$4 Million Paid to Former Rikers Island Detainee Whose Reports of Repeated Rapes Were Ignored
by Chuck Sharman
On October 29, 2025, the City of New York authorized three payouts totaling $4 million to Terrence Rodgers, 32, a former detainee in the City’s Rikers Island jail complex, completing a trio of settlement agreements he reached the month before in suits filed over rapes he suffered from fellow detainees held by the City Department of Correction (DOC).
Rodgers hadn’t even made it onto Rikers Island in January 2019 when he was raped at knifepoint at the Manhattan Detention Complex, according to the first lawsuit he filed. Surveillance video captured the assailant, later identified as fellow detainee Thomas Gallishaw, as he entered Rodgers’ cell and again as he left—with what appeared to be a wet spot visible on the crotch of his pants. During the minutes the two were inside, an unnamed guard walked by but didn’t stop. DOC investigators dismissed Rodgers’ rape complaint after interviewing the alleged attacker, who denied the assault and said the two were talking about a book. The DOC agreed to settle Rodgers’ claims stemming from the incident with a payment of $1.4 million, inclusive of fees and costs for his attorneys, Robert and Joshua Kelner with Kelner & Kelner in New York City. See: Rodgers v. City of N.Y., N.Y. Supr. (Cty. of N.Y.), Case No. 152589/2020E.
In November of that same year, after Rodgers arrived on Rikers Island and was confined in the Anna M. Kross Center, he was in the law library when he said that an unnamed detainee cornered him and threatened to stab him if he didn’t submit to the second sexual assault. Again, surveillance video corroborated that the two men left the library together and went to the recreation yard, where Rodgers said that the rape took place. Again, DOC investigators dismissed his complaint, reporting that it was “uncertain as to whether or not the engagement between the two (people in custody) was consensual.” The DOC settled claims from this incident with a $900,000 payment, also inclusive and costs and fees for Rodgers’ attorneys with Kelner & Kelner. See: Rodgers v. City of N.Y., N.Y. Supr. (Cty. of Bronx), Case No. 35442/2020E.
Rodgers’ third suit raised claims from multiple sexual assaults that he endured while still held at the Kross Center in 2022. That March, he said, he was raped in his cell overnight by one detainee who found easy access into his cell thanks to its broken door lock. The guard on duty that night resigned two weeks later, and the DOC failed to preserve surveillance video from the cameras covering Rodgers’ cell. Nevertheless, DOC investigators determined that the complaint was unsubstantiated.
No surveillance video was preserved that might have corroborated another rape in April by another fellow detainee in the shower—even though Rodgers reported it the same day. DOC investigators claimed that the surveillance footage “expired” before they could review it, and they again labeled the complaint unsubstantiated.
The accused rapist in the third incident admitted entering Rodgers’ cell in June, but DOC investigators were unable to corroborate even that much of the story because camera placement did not provide them video evidence. They then dismissed the complaint after interviewing the alleged assailant, who said that he and Rodgers smoked marijuana together but denied that any sexual assault occurred. For all three sexual assault claims from 2022, the DOC agreed to pay Rodgers $900,000, including costs and fees for his Kelner & Kelner attorneys. See: Rodgers v. City of N.Y., N.Y. Supr. (Cty. of Bronx), Case No. 813736/2022E.
Attorney Joshua Kelner told The City that the DOC failed his client, who was susceptible to assault because of his sexuality—Rodgers is gay—and developmental disabilities. “He relied on corrections officers to protect him from harm,” the attorney said. “He instead was repeatedly victimized, and no officer or assailant was ever held accountable. His tragic case is yet more evidence of the systemic breakdown at Rikers.”
Additional sources: Brooklyn Daily Eagle, The City
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Related legal case
Rodgers v. City of N.Y., N.Y. Supr. (Cty. of Bronx)
| Year | 2022 |
|---|---|
| Cite | Case No. 813736 |
| Level | State Supreme Court |