The Franklin County undersheriff was abruptly terminated and replaced in November after a lawsuit, which was filed in August, accused him of raping an inmate while he was a corrections officer at the Franklin County Jail in 1999.

County documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Law show former undersheriff Bruce Barney’s termination was effective as of Nov. 13, 2023.

Sheriff Jay Cook says he does not believe the allegations in the lawsuit against his former second-in-command are truthful.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “(But) we decided that it would be best that he not work here as undersheriff with a lawsuit pending from 1999, which was ridiculous.”

Barney said Cook initially asked him to resign, but he said he wouldn’t because he didn’t do anything wrong. He was placed on suspension on Oct. 28, 2023 and eventually terminated on Nov. 13.

Ultimately, the termination was Cook’s decision. After multiple meetings with county officials and the county attorney, he felt, because of the pending lawsuit involving Barney, it was best they “part ways.”

“It’s not right that they terminated me,” Barney said. “It just makes me look guilty and I’m not.”

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The lawsuit

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A woman is suing the county and the sheriff’s department for sexual abuse she claims Barney inflicted while she was an inmate at Franklin County Jail in 1999. The county has responded to these allegations to the court through their lawyers, denying many of the claims in the lawsuit.

The woman sued the county through the Adult Survivors Act, which the New York state Legislature passed in 2022. The ASA allowed adults who were victims of sexual violence years ago to sue for psychical or psychological injury from a sexual offense after the statute of limitations for that offense had lapsed. The ASA expired on Nov. 24, 2023; this lawsuit was filed before the cutoff.

Legally, the accusations against Barney include sexual misconduct rape in first, second and third degrees; criminal sexual act in first, second and third degrees; forcible touching; sexual abuse in the first second and third degrees; and aggravated sexual abuse in the first, second, third and fourth degrees.

The sexual abuse is alleged to have happened on two occasions on the same date, before she arrived at the jail in October 1999. The lawsuit describes how the woman was being transported from the New York City corrections department to Franklin County Jail when Barney allegedly touched and fondled her breasts under her clothes and raped her without a condom and without her consent in the back of the transport vehicle.

The lawsuit is seeking $20 million in damages for a range of physical and psychological harms from the alleged attack.

The woman is represented by the Slater Slater Schulman law firm and the county is represented by the Ahmuty, Demers and McManus law firm. This lawsuit is ongoing, with the last action taken on it being the county’s denial of many of the allegations in late December.

Attorney Janice Berkowitz from Ahmuty, Demers and McManus said they do not comment on pending litigation. Slater Slater Schulman also said they didn’t want to comment on pending litigation.

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The fallout

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Cook brought Barney on as undersheriff after he was elected in 2022. After Barney’s termination, Cook promoted Wade Sullivan to fill the undersheriff slot.

“It was very frustrating,” Cook said. “There were no allegations made at the time. We investigated and researched. This is just ludicrous.”

He said the department searched their records and found no record of allegations against Barney made at the time.

The lawsuits alleges that the department didn’t document these allegations at the time. According to the lawsuit, the woman reported the sexual abuse to the county and sheriff’s department in 1999, but nothing came of it and it was not documented.

“I couldn’t tell you. That was way before my time here,” Cook said when asked about these allegations.

The Enterprise filed a Freedom of Information Law request for Barney’s disciplinary records. Aside from the termination paperwork, the only other documents provided were one-day suspensions related to sick day use and “spreading rumors” among staff.

The lawsuit alleges that previously, other inmates had reported Barney’s alleged “propensity to commit sexual abuse” to the county and sheriff’s department without documentation or action. It accuses the county and sheriff at the time of being “careless, reckless and negligent” in the screening process, and says the sheriff at the time failed to properly investigate these previous reports.

Barney had retired in July 2021, “with a clean record,” he said, before coming back when Cook asked him to be his undersheriff in July 2022.

“I was always professional,” Barney said.

“None of it’s true,” he said of the lawsuit. “There’s a lot of holes in this.”

He said he can’t talk much about the lawsuit itself, but he did say transportations were always done with a partner and that partner is not mentioned in the lawsuit.

The woman’s lawyers declined to comment on this, saying they didn’t want to comment on pending litigation.

According to the lawsuit, the Franklin County sheriff at the time had not appointed a Prison Rape Elimination Act point person with sufficient resources to investigate claims such as this one.

The lawsuit also accuses Barney of “grooming” inmates by trading gifts, contraband and privileges to coerce them into sexual acts.

The lawsuit describes how inmates are incapable of consent with corrections officers. COs are in positions of power, authority, influence, control and coercion over inmates and can exert these powers through discipline, punishment and retaliation, the lawsuit states.

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The system

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The lawsuit, one of many filed around the state after the passing of the ASA, says this woman’s case is part of a larger, pervasive and systemic issue in the correctional system as a whole. The county has also been sued in a second lawsuit alleging offenses in 1997, but Cook said no specific names were given in that one.

The lawsuit describes how “sexual abuse (is) perpetuated systematically” against female inmates.

The woman accusing Barney has also filed a similar lawsuit against the state of New York accusing a CO at Lakeview Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility of similar sexual assault in 2000.

More than 3,000 civil suits were filed between Nov. 24, 2022 and Nov. 24, 2023 following the passing of the ASA. Hundreds of these lawsuits alleged sex abuse at prisons and jails, including at least 479 alleging abuse at Rikers Island specifically, according to the New York Times.

Slater Slater Schulman LLP filed nearly 1,800 of these cases, around half of the total number of lawsuits — including at least 1,218 cases against the state, 479 against New York City and 74 against counties for sex abuse allegations against COs, the Times reported.