Sex scandal rocks NYC Department of Correction. A man tells what happened to him.

NEW YORK — A new scandal has hit the beleaguered New York Department of Corrections.

More than 100 lawsuits were filed Tuesday alleging that sexual abuse is widespread in the city’s juvenile detention centers. The lawsuits allege there is a pattern of abuse that goes back decades.

The lawsuits were filed under a special “look-back” law passed by the City Council and seek damages. A city spokesman said that while most of the cases predate Mayor Eric Adams’ tenure, the city takes the allegations seriously and will work with the legal department to resolve them.

Nijere Stewart told his story to Marcia Kramer of CBS New York

In an exclusive interview, Stewart said he was repeatedly raped and assaulted during his five months in custody.

Kramer saw pictures of Stewart from happier times, including his eighth-grade graduation from middle school.

“I was a straight-A student. I was a fun kid, always smiling, running around, always going somewhere,” Stewart said.

But that changed dramatically in 2008, when he was incarcerated at the Crossroads Detention Center in Brooklyn at the age of 15. His version of events is that he was “hanging out outside a building with some friends and the police came. They found a gun under the stairs that didn’t belong to any of us.”

He said that ultimately no charges were brought against him “because the gun did not belong to me. It was not mine.”

According to a lawsuit against the Department of Corrections, he nevertheless spent five months at Crossroads, a time that became hell and scarred him forever.

“Mr Stewart was sexually abused in a very serious way”

Attorney Jerry Block is filing the lawsuits against the city and the Department of Correction on behalf of Stewart and other juvenile clients who have spent time in the city’s juvenile correctional facilities – Crossroads, Horizon, Rikers and Spofford, which has since closed.

“Many of our clients have been raped. Many have been forced to perform oral sex or other sexual acts. These cases are so serious because the perpetrators are adults,” Block said. “The very people who are responsible for the safety of our clients, the correctional officers, the counselors, the nurses, all these different staff members, they were the ones who committed the abuse.”

In some cases the abuse began immediately. Sometimes the children were “groomed.”

“We have many cases where there has been initiation and manipulation, where children have been given alcohol, drugs or special privileges,” said Block.

In Stewart’s case, he says, it was violence and brutality

“They touched me sexually. They asked me to do things I didn’t want to do,” Stewart said when asked what was done to him. “It’s a lot of things that come to mind. I don’t want to go through that again.”

When asked if he had been raped, Stewart said, “Yeah, right,” adding, “It makes me feel less of a man.”

When he finally left Crossroads, he was no longer the same carefree boy who had entered there five months earlier.

“Because of the abuse, I was afraid to interact with people. I was afraid to tell people where I was and what had happened to me because people would ask me where I had been and I was just afraid to tell people what was going on,” Stewart said.

Block said his clients have suffered long-term trauma as a result of their experiences in prison.

“Our clients have suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and they have suffered from it their entire lives. It is well known that childhood sexual abuse is one of the worst traumas a person can experience,” Block said.