Bright v. Annucci

OPINION & ORDER

NELSON S. ROMÁN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

On November 28, 2018, Plaintiff Willie Bright (“Plaintiff”), proceeding pro se, initiated this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (“Section 1983”) against numerous employees of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (“DOCCS”) and a private physician arising from repeated brutal sexual assaults by correctional officers, deprivations of medical care, and retaliations against him over the course of one year. (ECF No. 2.) On July 25, 2019, Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint asserting, in sum, claims pursuant to Section 1983 for: (1) excessive force, (2) deliberate indifference to medical needs, (3) retaliation, and (4) failure to protect. (Amended Complaint (“Am. Compl.”) (ECF No. 57).) Plaintiff also nominally asserts claims for violations of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (“PREA”). (Id.) He asserts some or all of these claims against approximately 21 DOCCS employees, i.e., Anthony J. Annucci (“Annucci”), Thomas Griffin (“Griffin”), Donald Wilkins (“Wilkins”), Sergeant M. Blot (“Blot”), Dr. Karuchee (“Karuchee”), Officer R. Kelly (“Kelly”), Officer CJ Dillon (“Dillon”), Officer Roggers (“Roggers”), Sergeant Johanni (“Johanni”), Officer Freeman (“Freeman”), OSI Inspector H. Pharr (“Pharr”), OSI Deputy Chief Y. Urracia (“Urracia”), Dr. Bentivegna (“Bentivegna”), Colleen Gleason (“Gleason”), Yitzchak Sudranski (“Sudranski”), C.O. Ersan Kahyaoglu

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(“Kahyaoglu”), Susanne Roessel (“Roessel”), Adam Barter (“Barter”), Irma Russo (“Russo”), Charlene Cody (“Cody”), and Lieutenant Orazio Bucolo (“Bucolo”) (collectively, the “DOCCS Defendants”). Plaintiff also asserts a claim for deliberate indifference to medical needs as against private physician Dr. Anthony Ruvo (“Dr. Ruvo”).

Presently before the Court is DOCCS Defendants' motion to partially dismiss the Amended Complaint and Dr. Ruvo's motion to dismiss the Amended Complaint. (See DOCCS Defendants' Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 107); Dr. Ruvo's Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 104).) DOCCS Defendants do not move to dismiss the Eighth Amendment excessive force claim against Defendants Blot, Kelly, Roggers, Johanni, and Freemen, the deliberate indifference to medical needs claim against Defendant Barter, or the First Amendment retaliation claim against Defendants Blot, Karuchee, Gleason, and Kahyaoglu. Instead, they seek dismissal of: (1) any purported private cause of action pursuant to PREA, (2) deliberate indifference to medical needs claims against Defendants Blot, Sudranski, Kahyaoglu, Gleason, Karuchee, Bucolo, Roessel, and Bentivegna, (3) any official capacity claims, (4) any claims against Defendant Russo, (5) any claims against Defendant Annuccci based upon his lack of personal involvement, and (6) failure to protect claims against Defendants Annucci, Griffin, Wilkins, Russo, Urracia, and Pharr. Defendant Ruvo seeks dismissal of any deliberate indifference to medical needs claim asserted against him on the grounds that he is not a state actor.

DOCCS Defendants submitted their memorandum of law in support of their motion to partially dismiss the Amended Complaint (“DOCCS Mem.” (ECF No. 108)) and reply memorandum in further support of their motion (“DOCCS Reply” (ECF No. 109)). Dr. Ruvo submitted a memorandum in support of his motion to dismiss (“Dr. Ruvo Mem.” (ECF No. 104-2)) and reply memorandum in further support of his motion (“Dr. Ruvo Reply” (ECF No. 106)).

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Plaintiff opposed both motions through the filing of an omnibus opposition memorandum. (See Memorandum of Law in Opposition to Defendants' Motions to Dismiss (“Pl's Opp.”) (ECF No. 105).)

For the following reasons, Dr. Ruvo's motion is GRANTED and DOCCS Defendants' motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.

BACKGROUND

The following facts are derived from the Amended Complaint or matters of which the Court may take judicial notice, are taken as true, and construed in the light most favorable to pro se Plaintiff for the purposes of this motion. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009); Nicosia v. Amazon.com, Inc., 834 F.3d 220, 230 (2d Cir. 2016).

Plaintiff is an inmate currently incarcerated at Clinton Correctional Facility. The events of this litigation arise out of several shocking violent incidents that allegedly occurred between 2015 and 2016 at Green Haven Correctional Facility (“Green Haven”) including, among other things, the repeated anal assault of Plaintiff by correctional officers, threats to murder or further rape Plaintiff made by correctional officers in order to scare him into recanting adverse testimony in a separate case brought against correctional officers, verbal abuse directed at Plaintiff regarding his sexual preferences, and repeated denials or delays of medical treatment for profuse anal bleeding and the presence of foreign objects in his rectum that eventually necessitated surgical extraction and resulted in permanent injuries.

Sometime before the alleged incidents of rape and sexual assault, Plaintiff provided testimony in a lawsuit against certain correctional officers in support of another inmate. (Am. Compl. at 9.) As discussed further below, DOCCS Defendants allegedly engaged in extreme and violent measures to attempt to compel Plaintiff to recant his testimony.

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I. The December 29, 2015 Sexual Assault

On December 29, 2015, Plaintiff was placed in a prison suicide intervention room at Green Haven, found a ripped sheet that had been deliberately placed there by unidentified prison officials, and attempted suicide by hanging with the ripped sheet which he fashioned as a noose. (Id. 6-7.) Meanwhile, Defendant Blot and other unidentified correctional officers watched Plaintiff's suicide attempt and laughed. (Id. at 8.) The noose snapped, Plaintiff fell to the ground, and Officer Blot entered the room, placed Plaintiff in metal mechanical restraints, cut the sheet from around his neck, stripped Plaintiff of his body wrap, flipped Plaintiff onto his stomach, and sat on Plaintiff's lower back. (Id.)

After restraining Plaintiff, Blot proceeded to digitally penetrate Plaintiff's anus (inserting his entire hand) so forcefully that Plaintiff screamed in agony, began to experience extensive internal bleeding from his rectum, and noticed blood fall down his testicles. (Id. at 9.) Blot then told Plaintiff that he should retract his aforementioned testimony against certain prison officials and keep quiet about the current incident or he would personally see to it that Plaintiff would be subjected to even worse sexual harassment. (Id.) Subsequently, Blot removed the blood-soaked mattress, sheet, and body wrap from the room, and attempted to mop up the blood on the floor before leaving and locking Plaintiff in the room. (Id. at 10.)

Afterwards, non-party Nurse Barett arrived outside of Plaintiff's room, noticed that his mattress, sheets, and clothes were missing, and inquired about their whereabouts. (Id. at 12.) Plaintiff recounted his suicide attempt and the sexual assault and requested that Nurse Barett take steps to make sure that any remaining evidence was preserved for an investigation. (Id.) Plaintiff also requested to be sent to an outside hospital. (Id. at 13.) Nurse Barett sent Plaintiff to the prison clinic to let the prison clinicians determine whether Plaintiff needed outside medical treatment. (Id.) Nurse Barett also advised him that he assumed prison officials would notify the Office of

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Special Investigations (“OSI”) tonight and recommended that Plaintiff inform the medical staff if he wished to speak with law enforcement about pressing charges. (Id.)

When Plaintiff arrived at the prison clinic, he described the sexual assault to an unnamed doctor, the doctor visually inspected Plaintiff's rectum, took a close look at his injuries, determined that Plaintiff should be sent to an outside hospital for medical treatment, and memorialized his observation that Plaintiff had rectal trauma. (Id. at 14.) Separately, dried blood was identified in his room as reflected in Plaintiff's ambulatory medical report (which is mentioned in, but not attached to, the Amended Complaint).

While Plaintiff was awaiting transportation to the outside medical provider, Defendant Blot told Defendants Sudranski and Kahyaoglu (the officers that were going to transport Plaintiff) that he attempted to “convince the watch command[e]r not to give this homo piece of shit medical security clearance for this trip, but that fucken [sic] Nurse Barett is threatening to call State Police if we don't send him out, so we gotta send him out, but we did the next best thing[, ] we notified a friend at the hospital[, ] and the Doctor [i.e., Defendant Dr. Ruvo] who will be assigned to him will be waiting outside when you guys get there[.] [H]e's a good friend of the Department and has already been told what to do to make this all go away.” (Id. at 15.) Blot further stated that “there will be no PREA examination for this homo who like to rat on correctional officers in law suits and no state police” and that Dr. Ruvo “work[s] for us” and would “say what we tell [him].” (Id.) Blot also instructed Officers Sudranski and Kahyaoglu to “do whatever you need to do to keep [Plaintiff's] mouth closed out there.” (Id.)

When Plaintiff arrived at Mount Vernon Hospital Dr. Ruvo was waiting outside of the hospital and waved at the prison van. (Id. at 16.) Plaintiff advised Dr. Ruvo that he'd been “raped and [that he was] injured and still bleeding from [his] rectum and [that he was] in great pain [and

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that he needed] treatment and to be seen by a PREA sexual assault examiner.” (Id.) Dr. Ruvo advised Plaintiff that he was only performing a lower body x-ray examination and that he could report...