked over. Amaya then instructed the victim to go into the bathroom, following him inside and closing the door. They remained in the bathroom for a brief period before Amaya took the victim to see the nurse.

 Amaya, was found guilty of second-degree endangerment of the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person.

• In July 2008, Mandi Weeks, a teacher employed by the Devereux Foundation, a residential school for children with special needs in New York, was charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse involving a vulnerable student with an IQ of 50. 

Weeks, 27, allegedly committed two counts of third-degree rape, three counts of third-degree criminal sexual act, and additional charges of endangering the welfare of a child. 

According to the charges, the defendant raped and sexually abused the 15-year-old boy on June 25, 2008, in his Queens home. She is also accused of sexually abusing him while sitting in a car in a Queens parking lot on July 6, 2008, and then raping and sexually abusing him later that day inside his home. 

Family Foundation School (aka Allynwood Academy)

• In 2018, the New York Times reported an alarming toll among alumni of the Family Foundation School, with over 100 former students dying before 40, primarily from suicide or drug overdose.

After the facility closed down in 2014, four alumni died within months in 2015. By 2016, this number rose by at least seven. In 2017 alone, 13 alumni passed away.

Some cases include:

• Jon Martin-Crawford, who testified before Congress in 2008 about the abuse he endured at the facility and later died by suicide in 2015.
• Charles Rogers, who left the school in 2014 and killed himself a year later while suffering from drug withdrawal.

• Survivors attributed this seemingly downward trajectory to the school’s inhumane “rehabilitation” methods.
• In 2022, a New York Times investigation detailed lawsuits filed under the Child Victims’ Act against staff members of the Family Foundation School.

Allegations include:

• Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; this included forced strip searches by classmates, a cook sexually assaulting a young girl, and another staff member sexually abusing multiple students in a barn
• Humiliation, where students were mocked or punished for having “impure thoughts”
• Partial social isolation or means absolute social isolation
• Being restrained in blankets secured with duct tape
• Being deprived of decent food

• In 2023, the New York Post highlighted survivor Elizabeth Ianelli’s memoir, in which described her experiences at the Family Foundation School.

Ianelli depicted the school as akin to a prison, detailing abuse that included stripping students of their identity and subjecting them to  mistreatment by both staff and peers. She alleged she was groped multiple times by a staff member and was reprimanded after trying to report to the school authorities. She recalled being subjected to degrading “therapy sessions,” coerced into making false confessions about addictions and crimes she never committed. She recounted the cycle of humiliation, starvation, forced labor, and violence under the guise of rehabilitation. 

• In April 2024, Paul Geer, a former teacher at the Family Foundation School, was indicted on six federal charges for allegedly coercing three students to cross state lines, consequently committing sexual abuse between 1994 and 2001.

Prosecutors detailed severe disciplinary measures “tantamount to torture,” such as forcing a student to eat food vomitted by another student, depriving students of food altogether, rolling them up in carpets, locking them in dark closets for hours or days at a time without access to any bathrooms, social isolation, and forced labor.

Another lawsuit also alleged Geer abused a student from 1997 to 1999, incidents which allegedly occurred at a school van nearby and at a barn.

Hawthorne Cedar Knolls

• In December 2018, 19 individuals were charged with sex trafficking of girls and women, primarily through the Hawthorne Cedar Knolls residential treatment center in Westchester County, according to federal authorities.  The defendants allegedly recruited girls from the child welfare system, including nine from Hawthorne Cedar Knolls, for prostitution.  

• Hawthorne Cedar Knolls has been criticized for years for its lax security and failure to control the environment in which vulnerable young people were placed.

• The facility closed in 2018, following years of controversy.

WellLife Network

• In February 2024, Hayden Daley, a former child support professional at WellLife Network in Dix Hills, was indicted for allegedly raping a 13-year-old female resident multiple times. 

Daley, 28, worked as a child support professional at WellLife Network in May 2023.

Officials alleged that Daley exposed the victim to “numerous acts of sexual abuse” both inside and outside the group home over several months. After learning he was under investigation, he resigned from WellLife Network but continued to meet the victim for further abuse.

Children’s Village

• In October 2024, former employee Rebecca Jean-Baptiste was convicted and sentenced for the rape of a 16-year-old resident of the Children’s Village in 2021.

• In February 2021, several ex-residents of Children’s Village in Dobbs Ferry filed lawsuits claiming they were subjected to rape and sexual abuse.  

One complaint details the experiences of a 12-year-old resident at Children’s Village from 1996 to 2001, who informed the facility’s doctor and several staff members about the abuse. The doctor dismissed it as a “verbal slip,” according to the complaint. 

Another lawsuit recounts how a 12-year-old resident, who lived at Children’s Village from 2002 to 2006, was sexually assaulted by older residents in his cottage, in the shower, and in a van where children were left unsupervised. This resident reported that some of the abuse occurred while watchmen were asleep on duty, and he was also victimized by two female staff members. Numerous complaints reveal similar accounts of sexual abuse.

• In November 2003, one incident involved a 14-year-old resident allegedly being sodomized with a broomstick by another resident while being restrained by a counselor. According to authorities, the victim, a resident of Wolfe Cottage, one of 22 residences on campus, was chased and cornered in a shower room by 16-year-old Elliot Perryman, who sodomized him with a broomstick while Jason Brown, 29, assistant cottage supervisor, held him down.

Liberty Resources

• In February 2017, Oneida authorities arrested 22-year-old Javaughn Hall, a former treatment counselor at Liberty Resources, for allegedly sexually abusing a patient at the residential facility. Authorities reported that Hall was involved in three separate incidents with the victim in December of the previous year.

St. Vincent’s Hospital Westchester

• In May 2004, police arrested a former patient on charges of sexually assaulting another patient at the hospital the previous year.

Police said that they had investigated 27 reports of sexual or physical abuse at St. Vincent’s Hospital between 1997 and 2004. Other allegations of patient abuse include the following:

A 15-year old boy claimed that another patient had sodomized him. 

Two teenage girls alleged that other female patients had sexually assaulted them.

Hillside Children’s Center

• In May 2018, Henry Taylor Jr., a former employee of the Hillside Children’s Center, was criminally charged for choking a teen with special needs who was in his care at the facility.

• In November 2019, a parent brought suit against Hillside Children’s Center alleging that her child was sexually assaulted at a Hillside facility in 2018 by Jeffrey Webster, an employee of the facility. 

JCCA – Westchester (Pleasantville Cottage School and Edenwald Center)

• In 2023, officials called for the close of the facility due to hundreds of police calls about dangerous conditions related to the facility.  It was reported that “Mount Pleasant police responded to 459 calls at the JCCA’s Westchester Campus in the first six months of” 2023 alone.  Officials also said that the facility was understaffed and unprepared to cope with the serious needs of its residents.

Villa of Hope

• Lawsuits have alleged “horrific” sexual abuse perpetrated against children at Villa of Hope dating back to the 70s when the facility was known as St. Joseph’s Villa.  Allegations of abuse that occurred at the facility include fondling, forced oral sex and numerous instances of sodomization perpetrated by the facility’s chaplain against a child when he was as young as 8 years old.

Graham Windham (or the Graham School)

• In 2017, a lawsuit was filed against Graham Windham by a grandmother alleging that her grandchildren were sexually abused in a foster home. The lawsuit alleged that Graham Windham had placed the children in an unsafe foster home and had failed to protect them from the dangers within.

• In 2015, a resident of the Graham School was arrested for attempting to rape a female in the Graham School’s health center.

Berkshire Farm Center and Youth Services (now known as Together for Youth)

• In July 2021, Michesha Cancer, an employee of Berkshire Farm Center & Youth Services (BFCYS), was arrested for allegedly raping a child at the Capital District Youth Center, a facility operated by BFCYS.

• In June 2019, Kelli Wagers, an employee of BFCYS was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing two minors at the facility.

• In April 2011, two staff members at the facility allegedly physically abused a youth by slamming his head into the ground.

August Aichorn Center

• In August 2007, three former employees, Milton Venable, Phree Noel, and Edward Tapia, were accused of allegedly sexually abusing at least four girls.

Rockland Psychiatric Center

• In May 2014, Troy Elting, a former health aide at Rockland Psychiatric Center, was arrested on charges he raped a patient in his care.

• In August 2013, Lincoln Wallace, a former mental health therapy aide at the Rockland Children’s Psychiatric Center, was charged with abusing a boy with special needs at the Rockland Children’s Psychiatric Center.  Wallace allegedly approached the child in his care in a threatening manner, placed the child in an inappropriate restraint, knocked the child onto a table repeatedly, and refused to let go of the child when hospital staff attempted to intervene.

Rising Ground

• In July 2023, Sandy Carazas-Pinez, a teacher at the Biondi School run by Rising Ground, was arrested and charged with sexually abusing a 16-year-old student and making child pornography with him.

MercyFirst

• In December 2019, a former resident of MercyFirst’s Syosset location filed suit alleging he was sexually abused at the facility in 2003 when he was 12 years old.  According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff was sexually abused by at least one MercyFirst employee as well as several other residents.  Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that MercyFirst knew or should have known about the abuse, and that rather than address it, those in power actively tried to discourage and prevent victims from disclosing allegations of abuse.

• In 2019, a former MercyFirst youth counselor, Miguel Cutignola, pled guilty to sexually abusing an undocumented 15-year-old that was in his care at MercyFirst in 2017.

• In February 2016, the mother of a 16-year-old girl filed suit alleging that her daughter was placed in MercyFirst’s care and custody and disappeared, and she had not seen her daughter since.

South Oaks Hospital

• In October 2024, Renee Hoberman, who provided youth counseling services to children at South Oaks Hospital in Amityville from 2016 to 2021, was arrested on child pornography charges.  According to law enforcement, Hoberman allegedly distributed heinous and disturbing child pornography, including videos showing infants being restrained and raped. Additionally, while posing as a man, Hoberman claimed to have produced child pornography and offered others the opportunity to sexually abuse children.

• In August 2023, a lawsuit was filed alleging that a staff member at South Oaks Hospital sexually assaulted a patient while the patient was sedated in June of 2022.

Investigating Sexual Abuse at New York Residential Treatment Centers

Levy Konigsberg is currently investigating reports from both current and former patients who experienced sexual abuse by staff at residential treatment centers throughout New York. This investigation includes facilities, whether still in operation or closed, that have a known history or allegations of sexual abuse and related complaints, including:

• Four Winds Hospital
• Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health
• Family Foundation School
• Allynwood Academy
• Hawthorne Cedar Knolls
• Children’s Village
• WellLife Network
• Liberty Resources
• St. Vincent’s Hospital Westchester
• Hillside Children’s Center
• JCCA – Westchester (Pleasantville Cottage School and Edenwald Center)
• Villa of Hope
• Graham Windham (or the Graham School)
• Berkshire Farm Center and Youth Services (now known as Together for Youth)
• August Aichorn Center
• Rockland Psychiatric Center
• Rising Ground
• MercyFirst
• South Oaks Hospital
• The Charlton School
• Henry Ittleson Center

As investigations continue, it is clear that many of these facilities have failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect their patients.

Do I Have a Case?

You may have grounds to file a civil legal action if:

• You were sexually abused by a guard, counselor, nurse, or other RTC staff member.
• The abuse occurred at any New York RTC.

Levy Konigsberg represents survivors in civil lawsuits that aim to hold residential treatment facilities,  juvenile detention centers, private healthcare companies, and other facility operators accountable for their failures to stop abusive staff members and protect residents.

As civil claims, these cases are separate from any criminal proceedings that may arise from abuse and focus instead on holding institutions liable for damages. This means you may still have a claim even if:

• Your abuser is no longer alive.
• Your abuser was never charged with or convicted of a crime.

Recoverable Damages in Sexual Abuse Claims

In addition to providing accountability and a sense of justice, civil sex abuse lawsuits allow survivors to recover financial compensation for their damages, which may include:

• Past medical and mental health expenses
• Future mental health expenses, including therapy, medications, etc.
• Pain and suffering
• Emotional anguish and psychological harm
• Lost income
• Other economic and non-economic damages

New York Residential Treatment Center Attorneys

A statute of limitations sets deadlines for victims to bring claims against their abuser or entities responsible for the abuse. New York has pioneered efforts to make it easier for sexual abuse survivors to seek justice and compensation.

In 2019, New York passed the Child Victims Act, expanding the statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Under current law: (1) survivors of childhood sexual abuse at privately operated residential treatment centers who were born after February 14, 1998, have until age 55 to file civil lawsuits; and (2) survivors of childhood sexual abuse at residential treatment centers operated by governmental entities, who were born after November 15, 1999, have until age 55 to file civil lawsuits.

We are committed to protecting the most vulnerable members of our society and seeking justice for survivors of sexual abuse in juvenile detention centers and youth residential treatment facilities. Our experienced team is dedicated to providing legal representation and support to survivors, and we are actively investigating allegations of abuse. We are working tirelessly to ensure that survivors have access to justice and that future generations of young people are safe from harm within these institutions.