A New York state senator on Wednesday requested that the State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision turn over information about a violent incident that led an inmate to accuse prison guards of sexual assault.
The request was made by Senator Julia Salazar, a Brooklyn Democrat, who cited a report in The New York Times that described the violent handling of the inmate at the now-shuttered Sullivan Correctional Facility in upstate New York.
Ms. Salazar, the chairwoman of the State Senate’s committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, asked the department for a detailed summary of the internal investigation into the incident and information on whether the case was referred to outside law enforcement, among other things.
The request centered on the correction department’s treatment of Ernastiaze Moore, 25, who was being held at the Sullivan prison west of Poughkeepsie on attempted murder and attempted assault charges when the incident occurred in January 2023.
A sergeant blasted pepper spray into his cell, then four guards in tactical gear burst in and beat him bloody, video obtained by The Times showed. They took Mr. Moore to a “frisk room,” where, he said, they shoved fingers into his anus.
Ms. Salazar said on Wednesday that the officers should be held accountable by the corrections department and the courts. Her spokeswoman added that the incident was a video-recorded example of an incident that “appears to fit a pattern where significant evidence exists of unlawful brutality and coverup.”
After the incident, Mr. Moore needed surgery to reconstruct his left eye socket, records show. In September, he filed a federal lawsuit accusing the guards of sexual abuse and other offenses.
His accusations were leveled during a period of upheaval in the prison system. Earlier this year, a state prosecutor took the rare step of charging 20 guards in the beating deaths of two inmates in two Central New York prisons.
In Mr. Moore’s case, an investigation by the corrections department determined that the guards had not inserted anything into Mr. Moore’s anus and that the force used was justifiable. None of the 10 officers involved were punished. Eight are still employed, one retired in July and another resigned the same month, a department spokesman said.
Ms. Salazar has also called on Gov. Kathy Hochul to approve an omnibus prison reform bill, a package of at least nine different pieces of legislation intended to “improve transparency, accountability and oversight of our state prisons.”
The state legislature passed the bills over the summer, but Ms. Hochul has not yet signed them into law.
A spokeswoman for Ms. Hochul did not respond to questions about Mr. Moore’s case but said that the governor will review the legislation.
“Governor Hochul has made it clear that the safety of all New Yorkers — including the staff and incarcerated individuals in our prisons — is a top priority,” said the spokeswoman, Jess D’Amelia.
Mr. Moore had been at Sullivan for 11 days when corrections officers approached his cell, saying they believed he had a knife on him, records show.
The so-called cell extraction was recorded on a hand-held video camera, in keeping with department policy. In the frisk room after guards had pulled Mr. Moore from his cell, the video shows them ordering him to sit on a body orifice scanner, and then to strip naked.
During the search, one of the guards says he has found “a string hanging from the anus area.”
Mr. Moore objects and falls to the floor. The footage becomes jerky and chaotic, and he is heard shouting six times that officers are punching him in the face and forcibly touching his genitals and anus.
On the wall in the corner where Mr. Moore had been standing, a spatter of blood is visible. A sergeant discards Mr. Moore’s underwear, which is bloodstained, and hands him a new pair.
In the end, no weapon was recovered.
Mr. Moore said in an interview and in his lawsuit that the officers tried to prevent him from reporting what had happened by threatening him with further violence.
A nurse finally filed a report for him three months later, and he was held in a mental health unit and again sexually assaulted by guards in June 2023, Mr. Moore said.
Two officers cornered him in the shower, called him a racial slur and said they knew he had been speaking with investigators, the lawsuit said. They handcuffed him, beat him and pinned him to the floor, then shoved what Mr. Moore believed to be a pen or a radio antenna into his rectum, he said.
Mr. Moore’s accusations did not mark the first time Sullivan Correctional Facility had been at the center of inmate abuse complaints. A decade ago, New York State paid $5 million to the family of Karl Taylor, a mentally ill detainee who had died after an altercation with guards over his refusal to clean his cell.
One of the Sullivan guards who was sued by Mr. Taylor’s family, Joseph Daddezio, was holding the camera as guards beat and strip-searched Mr. Moore.
Ainara Tiefenthäler contributed reporting.
Jan Ransom is an investigative reporter for The Times focusing on the criminal justice system, law enforcement and incarceration in New York.
Jay Root is an investigative reporter for The Times based in Albany, N.Y., covering the people and events influencing — and influenced by — state and local government.
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