What happened to you in a New York City juvenile detention center was not okay.

The City of New York has locked up children since before any of us were born. Spofford in Hunts Point. Manida, the girls' house down the hill from it. Horizon in Mott Haven, Crossroads in Brownsville, the group homes nobody remembers the name of. Different buildings, different decades, one defendant. If the City was holding you, at 11 or 14 or 17, and an adult the City put in charge of you did something you have carried ever since, this page is about you. It doesn't matter which building.

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This applies to you no matter what

You were locked up. A judge sent you. That is exactly why the City owed you more, not less: a city that takes a child's liberty takes on the job of watching every adult it puts on that child's hallway.
You don't know which building it was, or what it was called that year. Spofford became Bridges. Manida closed and the girls went elsewhere. The group homes had addresses, not names. Say what you remember; the defendant is the same City either way.
You never told anyone. Fine. Neither had most of the people who sued in 2024, some for twenty years, some, going by the complaints on file about the 1960s and 1970s, for fifty.
You have a record now, or you did time as an adult later. So what. Nothing about that changes whether a 40-year-old counselor should have been alone with you at 13.
Your case got thrown out in September 2025. The new law was written for you: it says, in so many words, that you can amend or refile. That is not a rumor; it is section 10-1104.1(c).
You're a mother or a brother or a grown child asking for someone who can't do this himself. Reach out anyway.

The New York City juvenile detention lawsuits: what the public record says, and when

None of this is ours. The City's own agencies, the courts, the State Comptroller and the reporters who covered it wrote what's below, and every line links to where it came from. Every lawsuit here is an allegation; the City of New York has admitted nothing in any of them, and the one arrest on this list ended, as far as any public record shows, in charges and a firing, not a conviction. One more thing we owe you plainly: the complaints and findings on this page name Spofford (later Bridges), Horizon and Crossroads. Manida Juvenile Center and the non-secure detention group homes are listed on this page because the same City ran them in the same years; no filed record we have read names either one.

1957, then 1967, 1971 and 1979

The City's own history of its juvenile agency says that in 1957 Youth House moved to Hunts Point and split in two: a boys' house at 1221 Spofford Avenue with 239 beds, and "the girls' institution, at 765 Manida Street," which "accommodated 125 girls" and "was known as Manida Juvenile Center." A nonprofit board ran both at first. In 1967 the City took Spofford over through its Department of Probation, in 1971 through the Human Resources Administration, which the same year created non-secure detention, the group homes, and in 1979 the Department of Juvenile Justice was formed to run all of it. By that year the agency's own page lists only Spofford and the group homes; the girls' house was gone. NYC Department of Juvenile Justice, agency history 1957–1978.

June 20, 2002

The City's Department of Investigation announced the arrest of a 46-year-old juvenile counselor at Bridges, the renamed Spofford. The criminal complaint charged two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, sexual abuse in the second degree and sexual abuse in the third degree, over two 16-year-old residents. The City had fired him the day before. Those are charges. We have found no published outcome, and we don't guess at one. NYC Department of Investigation release.

April 29 to June 11, 2024

April 29 first. That day more than 150 people sued the City of New York in Bronx Supreme Court under the City's own Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, and two of their complaints are still on the docket. Index 806950/2024E names the City, ACS and "Spofford Juvenile Detention Center a/k/a Bridges Juvenile Center." Index 807035/2024E is twelve former Horizon detainees against the City, ACS and the Department of Correction. What the plaintiffs say, across all of them, is that staff sexually abused them when they were children, 11 to 17 years old, at Spofford, at Horizon, at Rikers; the earliest of it was in the 1970s, the latest in 2023. Six weeks later, on June 11, the same firm filed more than 250 more, adding Crossroads; the plaintiffs had been about 14 years old on average. Gothamist, June 12, 2024.

January 27–28, 2025

A wave of 115 new complaints brought the count to 539 suits against the City across Crossroads, Spofford, Horizon and Rikers. Index 802036/2025E, Rivera v. City of New York, ACS and Spofford, went in that week; twenty Crossroads complaints went into Kings County Supreme Court the same day, Index 502805/2025 among them. The City had already moved to dismiss, arguing that the law reached only the individual who did the abusing, not the institution that held the child. Harlem World Magazine, January 28, 2025.

April 10, 2025

State Comptroller DiNapoli's audit of Horizon and Crossroads, October 2018 through December 2023: 37 percent of 9,693 incidents at the two City facilities were never reported to the state's oversight agency at all, and serious incidents that had to be reported within 24 hours, sexual abuse allegations among them, went in one to 22 days late. It is an audit of paperwork, not a finding about any one child. It is also the City's own record of how closely anyone was looking. Office of the State Comptroller, audit 2022-N-3.

September 2025

A Bronx judge dismissed more than 450 of the juvenile-detention suits, the Spofford, Horizon and Rikers cases among them, after an appellate court read the 2022 wording of the City law as not clearly reaching the people and institutions accused of enabling the abuse. The City had asked for that result. ACS, through a spokesperson, called sexual abuse "abhorrent and unacceptable"; the agency, it said, takes every allegation seriously. "Many of the survivors really just feel like the rug was pulled out from under them," the plaintiffs' lawyer said. Gothamist, September 29, 2025.

January 29, 2026

Local Law 50 of 2026, which did not come easily: the Council passed it November 25, 2025, the mayor vetoed it December 24, and on January 29 the Council repassed it over him. What the law does, in the new section 10-1104.1 it adds to the City's code, is give anyone hurt by a party who "commits, directs, enables, participates in, or conspires in" gender-motivated violence before January 9, 2022 eighteen months from that day to sue. Eighteen months from January 29 is July 29, 2027. And there is subsection (c), for anyone who filed between March 1, 2023 and March 1, 2025: they "may amend or refile." That clause is about the 450, even if it doesn't say so. Local Law 50 of 2026, certified text.

March 23 to August 14, 2026

Then the complication. On March 23 the federal appeals court asked New York's Court of Appeals whether the City's revival window is preempted by the state's Child Victims Act and Adult Survivors Act (Parker v. Alexander, a case between private parties); the state court accepted the question on April 16. Meanwhile the City cases came back: the Horizon complaint was amended on March 20, the two Spofford complaints on April 2 and April 20, and the City answered all three on June 12, 2026. On August 6 a Manhattan judge restored a survivor's claim against the City and ACS under the new law and then stayed her case until Parker is decided; the City, in that case, argued its own law is valid and joined the request for the pause. On August 14 a new Crossroads case, Index 816196/2026E, was filed in the Bronx under the new section. They are live. A.G. v City of New York, Sup. Ct. N.Y. County, August 6, 2026.

We checked this on September 13, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from March 23 to August 14, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a New York City juvenile detention lawsuit

The City of New York. Not a building, and not the agency letterhead that happened to be on the door the year you were there. The City has run its juvenile lock-ups under five different names since 1957: a nonprofit board it hired, then its Department of Probation from 1967, the Human Resources Administration from 1971, the Department of Juvenile Justice from 1979, and since December 7, 2010, when the mayor signed Local Law 61 of 2010 folding DJJ into it, the Administration for Children's Services. The complaints on file name the City itself. Spofford, Horizon and Crossroads each have their own page on this site, with their own record; this page is for the defendant above all of them, and for the places, Manida and the group homes, that never got a page because no filed record names them.

The theory, in plain words. A locked building that holds children has one job above the others: keep the adults it hires away from kids when nobody is watching, and act the first time a kid says something. The complaints say the City did neither, for decades, despite its own investigations and reports. Some of that record is the City's. In 2002 its own Department of Investigation arrested one of its counselors over two 16-year-olds. In 2025 the State Comptroller found that more than a third of the incidents at its two open facilities never reached the state. Whether that adds up to what the law calls enabling is for a court. But it is not something the lawyers made up.

One honest thing about money. The City is a public defendant: no insurer to go bankrupt, no cap in New York on what a jury can award in a case like this. But New York's highest court held in 1982 that punitive damages cannot be assessed against the State or its cities, whatever a local law lists, so nobody should promise you those. A lawyer will tell you what the rest means for you. This page won't.

Your deadline: the New York rules for a childhood claim against the City, and the catch

Two doors. The City's is open right now, and it shuts on July 29, 2027. That is Local Law 50 of 2026, the one in the record above, dates and all. It reaches anything before January 9, 2022, it names institutions as well as individuals, and if your case was one of the 450 dismissed in 2025 it says you can amend or refile. Every City facility on this page, Spofford, Manida, Horizon, Crossroads, the group homes, sits inside those dates, whatever year you were there. Eighteen months sounds like a long time. It is a court filing, prepared by a lawyer, from the facts you give them; it is not a form.

Here is the catch, and we'd rather you heard it from us. The City fought the first wave of these suits and won the September 2025 dismissal. The mayor vetoed the new law; the Council overrode him. Now a separate question, whether a city law can revive claims the state's Child Victims Act already dealt with, is sitting with New York's highest court in Parker v. Alexander, accepted April 16, 2026, and a Manhattan judge has already paused a case against the City and ACS until it's answered. Nobody can promise you how that comes out. What a lawyer can do is get you filed inside the window, so that whatever the court says, you are in line and not outside it.

The second door is the state's, and it is why we ask your birth year. That door is the Child Victims Act, and what it says, roughly, is that abuse before your 18th birthday can be sued over until your 55th, against the abuser and against whoever's negligence let it happen. Born in 1971 or after, that birthday hasn't come. Born in 1971 exactly, it comes this year, which is not a lot of runway. (The section, if a lawyer asks, is CPLR 208(b).) Born before 1971, that door has likely closed, and the Act's own catch-up window shut on August 14, 2021, which leaves the City window as your route. Whether the age-55 rule reaches a claim that had already expired before 2019 is a lawyer's question, not a page's. Either way the answer takes one conversation, and the conversation is free.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You have never said it out loud. Not to a spouse, not to a cellmate, not to anyone.
You don't have a clean word for what happened, and you're half convinced it wouldn't count. The counselor arrested in 2002 was charged over things a lot of people would not have called anything.
It was another kid on the unit, not staff. A locked unit exists so that can't happen. It is still the City's watch.
You were only there a few weeks, or a weekend, waiting for a court date. Most people were.
You were at more than one of these places, or at Rikers at 16 or 17, which is where the City put kids that age until October 2018. Say so. The cases on file cover all of them, and Rikers has its own page here.
You live in New Jersey or Connecticut now, or farther. Doesn't matter. The case gets filed in a New York court no matter where you live now.

Facilities covered

Start with the two that have no filed record. Manida Juvenile Center, 765 Manida Street, Hunts Point, was the City's 125-bed detention house for girls from 1957 into the early 1970s; it's here as a location only, because no filed record we have read names it. Same for the non-secure detention group homes: the City has placed children in them since 1971, contracted nonprofits run them for it in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, and no filed record we've read names one. Rikers Island is the reverse, named in the 2024 complaints, but it's a Department of Correction jail rather than a juvenile center and so it has its own page, /rikers-island-survivors. Horizon, named in complaint after complaint: 560 Brook Avenue in Mott Haven, open since January 1998, own page /horizon-juvenile-center-survivors. Crossroads too, twenty complaints in Kings County in one week of January 2025: 17 Bristol Street in Brownsville, Brooklyn, open since 1998, own page /crossroads-juvenile-center-survivors. And Spofford, the oldest of the three and named in the first wave of April 2024: Hunts Point, 1957 until it closed on March 30, 2011, Bridges Juvenile Center on the paperwork from its December 29, 1999 reopening, own page /spofford-juvenile-center-survivors. One of these, or honestly can't say which? Answer the questions anyway. Tell us what you remember.

Questions people are asking

The judge threw out the NYC juvenile detention lawsuits. Is it over?

No. More than 450 cases were dismissed in September 2025 because the 2022 wording of the City law didn't clearly reach institutions. Then the Council rewrote it, in January 2026 and over the mayor's veto, and the cases came back: Horizon and Spofford re-pleaded in March and April 2026, the City's answers in on June 12, and a brand-new Crossroads case filed August 14, 2026.

Can I sue New York City for abuse in a juvenile detention center?

Whether you can depends on three things. The years you were there. The year you were born. What happened. The questions above sort the first two out and a lawyer does the rest.

How long do I have to sue? The New York statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, and the NYC lookback window.

Two answers, because two governments wrote rules. The state's is the Child Victims Act, CPLR 208(b), and it says you have until the day you turn 55, with two footnotes: nobody's sure it reaches a claim that had already expired before 2019, and the Act's own look-back window closed on August 14, 2021. The City's is Local Law 50 of 2026, the lookback window, and it's open from January 29, 2026 to July 29, 2027 for conduct before January 9, 2022, institutions included; the people dismissed in 2025 can amend or refile under it. Whether state law overrides the City's window is sitting unanswered before New York's highest court, and the deadline section above walks through that catch. A lawyer reads both against your dates.

I was at Manida, or in a group home, not Spofford. Does this apply to me?

Same defendant. The City of New York ran Manida for girls from 1957 into the early 1970s, and it has placed children in non-secure group homes since 1971. We'll tell you plainly that no filed record we have read names either place; the cases on file are about Spofford, Horizon, Crossroads and Rikers. Which is a reason to talk to a lawyer and, we'd argue, not one to stay quiet.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Nothing, here. Every case is on contingency, which means the lawyer gets paid out of what's recovered and only that. Recover nothing and you owe nothing. Not the call, not the review, not the case itself.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed New York attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.