Suffolk County inmates' legal claims allege abuse by guards, other human rights violations

A Suffolk County jail inmate says he was in a wheelchair when guards handcuffed, beat, choked and groped him with mace-covered gloves before he was dragged and sprayed with more mace, some of the attack purposely outside the view of surveillance cameras.

At the time, he had a cast on his leg, and a hip injury from a vehicle crash, according to the claim.

Another inmate says he was put in solitary confinement for complaining, sickened by rancid food, and denied medical treatment for injuries sustained during repeated jailhouse beatings. Guards, he alleges, also tore up his Bible.

Both inmates filed notices of claim Tuesday to sue Suffolk County; its sheriff's office, which runs the jails; and guards whose names are not yet known.

The latest allegations about the conditions in the jail system come weeks after the county agreed to settle at least two jail-related lawsuits.

One suit, dating back to 2011, was settled for $18 million: a class action over mold, rust, vermin, human waste and inadequate access to clean drinking water. In the other settled case, the county agreed to pay $450,000 to a diabetic inmate who said a guard body-slammed her to the ground, while handcuffed and leg-shackled, during a 2022 altercation over a trip to a jail nurse for medication, fracturing her clavicle and ribs, and causing collapsed lungs and head trauma.

The notices of claim, which were sent Tuesday by lawyer Kenneth Mollins, are the first step required by law before suing any municipality in New York. The claimants are Yonnel Ricketts, 33, the man in the wheelchair, who had been arrested in 2022 after he got into a crash in Coram with four children in his car and was charged with child endangerment and drug possession; and Strong Heart Warrior, 30, who pleaded guilty to assault charges due to an altercation with a bartender and served 7 months in jail. Warrior is out of jail; Ricketts remains locked up.

Mike Martino, the Suffolk County spokesperson, said the county — whose jails are in Yaphank and Riverhead — had not as of Wednesday received the notices of claim. He declined to comment about the notices.  Vicki DiStefano, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, also declined to comment about the notices.

At a news conference Wednesday at his office in Hauppauge, Mollins said that the allegations by Warrior and Ricketts represent "a pattern and a culture of abuse that must end."

The men "have been silent while they’re behind bars," he said, "but at this point voices need to be heard."

Ricketts said the beating took place April 23 and began after a guard told him, "I don't like you, Ricketts" and cautioned him not to act up when the emergency services unit team "comes for you." Warrior claims his abuse lasted from Dec. 19, 2024, to May 15. He was falsely accused of threatening an inmate or staff, and was assaulted by another inmate while a guard "failed to be present on duty," according to the claim.

The causes of action in both include violations of civil rights, assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent supervision. The claimants also seek to recoup medical and legal bills.

At the news conference, Mollins produced a plastic bag he said inmates sent him with Rice Krispies and feces from mice the inmates said they routinely found in the breakfast they were served. Mollins said the food, smuggled out in the finger of a latex glove, was included in a letter signed by 14 inmates that described how they had become violently ill due to rancid food.

Warrior at one point was throwing up and defecating on himself because of the contaminated food, and did not receive medical treatment for three days, Mollins said.

"What’s going on now in the jail on a regular basis ... is a violation of basic human rights," he said. "The Constitution of the United States does not stop at the jailhouse door."

Warrior, who lives on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation in Southampton, described a regular pattern of abuse in the jail.

"I feared for my life basically," he said at the news conference. "I didn’t feel safe at all. ... I just felt like I was a target for them."

Released from jail on May 22, he said he still feels traumatized by the experience.

"I can’t go back to normal life," he said.

About 77% of inmates jailed in Suffolk County are pretrial detainees, with an average daily population of 767, according to a 2022 report by the Vera Institute of Justice.

Newsday's Payton Guion and Joe Werkmeister contributed to this report.