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Rikers officer posed as TV producer to lure woman he raped to his home, Queens DA says
By
Samantha Max
Published Aug 26, 2024
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Photo of Anthony Martin Jr. courtesy of the Department of Correction; photo of Rikers Island sign by Jose Alvarado Jr.; composite by Gothamist
By
Samantha Max
Published Aug 26, 2024
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Gothamist's reporting on sexual assault allegations at Rikers Island was recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. You can read our entire series here.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault.
A Rikers officer accused of sexually assaulting at least two women while they were detained in the women’s jail faces new allegations that he posed as a TV producer casting a show to lure a different woman into his Springfield Gardens home and rape her, according to the Queens district attorney’s office.
Prosecutors unveiled new details about the alleged assault after Anthony Martin Jr. was arraigned on an indictment in Queens Supreme Criminal Court on Monday. They say he contacted the woman on social media and she went to his house expecting to meet other producers and prospective cast members. But when the woman got there, the DA’s office said, Martin Jr. was alone.
Martin Jr. was arrested days later, after the woman told police that he pulled down her pants, inserted his finger into her vagina, pushed her onto a bed and raped her while she told him to stop multiple times, according to a criminal complaint. On July 25, a grand jury indicted Martin Jr. on charges of first-degree rape, third-degree rape, first-degree sexual abuse and second-degree unlawful imprisonment. He could spend up to 25 years behind bars, if convicted.
Martin Jr. pleaded not guilty on Monday and is out on bail, which was set at $15,000 cash or $45,000 bond. The city Department of Correction suspended him without pay the day of his arrest, according to spokesperson Annais Morales.
“Thank you to the brave survivor for coming forward,” Queens DA Melinda Katz said in a statement. “My office is committed to standing up for the survivors of sexual violence.”
In addition to the criminal charges, Martin Jr. also faces allegations in civil court. He is one of at least 20 current or former Rikers employees whose name appears in more than one lawsuit filed in the last two years under the Adult Survivors Act, a state law that opened a one-year window to bring claims of sexual assault outside the statute of limitations.
More than 700 women who were detained on Rikers Island have sued the city, alleging that they were assaulted while in custody and that officials didn’t do enough to prevent or punish rampant abuse.
Mayor Eric Adams in March promised a “thorough investigation” into the hundreds of allegations, but he has since said that only the city’s Law Department, which is responsible for defending the city against the claims, is evaluating the lawsuits. The Bronx district attorney's office also said it is reviewing the litigation to determine whether criminal charges are warranted.
Martin Jr.’s attorney, Steven Gaitman, declined to comment after his client’s arraignment on Monday. When a reporter reached Martin Jr. by phone, he hung up. In June, Martin Jr. told Gothamist that the civil allegations from former Rikers detainees “sound like a bunch of BS.”
But some of the details provided by prosecutors in the criminal case against Martin Jr. resemble the civil allegations brought by at least two formerly incarcerated women who identified him as the correction officer who they said sexually assaulted them while he worked at the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island. The two women are suing the city of New York for a total of $45 million.
One woman said Martin Jr. forced his fingers into her vagina in 2019 while they were in a storage area in the women’s jail. In another lawsuit, Karina Collado said Martin Jr. put his hand over her mouth and shoved his fingers into her vagina while she was organizing supplies in a storage area in 2020. She said he also performed oral sex on her and that she was only able to escape after he exposed himself.
“He scared the s— out of me,” Collado told Gothamist earlier this year.
Martin Jr. threatened to have her placed in solitary confinement or order other detainees to attack her if she told anyone what had happened, Collado said. She reported the assault to a state correction officer the next year, when she was sent upstate to serve the remainder of her sentence, according to a copy of the complaint reviewed by Gothamist. But nothing came of her report.
The Department of Correction said it has no record of her complaint, which state officials said they passed along to a Rikers warden in May 2021.
“I was really telling myself, 'I’m not going to be here forever,'" Collado said. "I kept telling myself, 'This s— is only temporary. You’re not going to get away with what you did to me.' But at the same time, I was so scared.”
Jessy Edwards contributed reporting.
Tagged
Melinda Katz
Rikers Island
Rikers Lawsuits
public safety
queens
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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