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A young upstate woman who was repeatedly raped and impregnated in a Manhattan prison by a correction officer — who once grinned at a camera that captured the sex assault — is eligible to collect damages, a state judge ruled, slamming the state’s Department of Corrections. The DOC knew that Correction Officer James Ford Jr. had "a propensity to engage in criminal sexual acts" but did nothing to protect the 153 female inmates housed in the Bayview Correctional Facility in Chelsea, Court of Claims Judge Faviola Soto has found.
The medium-security prison was closed in October 2012 after being hit hard by Sandy.
The 24-year-old woman was assaulted repeatedly in April and June 2012 while serving a sentence of one to three years for the criminally negligent homicide of her toddler, who was fatally beaten by her boyfriend in 2009.
She gave birth prematurely to Ford's baby in December 2012; the infant died within minutes of her birth, according to the decision.
Soto found DOC guilty of negligent supervision because it knew that Ford had been accused of an unusually high number of assaults by four other inmates between 2008 and 2012.
The first three were "unsubstantiated," but the last one was "corroborated" and resulted in an inmate's transfer to another facility. It was later dropped after the inmate clammed up.
Despite the repeated allegations, DOC allowed Ford to roam unsupervised and unrestricted through Bayview, the judge said in a decision released last week.
Soto says Ford, 67, of Queens, repeatedly attacked the inmate for four months — in the doorway of her cell "in open and plain view of other female prisoners" and in the officer's station.
A surveillance camera caught his June 25 assault.
The judge said the videotape "shows that, after sexually abusing (her), CO Ford looked directly at the surveillance camera, smiled and tipped his uniform hat."
The victim, whose name is being withheld by the Daily News, told investigators that Ford had threatened to kill her if she said anything and initially refused to sign a statement about the attacks. She did sign a statement after getting transferred to the Bedford Hills prison, three days after the June 25 assault. Ford was put on administrative leave a week after the videotaped assault. By July 16, he was fired, and after admitting that he had sexually abused the inmare 11 times, he was indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney's office on multiple counts of rape, pleaded guilty to two counts and was sentenced to serve three years in jail.
Ford was charged with rape in the third degree, which covers the rape of inmates. Under state law, inmates cannot give consent to sex and any sexual intercourse behind bars is considered rape.
The judge said DOC's union contract did not completely tie the department's hands. She said Ford could have been assigned to another job in Bayview where he had no contact with the female inmates or he could have been more closely supervised, but he was not.
"The State left CO Ford alone and unsupervised the majority of the time, and allowed him unrestricted key access" to where the women were housed, she said.
The judge slammed the state's lawyer for repeatedly missing court deadlines for producing documents and other evidence.
"The court finds (the lawyer's) explanations and excuses woefully lacking," Soto wrote. She punished the state by precluding state lawyers from using DOC's union contract in the upcoming trial on damages on Nov. 12 and 13.
The woman’s lawyer, David Drucker of Syracuse, declined to discuss details of the case because of the pending trial to determine damages. However, he said, she has been "terribly hurt" by her experience.
"She was greviously injured by being raped multiple times," he said.
Acting Corrections Commissioner Anthony J. Annucci declined to comment on the case but insisted that DOC will not tolerate sexual abuse and harassment and has enhanced staff training, screening and the use of video cameras to ensure that.
Meanwhile, Bayview is no longer a state prison. Unwilling to spend $600,000 to repair damage created by a 14-foot wall of water that crashed into the building during Sandy, the state decided to close the prison and dispose of the building at W. 20th St. and 11th Ave. The Empire State Development Corp. is weighing proposals for a long-term commercial lease.
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