NYC paid $160 million in settlements under Child Victims Act

Editor’s note: This story contains graphic details of alleged child sexual abuse.

New York City paid over $160 million to settle more than 150 legal actions since the Child Victims Act was passed five years ago, most of which were filed against the Department of Education, and while former investigators at a watchdog agency claimed they were told to reverse substantiated accusations of sexual abuse made by victims, according a City & State investigation. 

A review of thousands of public records and court documents from cases going back as far as the 1940s showed that 161 of more than 1,200 legal actions made under the act and filed against the city in state courts were settled. Among those, 135 of those settlements or trial dispositions against the city were for actions against the DOE and former employees at the agency. In many cases, the settlement stipulations are not recorded on court dockets and are still marked “active,” the City & State investigation found.

Many of the allegations that settlements were paid out for were already known to the Special Commissioner of Investigation, the DOE’s independent watchdog agency, for decades, according to current and former SCI sex crimes unit investigators. The investigators told City & State that agency management instructed them to unsubstantiate many cases they had already substantiated, leaving the accused to continue to work within the DOE. 

When asked why substantiated cases were reversed, a DOE spokesperson would only say in an email statement that “New York City Public Schools recognizes the importance of independent oversight, and as such we are responsive to SCI investigations, and their conclusions. When matters for SCI’s investigation are brought to our attention, we notify SCI, and pursue appropriate disciplinary action up to and including termination of the employee based on SCI’s findings.” 

City Council Member Althea Stevens, who chairs the committee on Youth & Children, responded to the City & State investigation with a call for action. 

“We must look at what the lack of accountability is doing to our young people's trust and confidence in our law enforcement's ability to protect them. That's just it: it’s part of the problem,” she said in an email. “I can't believe I keep hearing from reporters about failures to protect our children.  I am looking forward to finding ways to ensure the mechanisms in government meant to safeguard our kids actually work."  

Slow-going through the courts

In February 2019, the state Legislature passed the Child Victims Act, also referred to as the CVA, which opened a “lookback window” reopening the statute of limitations for survivors of child sexual abuse to file civil litigation cases against their abusers and the institutions that enabled them. Less than 13% of CVA cases filed in state Supreme Court against New York City have progressed past discovery to settlement or trial verdict, according to City & State’s investigation.  That’s because there are only a handful of judges appointed to oversee CVA cases in the city’s courts and motions are piled up in some cases for years, attorneys for plaintiffs told City & State. 

“Our clients who were told would finally get justice by embracing the opportunity of the CVA to hold their abusers and the institutions that enabled them accountable … have instead been re-victimized by the process, the courts and the lack of engagement in the discovery process by city law department all over again,” Elizabeth Eilender, a CVA plaintiff’s attorney told City & State.  The office of communications for the state Office of Court Administration declined to comment on the backlog of CVA cases. 

Two known settlements totaling over $4.5 million have been for cases involving Russell Bracher, a band instructor and musical director from 1979 to 2019 in at least two New York City public schools. In both cases, the department is the defendant and Bracher is named as the accused, according to court documents. The city and the DOE did not admit any wrongdoing in the known settlements Bracher was named in.

There are at least two other cases naming Bracher that remain open. His attorney did not respond to requests for comment. 

Not all of the plaintiffs’ attorneys were aware of the other cases and settlements paid out for Bracher, when asked by City & State.  Special rules dictating how CVA cases are handled prohibit attorneys from sharing some case details without first seeking the court’s permission and the approval of the defense.  “Attempts to obtain information through discovery have been stifled and the city has refused to cooperate or comply with discovery and deposition subpoenas,” Eilender, who represents a plaintiff in one of the open cases against Bracher, told City & State.  

“It's frustrating – when I deposed Bracher, he would sit there and smile and claim the SCI cleared him on all these cases already, but no one is providing anything to me about those investigations,” Eilender continued. “It's clearly about covering-up for the city at this point instead of about protecting kids.” 

Eilender said she has repeatedly asked Judge Alexander Tisch, one of the judges appointed to oversee CVA cases in the city’s courts and who is presiding over her case against Bracher and the DOE, to order the city to comply with her discovery and subpoena requests. The SCI investigated Bracher at least three times previously, including in 2002, but the agency cleared him even though he was alleged to have kept repeating the same behaviors (Eilender’s client claimed he was repeatedly raped from 2004 to 2005).

CVA settlements disclose alleged child sex crimes for the first time

Like in Bracher’s case, several other alleged cases of child sex abuse were disclosed for the first time via the CVA settlements. In May 2023, the city paid $1.25 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the now deceased Frank Mickens, a well-known, no non-nonsense Brooklyn principal famous for turning around the troubled Boys and Girls High School in Bedford Stuyvesant, who was alleged to have sexually assaulted a student from 1976 to 1978, both at school and home. The student told a school counselor about the abuse, however, no action was taken and the abuse continued, according to court documents.  In the answer to the complaint, the city and DOE “denied each allegation set forth,” for Mickens’ alleged abuse.

Charles Randall, who was a high-profile orchestra director at the South Bronx’ famed KIPP Academy and is also now deceased, was accused of sexual assault in a lawsuit that is still pending.  His successor, Jesus Concepcion, also was arrested and charged by federal prosecutors last year for the alleged sexual abuse of  at least five of his former students.  Last month Concepcion was sentenced to 30 years in prison. 

Individuals named in some of the cases where the city has paid out millions in settlements were still on the job teaching when settlements were made.  Without admitting liability, the city paid $1.25 million to a woman who alleged in a 2021 lawsuit that Reginald Landeau Jr. raped her in the early 1990s when she was 13 while he was principal of Irwin Altman Middle School in Queens.  Her mother complained at the time and Landeau was transferred to Junior High School 216, also in Queens, where records show he remained employed until at least 2023. The city, the DOE and Landeau Jr. all denied the allegations in a court filing. 

In another example, Nicholas Auriti, who worked as a physical education teacher at the Bay Academy of Arts & Sciences in Brooklyn, was accused of sexually abusing four student athletes while preparing them for sports competitions from 1994 to 1995, according to a $2.4 million settlement the city and DOE made with the victims in 2022 who sued jointly two years earlier. Auriti, the city and DOE denied the allegations and did not admit liability in the settlement.  Records show Auriti was still working for the DOE in 2023 for a salary of  $124,863.  A DOE Spokesman confirmed neither Auriti or Landeau were still employed by the agency.

It’s unclear if there were ever any criminal investigations of the allegations made in the cases City & State found.  

“The City takes every allegation of abuse seriously,” a Law Department spokesperson said to City & State via email.  “As we evaluate the legal merits of cases, we refer any misconduct by a City employee to the relevant agency or authority.” In almost all of the cases reviewed by City & State, the allegations are of crimes that do not have a statute of limitations attached to them. 

Substantiated cases reversed

The SCI, the independent city agency responsible for investigating crimes within the DOE, only gets involved if allegations are first reported to the agency.  After an investigation, credible allegations can end up being forwarded to the DOE chancellor, federal prosecutors, the New York Police Department or referred to a county district attorney.  But rarely did this happen, according to former and current SCI investigators who worked under the SCI’s former First Deputy Commissioner Regina Loughran, who retired in 2017 after working first as an agency attorney for over three decades, and who is now deceased. 

“Regina always worked hard to quash leads against an administrator or teacher but then make sure complaints against janitors, paraprofessionals, cooks and groundskeepers – allegations against anyone of color basically – would be substantiated,” a former SCI Investigator, who asked not to be named because they are still in law enforcement, told City & State.

Eight former and current SCI investigators who spoke with City & State described how difficult it was to substantiate an allegation of sex crimes against children by DOE employees and accused Loughran of running interference over their findings.

When SCI investigators would submit substantiated case memos to their superiors, they claimed they would often be then directed to make changes and overwrite the original versions of their reports – including altering witness statements and other major case details. “The frightening thing is these revisions were never preserved in the record,” Mike Dzielski, a retired NYPD detective who worked at the SCI from 2008-2020 (including five years in the sex crime unit), told City & State. “I was on the NYPD Narcotics Major Case team and a detective sergeant and we did our investigations ethically.  That didn’t happen at SCI.  We’re talking about kids here. This issue shouldn’t be a political one when we’re talking about protecting kids in our schools.”  

Dzielski preserved some of the files documenting substantiations of sex crimes against students he said he had been told to unsubstantiate by Loughran and shared them with City & State. One case Dzielski substantiated in 2012 against  an educator at a Bronx middle school, was directed to be “unsubstantiated” by Loughran even though three different students reported experiencing the same behavior from the instructor.  When Dzielski turned in his original report it read the accused “bumped his penis against the buttocks of Student A, a female 13-year-old.” Nine days later, Dzielski wrote in the report that the case was “reclassified,” and that the allegation was investigated and “substantiated.” However, Loughran then instructed Dzielski to change the report so the last sentence in the paragraph read: “The allegation was investigated and unsubstantiated,” the former SCI investigator told City & State. 

According to a Linkedin profile, a teacher with the same name continues to work as a substitute teacher for the DOE.  The DOE claimed it could not confirm or deny if he was still employed but did offer that no one with the same background was still employed by the agency.  “It's sickening that he still has any form of teaching license. He should have been dealt with years ago and had his license taken away,” the original complainant against the educator, Jaxmin Lantigua, now 25, told City & State. “It's shocking that the DOE didn’t do anything about this and he’s still working. Why is this ok?  Hiding this information doesn’t help anyone but the education department.  A child who is only 13 should feel safe in school and should be heard.”

Another case Dzielski substantiated involved a paraprofessional at a Brooklyn middle school in 2012, who was accused of groping a student’s buttocks, but again Dzielski was told to mark the case as “Unsub’d,” shorthand for unsubstantiated.  “As per the Commissioner,” Loughran wrote on a sticky note affixed to the front page of the report. The accused currently coaches sports for a nonprofit organization in Brooklyn, according to its website.

“Anger doesn’t describe how I feel,” Shicora McGriff, the student who made the original complaint, now 27, told City & State. “I told the people who were supposed to be protecting me while my mom was at work and nothing was done. He came back to the school after I made the report, always sneering at me, mocking me. This shook me to the core and made me question why I even complained.”

McGriff added that she “regretted ever saying anything.”

“The DOE and law enforcement made me lose faith in ever trusting anyone for a very long time,” she said. “Fourteen years later I still remember every interaction like it was yesterday.”  

The seven other current and former SCI Investigators also confirmed Loughran’s alleged practice of reversing their investigative findings.  Most of them reported they kept documents as well, because of the constant editing and erasure of their work. The SCI, when asked about the allegations that were unsubstantiated, said in a statement that it would not comment on decisions made by its prior administrations.

“However, what can be said about the prior administration that holds true under the current one, is that the final outcomes of SCI investigations are based strictly on provable evidence and are determinations made ultimately by the Special Commissioner, not by individual investigators” an SCI spokesperson said via email to City & State. “Further, although SCI investigators generally carry heavy caseloads, and despite the fact that SCI is always seeking to hire more qualified and experienced investigators, SCI has never determined the outcome of an investigation based on anything other than the facts of the specific case.  To imply that a case may be deemed unsubstantiated merely because of a heavy caseload, or any other non-investigatory reason, impugns the integrity of this office, its important mission, and the hard-working and dedicated public servants employed here.”

Loughran’s then-supervisor, former SCI Commissioner Richard J. Condon, who retired in 2018, declined to comment when contacted by phone about the reversals on substantiated cases.  

Anne Kull, an attorney with Levy Konigsberg, who represents hundreds of CVA clients, warned that SCI records expose a problem with child sex abuse within the city’s school system that “exceeds the scales of public awareness.” 

“Whether the results of the SCI investigations were (substantiated) or (unsubstantiated) they don't reflect the claims by the victims and faithfully report what happened,” she said. “This is a systemic problem.”