In the first story in an ongoing series by Hell Gate and New York Focus on the systemic sexual assault of incarcerated people by employees in New York prisons, Jessy Edwards reported on the case of Sierra Johnson, a Native American woman who filed a lawsuit claiming she was sexually assaulted by three corrections officers and a doctor in New York prisons. Edwards interviewed Johnson, who has been diagnosed with a terminal heart condition, from her hospital bed, where she spoke about the urgency of the state addressing the claims of hundreds of formerly incarcerated people who say they were sexually assaulted in New York’s prisons, in order to make the facilities safe for those held there now. With support from the Fund, Hell Gate and New York Focus are logging and analyzing thousands of lawsuits to identify patterns of alleged sexual abuse in the New York prison system spanning decades.
Grantee investigation of alleged sexual abuse in New York prisons opens with the story of one of the 1,600 women who have filed claims
