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NYC captain who cost city $250,000 to settle sex claim hit with new misconduct lawsuit

John Annese, New York Daily News on

Published in News & Features

NEW YORK — A Rikers Island Correction captain who cost the city $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct claim has been named in yet another lawsuit — this time accused of subjecting a female subordinate to months of unwanted advances and abuse.

Correction Officer Shante Orr claims that Edwich Jasmin repeatedly propositioned her, exposed himself to her and forcibly kissed her over six months in 2022 and 2023 — even though the city had to pay to settle a similar complaint against him in 2020.

Her lawsuit, filed Nov. 12, comes amid a string of on- and off-duty sexual abuse and harassment allegations against Rikers correction officers, including a deputy warden who was placed on desk duty and a correction officer accused of an off-duty rape and the on-duty abuse of four female detainees. The city has been sued by hundreds of alleged sexual misconduct victims in the past two years.

“The City, through the NYCDOC, further created a hostile work environment for female Corrections Officers, including Ms. Orr, by permitting a machismo culture to develop within its ranks and enabling harassment of female Corrections Officers by their direct supervisors to continue unchecked.” Orr alleges in her lawsuit.

Orr, a correction officer since 2007, came into Jasmin’s orbit in May 2022, when she interviewed for a spot in the Transportation Division Store, where correction officers sell food. Payroll records show he made $274,561 in fiscal year 2024, more than doubling his base salary of $125,855 with overtime and other compensation.

Jasmin ran the store, and Orr ended up assigned there because she had been placed on modified duty. The harassment started in September 2022, when Orr asked Jasmin to renew one of the jail complex’s sought-after parking passes, according to her lawsuit.

“I’m Captain Jasmin; I could do that, I could do whatever I want — but what can you do for me?” he told her, according to the suit. “That’s how the world works; you do for me, I do for you.

“I can do whatever — it’s now on you.”

Jasmin pressured Orr for the next six months, at one point exposing his penis to her, the lawsuit alleges.

“It was beyond making a sexist statement, beyond flirtation,” Orr’s lawyer, David Ehrlich, told the Daily News. “It was explicit, direct… and to the extent he could, he used his power.”

Ehrlich added, “There was zero filter and zero concern. That’s what was so amazing about it, he was was acting like this without any worry or concern.”

The suit lists about two dozen separate incidents alleging Jasmin made inappropriate remarks and tried to pressure Orr into sex.

In one episode in September 2022, he groped her, tried to unbuckle her pants and told her, “You’re going to be my woman,” she alleges.

She deflected him by telling him she was wearing a faja — a stomach-flattening girdle-like undergarment, the suit alleges.

A month later, while she was off work to deal with a relative’s death, he told her to be “ready” for her when she returned, and referenced the faja, telling her, “You make sure you don’t have that thing on – and if you do have it on, you better wear the one with a hole in it,” the suit alleges.

 

That November, he cornered her in his office, grabbing her by the belt and kissing her on the mouth despite her efforts to turn away, the suit alleges. He unzipped his pants and started touching her, only to be interrupted by a knock on the door, according to the suit.

He grabbed her belt, groped or kissed her three times that December, each time propositioning her for sex, and continued his physical assaults in January 2023, Orr alleges.

On Jan. 19, 2023, she met Jasmin and another captain to sign paperwork, and when the other captain left, Jasmin bit his lip and said, “Boy, I cannot wait to f–k you; just let me know when so I can take a pill. I do not want to disappoint you.”

Her lawyer said she went into “survival mode,” trying to endure Jasmin’s harassment until her modified assignment ended.

“The best she can do was survive and play the game to the extent that she can continue her career without having this guy retaliate,” Ehrlich said. “After she escaped from this, she felt that she needed to do something about it.”

After she was free from his supervision, Orr filed an Equal Opportunity Office complaint in August 2023.

“Upon information and belief, no investigation or inquiry has been conducted, and to this day, no corrective action has been taken,” the suit alleges.

Jasmin did not return a message seeking comment.

Jasmin was sued in 2019 by another correction officer, Joanne Vega, who accused him of sexually assaulting her two years prior, shortly after she was assigned to the Transportation Division.

According to her suit, Jasmin ordered Vega into a men’s locker room, where he forcibly kissed her, shoved his tongue in her mouth, grabbed her breasts and forced her hand onto his crotch.

She settled the case against Jasmin and the city for $250,000. Vega also sued two officials with the correction officer’s union, accusing them of protecting Jasmin, but they were dismissed from the case.

Regarding Orr’s lawsuit, Correction Department spokeswoman Latima Johnson said, “We take claims of sexual harassment and assault seriously. These allegations are under investigation.”

But she wouldn’t comment on whether Jasmin had been investigated or disciplined for sexual misconduct in any of the past incidents or other incidents. She also wouldn’t answer e-mailed questions about Jasmin’s current status in the Correction Department.


©2024 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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