A former Rikers guard who was sexually assaulted by an inmate claimed that a nurse at the notorious prison might have gotten away with the attempted rape if supervisors had taken her attack more seriously, The Post has learned. I found out from the report.
Yessica Delacruz told the Post that she first encountered Michael Cleaver shortly after 2 a.m. on Nov. 12, 2021, when he was working the night shift at one of the prison’s clinics and was working the night shift to treat inmates. He said he was being transferred from the reception cell to the medical unit.
“He grabbed me by the upper part aggressively,” Delacruz, 40, said. He is suing the city in Bronx Supreme Court for damages and emotional distress. “And he grabbed my chest.”
Cleaver, 55, had just been arrested on Nov. 9 on charges of robbery, harassment and menacing, records show.
The officer said he managed to push Cleaver back into his cell and locked the door before calling his supervisor about the attack.
Since no one was coming, he decided to close the clinic.
However, when they tried to return the other inmates to the cell, Mr. Cleaver tried to escape again.
“He came to the door and started pushing the door like a football player,” she said of the 5-foot-6, 210-pound inmate. “He grabbed me and tried to attack me. He was trying desperately to attack me.”
Cleaver eventually backed away and a male officer came to his aid. But Cleaver wasn’t done yet, Delacruz said.
“He pushed the officer to the side and he ran back to me,” she said, explaining that she was standing 6 feet away for safety. “He threw himself at me.” Mr. Delacruz, who is about the same height as Cleaver but weighs 50 pounds less, used his left hand to restrain Cleaver and fired pepper spray at him.
She said no one was able to help her as her partner went to work in another area. Nurses at the clinic were said to have cringed in fear.
Moments later, as she was washing her face in the locker room, crying from the shock and pepper spray, a deputy guard knocked.
“I went to his office and he was watching a video laughing at the nurses running away,” she recalled. “He just goes, ‘Hahahahahaha. Look at her running.’ I couldn’t believe it. The laughter and the sarcasm.”
The prison warden told her to report and that everything would be fine by the next day. He also said, “Don’t tell her husband,” she recalled. It confused her, but she says she now believes he was trying to cover up her attack.
Prison officials then allowed her to go to a medical facility.
“Who do you think is in the cubicle next to me?” she asked. “The same inmate I sprayed was attacking me. Thank God he didn’t see me.”
She ran away from the clinic. It was around 7 a.m. and she had just returned from her second shift, she said.
About 14 hours later, Cleaver allegedly threw the unidentified 51-year-old nurse to the ground, locked her cell door, pulled her clothes off and attempted to rape her. Prosecutors said in court that the attack was stopped by another inmate who forced Cleaver to put on a sock.
Chad Luckman/New York Post
Records show Cleaver faces criminal charges for both attacks. The lawsuit is pending.
Delacruz believes that if her supervisor had taken her assault more seriously right away, she would have been safer around herself when Cleaver tried to rape her.
“He would have had chains on his hands and feet,” she says. “That attempted rape would not have happened.”
Her attorney, John Scola, said she is filing the lawsuit in hopes of making a difference.
“The Department of Corrections has failed to protect female employees from sexual assault by inmates and has refused to help female employees deal with the trauma of inmate sexual assault,” Scola said.
Dela Cruz, who serves in the Air National Guard, said he left the department after being denied a deployment to another area.
