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Did a Rikers corrections officer abuse teen inmates?

Monday, January 23, 2006

The Eyewitness News Investigators' Sarah Wallace

(New York- WABC, January 23, 2006) (WABC) -- A high ranking corrections officer at Rikers Island is now the focus of a criminal investigation by the district attorney's office.

Did he sexually abuse several teenage inmates at the jail?

The Investigators' Sarah Wallace has the exclusive details.

The Bronx District Attorney's office is confirming there is now an active criminal investigation into the abuse allegations against the captain who has been placed on modified duty.

There have been no charges filed yet, but government sources tell Eyewitness News that as many as a dozen teenage male inmates say they were abused.

30-year-old Correction Captain Dominick Labruzzi bolted into his Queens home when we tried to ask him about sexual allegations involving numerous teenage male inmates housed at the adolescent ARDC facility on Rikers Island.

I spoke by phone with two of the captain's young accusers:

"There's this basement and he told me follow me inside. ... he searched me first with my clothes on and then he felt my private parts. I was thinking, that wasn't right. ... He had me take off my pants and searched me again and told me to squat down, I don't know what he was doing behind me."

A similar scenario of Captain Labruzzi's alleged behavior was recounted by a second young inmate:

"He searched me and put his hands in my pocket and started touching me pervertly down there ... on my private parts ... he told me to strip and he told me to squat down. ... After that he told me to lift up my private parts and he was looking down. And after all this happened, I was thinking something is wrong here."

One Rikers professional spoke with a number of the alleged victims.

Sarah: "What's the common characteristic here?"

Official: "Young Spanish kids, no facial hair, curly black hair, very innocent looking, very young looking."

He said he believed the teenage inmates he spoke with because they all described a similar MO by Captain Labruzzi, who was only assigned to the adolescent jail a few months ago.

Official: "The pinching of the nipple, the frisking of the hand in the pocket, and the playing of the genitals while the hand was in the pockets. They all describe the same thing. In a couple of cases he had them interviewed totally naked."

And most significant, sources believe, is the description by the inmates of secluded, off-limit areas. One of the captain's accusers told me at the medical clinic he spoke with another alleged victim who was completely distraught.

Inmate: "He said he was going to kill himself and he went on suicide watch and I've never seen him since."

A high-ranking correction source says it is definitely not standard procedure for an officer to take an inmate into an isolated area alone for a search -- especially not a strip search.

Labruzzi's union president contacted us late today and said the captain will have no comment until the department or district attorney details the accusations to him and he has a chance to respond.

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