Sue 3 COs, Agency In Fatal Beating Of Teenager at Rikers

The mother of a Rikers Island inmate whose brutal death was at the center of the corruption indictment of three officers has filed a civil suit against the Correction Department charging the improper training of Correction Officers contributed to the death of her son.

"Clearly, the Correction Officers should have been better trained to realize something was wrong," said the mother's attorney, Sanford A. Rubenstein, in a phone interview.

A Correction Department spokesman declined comment because of the pending litigation.

Inmates Extorted, Enforced

Fellow inmates who were part of a criminal enterprise allegedly overseen by three COs beat Christopher Robinson to death on Oct. 18, 2008. Correction Officers Michael McKie, 31, and Khalid Nelson, 34, along with alleged accomplice CO Denise Albright, 43, were indicted three months later and face as much as 25 years in prison for their role in allowing "The Program," as it was called, to function in the Robert N. Davoren Center. They were charged with presiding over a system of extortion and enforcement carried out by inmates on "The Team" who were given free rein inside Rikers Island.

Charnel Robinson, Christopher's mother, filed a suit Aug. 3 in Bronx Supreme Court seeking unspecified damages. The lawsuit charges that the Correction Department was at fault for the way it trained Correction Officers. "They could have started an investigation of facial assaults," said Mr. Rubenstein. "It shouldn't have taken the death of an inmate to start that."

He said the lawsuit would move forward unless it was put on hold by the criminal proceeding against the three officers.

"Clearly, management of the correction facility was not what it should be," he said. "They had an obligation to make the facility safe for all prisoners."

The lawsuit also names the three Correction Officers, accusing them of ceding the responsibility for maintaining One Main reserved for juveniles in the Robert N. Davoren Center to those they recruited. It states that "if an inmate failed to agree to the terms of the Program he would be violently assaulted or disciplined."