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LIC subway rape victim files suit against MTA
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by CJaye | April 8, 2009 at 04:42 am
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A Queens judge has thrown out a suit against the MTA and two of its employees filed by a woman who was raped on the platform of the G train's 21st Street stop and accused onlooking transit workers of not doing enough to help her. Subway conductor Harmodio Cruz and station agent John Koort both called the command center to alert authorities of the assault in progress, but Cruz allowed his train to leave the station and Koort did not call cops directly. The judge said that the effectiveness of those extra efforts was "pure speculation." He added, "This is not the type of egregious situation that offends common sense and decency ... where they watched and did nothing." By the time cops arrived, the rapist had escaped and has not since been caught. The lawyer for the victim, an artist and an NYU student at the time of the attack, said that she was crying and devastated at the news. He told reporters, "How inept do their transit workers actions need to be before the courts will let a New Yorker file a case like this?" What will it take someone to be murdered? This is a crime and the workers stood buy and watched! This is no different than watching someone shoot a person and do nothing about it. Doesn't that make you an accessory to the crime? If it had been an incident against the city you can bet the courts would have looked at it differently. I'm just at awe that such a brutal crime took place against this women and nothing was done! NOTHING!
source:http://gothamist.com/2009/04/03/subway_platform_rape_victim_speak_o.php
The attorney for a Brooklyn woman who was raped four years ago on a Long Island City subway platform said the city Transit Authority and two of its employees should pay for failing to protect the victim as she pleaded for help.
Maria Besedina, 25, was sexually assaulted around 2 a.m. by a man on the subway platform of the G line at Long Island City’s 21st Street station in June 2005. The rapist, who was never apprehended, had sat down next to the victim on an empty subway train and touched her leg, attorney Marc Albert said.
Besedina confronted the man and left the train, but the assailant began licking her foot and ankle once she was on the platform, Albert said. She ran toward a toll booth clerk at the station and called for help, but the clerk merely looked on as the assailant dragged her back down the stairs to the subway platform and raped her multiple times, Albert said.
“He knew a rape was going on and sat in his booth for 10 minutes and did nothing,” Albert said of the toll booth clerk. “And there is no public address system in that station, so he could not communicate with people on the level below. The whole thing is ludicrous. What the MTA is saying is that no matter how stupefying their lack of security is at this station, they are immune from this lawsuit because they are a government agency.”
An MTA spokesman said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Besedina filed a suit against the Transit Authority, the toll booth clerk and a conductor who drove a train through the station as the rape was occurring but did not stop, on the grounds they should have stepped in to help, Albert said. A Queens Supreme Court judge heard a motion in mid−February from the Transit Authority, which asked for the case to be dismissed before it went to trial, Albert said.
The MTA argued that the toll booth clerk followed procedure by not leaving the booth, Albert said. The clerk hit a button that connected him to a command center, but the rapist had fled by the time police arrived 10 minutes later, he said.
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at 06:05 on April 8th, 2009
Your comment is a part copy from http://gothamist.com/2009/04/01/g_train_platform_rape_victim_loses.php
Please use your own words rather then copy some once work.
at 05:50 on April 29th, 2009
THE REST OF THAT COMMENT I COPIED & PASTED AND A FEW COMMENTS FROM THEIR VIEWERS.
The rapist then dragged her down the stairs; Besdein explained, "I had been violated and raped on the stairs on the lower level and then dragged over to a tool-box kind of thing [on the platform] and raped. I had lost all my dignity." A subway pulled into the station, but even though conductor Harmodio Cruz saw her, he called command and let his train continue through the station. It took police 10 minutes, after receiving calls from MTA command, to arrive. Besedin, an NYU graduate who dropped out of Fordham's graduate psychology program after the attack, said, "By the time somebody came, I mean, I had lost all my dignity, and it was over." The rape suspect has never been found.
Here's video of her press conference. Her lawyer says they will appeal, with Besedin adding, "I thought the judge would be able to see how crucial an issue it is. Especially now that the MTA wants to charge us even more to ride their unsafe trains."
1. "Next time I see someone beating an MTA employee senseless, I'll make sure to break out the popcorn"
2. "Welcome to the common law, where there's no duty to rescue.
But... there must be some argument that the MTA has responsibility for the safety of its patrons; after all MTA invites the public into its facilities, and MTA certainly creates the impression - by having the station agents who are supposed to ensure safety, ditto the conductors, as alluded to above - that keep us safe, they will.
What a terrible thing to happen to anyone."
3. "She IS a victim and I hope she gets through this. Whoever raped her should rot in hell.
BUT and there always is one....
I'm a big beefy guy and I would never dream of being on any of the "G"?!?! trains or their platforms after 10pm.
That subway line has got to be one of the most desolate, least active and reliable in the the system.
and yeah, before the trolls chime in.
Who would want to rape your big beefy fat ass?
Exactly, even I couldn't pay some cro-magnon to rape my ass so it would absolutely be on a CAB going home @ 3am.
If you can't cough up the extra price of two cocktails for a cab, then maybe you should rethink partying a bit. It's a percentage game, she took a risk and it failed horribly.
I would never depend on or account on anyone but ME ever.
As for the MTA guy,
to blame someone for not rescuing her and because he didn't go above and beyond (which would have noble and heroic) the call of duty is ridiculous.
BOTH MTA WORKERS WERE COWARDS.
But does she deserve millions, hell no.
Shit like this went down daily in the 70's and 80's. We don't live in Disney World, it's called an urban jungle. Be as accountable for your own safety as possible.
pfft....3am?! you're crazy"
at 20:25 on April 24th, 2009
What is the name of the iiot Judge?
Why are NY States good Samaritin laws not being enforced?
at 05:52 on April 29th, 2009
Thank you for all your commnets