A former Rikers Island detainee has filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit accusing two city correction officers of sexually assaulting him during a retaliatory strip search, pepper-spraying him at close range and dragging him half-naked through his cell block.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, was brought by Kyle Knight, 29, who was a pre-trial detainee in September 2024 at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center, one of 10 jail buildings on the island.
Court papers allege that an officer filmed the encounter with a handheld camera but the footage later disappeared. The officers were not equipped with body-worn cameras because the department was in the process of replacing faulty devices.
“They treated me like I was nothing,” Knight told THE CITY. “Like I wasn’t a human being.”
The abuse allegations come as a federal judge has spent the past six months reviewing possible candidates for a so-called remediation manager to potentially take over large parts of the troubled department.
For years, detainees have argued that officer abuse has rarely been properly investigated. It took jail officials seven years to fire one officer who was involved in an illegal sexual relationship with a detainee — and then pushed her to cover it up, THE CITY reported in 2022. In another case, a correction officer was accused of rape over several decades by 24 women, according to a Gothamist investigation. That officer was never fired.
“For decades, there have been reports about and warnings of staff sexual abuse of people in custody on Rikers Island,” Knight’s lawyer, Debbie Greenberger, wrote in the lawsuit. “That abuse continues today, often in the guise of security measures such as strip searches, or during uses of force.”
According to Department of Correction data cited in the complaint, DOC recorded 21 allegations of sexual abuse by staff against incarcerated people just in the last six months of 2024 — with nearly half occurring during strip searches.
The complaint charges that the actual number of assaults is likely far higher, noting that many incarcerated people do not trust the investigation process and choose not to report abuses.
DOC has long had low substantiation rates for sexual-misconduct complaints, the lawsuit adds, and an “unsubstantiated” finding does not mean an allegation is unfounded. But it may instead reflect poor-quality investigations or the difficulty of gathering evidence behind bars.
‘Humiliated’
Knight’s incident began the night of Sept. 18, when officers ordered all the detainees in his housing unit back into their cells, according to the complaint. Knight, who had been jailed on drug charges, said he briefly entered another cell to grab toilet paper because there was none available in a central spot for officers known as “The Bubble.”
“I was just trying to get tissue so I could use the bathroom,” Knight said. “That’s it. But they weren’t trying to hear that.”
Knight said officers accused him of wrongdoing and forced him into a humiliating strip search inside his cell while mocking him. He says officers told him they would “see him in the morning” and blew kisses at him before departing.
The following day, shortly after breakfast, Knight says his cell door opened again. One of the officers stood outside and demanded an apology.
“He told me, ‘You gotta apologize for yesterday,’” Knight recalled. “I kept asking, ‘Apologize for what?’”
Knight said he complied when ordered to strip and squat.
When he questioned why he was being told to turn around, he said he was suddenly struck in the back of the head by one of the officers. At nearly the same time, the other officer pepper-sprayed him directly in the face, according to the lawsuit.
“The spray was right here — like a foot from my face,” Knight said. “I couldn’t see. My eyes were burning. I couldn’t breathe.”
The DOC has strict rules about how close officers can be before blasting pepper spray at detainees.
As Knight reached for a bedsheet to wipe his face, he said the officers grabbed him, forced him against the wall as one sexually assaulted him.
“I felt a finger go inside me,” he said. “That’s when I knew this wasn’t a search. They violated me.”
Knight said he screamed for help as he struggled to get away, yelling that he was being sexually assaulted. Other detainees began shouting as well, he said, drawing the attention of a supervisor.
“I saw the captain coming up the stairs,” Knight recalled. “I told him, ‘They sprayed me in my face, they put their finger in my ass.’ He didn’t say a word.”
Knight said he was then handcuffed, wrapped in a sheet and walked through the housing unit in full view of other detainees.
“They were about to take me out with no clothes on,” he said. “Everybody was yelling, like, ‘You can’t do that to him!’ I was humiliated.”
Department of Correction policy states that strip searches should not be conducted to harass or punish and must be carried out “in the most dignified and least intrusive manner possible.”
The directive further bars officers from conducting visual inspections of an inmate’s anal or genital cavities.
The lawsuit alleges that another correction officer recorded some or all of the incident with a handheld camera.
That footage was never uploaded and has been missing for more than a year, despite internal warnings from the Department of Correction’s Investigation Division.
Knight said he reported the assault within hours, calling 311 and the jail’s confidential hotline set up under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.
He was later interviewed by some type of department investigator, but said there has been no follow-up.
“I did everything I was supposed to do,” he said. “I reported it right away. And nothing happened.”
According to an internal department “Use of Force” report, the officers alleged Knight was hiding some type of “unknown item.” They claimed he tried to flush it down the toilet, an allegation that Knight flatly rejects.
“They said I flushed a weapon,” he said. “My toothbrush couldn’t even go down that toilet. How am I flushing a weapon?”
No contraband was found and disciplinary charges against Knight were later dismissed.
Hoping for Change
More than a year later, Knight said he is haunted by the experience.
“I didn’t want to die in that cell,” he said. “That’s what was going through my head. I thought I wasn’t coming out.”
Through the lawsuit, Knight said he hopes to force accountability and change.
“I want them fired,” he said, referring to the officers involved. “And I want the system to be better. Nobody deserves that — nobody.”
A city Law Department spokesperson declined to comment on the allegations, citing pending litigation.
“We are reviewing the complaint,” said DOC spokesperson Latima Johnson, noting the department has a “zero-tolerance policy for sexual abuse and harassment toward anyone who lives or works in our facilities.”
The lawsuit notes that three officers involved in the incident had prior internal disciplinary cases against them.
One was charged in August 2024 with using pepper spray on a detainee from less than three feet away and striking the person in the head with force that was deemed excessive and disproportionate to any threat.
Another officer, the suit says, was accused in August 2023 of using excessive force against multiple detainees and submitting a false or misleading use-of-force report.
Video evidence later showed the detainees he claimed were “running toward staff” were actually standing still, according to the complaint. The officer was hit with a formal reprimand.
That same officer was also flagged in August 2024 for using excessive force, injuring a detainee and providing false or incomplete information in a use-of-force report, including failing to disclose that he twisted the person’s wrist to compel compliance. In that case, the officer was suspended for 10 days and forfeited 25 days of pay, the filing says.
The lawsuit further alleges that the captain at the scene of that incident was charged in September 2020 with using unnecessary and retaliatory force and submitting a false or misleading report after video footage showed him pepper-spraying a person in custody without justification.
“Officers sexually assault people in custody to show them who’s boss and take away their humanity,” said Greenberger. “We are standing up for Kyle Knight to hold the city and its officers accountable and obtain justice for Kyle.”
