Westchester Woman Suing NYC, Claims She Was Assaulted, Robbed As She Waited To Pay Son's Bail
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A mother desperate to free her only child from a Manhattan jail believes she was set up by city workers.
The Westchester County woman was told to pay tens of thousands of dollars in cash for bail, but when she showed up she said correction employees forced her to wait, and she was eventually assaulted and robbed. She's now suing the city, CBS2's Lisa Rozner reported Monday.
A tiny bail office at the Manhattan Detention Center on White Street is where Linda Shapiro of White Plains said she clutched onto a bag holding $30,000 cash bail for seven hours. She was trying to prevent her only son from being transferred to Rikers Island.
"I said, 'Please help me. I'm holding all this money,'" Shapiro said. "I would stay there, wait, but could they please take the cash and I'll stand do the paperwork," Shapiro said.
Instead, she said Department of Correction workers refused, allegedly even telling her to go shopping to pass the time.
"There must have been 15 people taken care of immediately, but there I was standing," Shapiro said.
Police said at around 7 p.m. two men walked in and tased Shapiro, then 66 years old. It was May 10, 2016.
"He grabbed me and he started shaking me and slamming me against wall," Shapiro said.
They stole her purse full of the cash, which one of them is seen on video holding, and Shapiro believes correction employees set her up.
The NYPD says the criminal investigation is ongoing, and wouldn't confirm whether correction employees were interviewed.
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Shapiro is suing the city and the Department of Correction her attorney, Gerard Bilotto, says for the past three years the city has stonewalled.
"There's no reason I can't get information -- who the supervisors were, where the supervisors located," Bilotto said.
Video of the assault, which he says he initially viewed, was handed to him in piecemeal.
Rozner reached out to the Department of Correction for comment, but a spokesperson referred her to the city's law department.
By email, he said the allegations have not been substantiated. Documents from the Department of Correction read no investigation was conducted on the bail office incident.
The parties will be back in court in November.
