By Michele Evans / NYweeklyRecord.com / Date: 10/16/2026
Category: New York Prisons / Mental Health / Civil Rights
NEW YORK CITY, NY –
A federal judge has allowed a constitutional claim to continue against two officials responsible for a mental-health unit at Marcy Correctional Facility, where incarcerated men say they were left in near-constant isolation without required treatment and programming.
U.S. District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino ruled September 30 that an Eighth Amendment deliberate-indifference claim may proceed against Marcy Superintendent Bennie Thorpe and Residential Mental Health Unit chief Vincent LoRusso.
The decision does not find either official liable. At this stage, the court tests whether the complaint alleges enough facts for the claim to move forward and generally accepts well-pleaded allegations as true.
Seven plaintiffs with serious mental illnesses filed the case in 2025. Court records say they were assigned the highest level of mental-health services offered inside New York state prisons.
The complaint alleges that regular programming at Marcy’s Residential Mental Health Unit stopped after a statewide correction officer strike began in February 2025. The men say they were then confined to their cells for nearly 24 hours a day.
Disability Rights New York visited the unit in August 2025 after receiving reports of suicide attempts, near-constant isolation, and lost out-of-cell treatment. The organization later sent prison officials a findings letter alleging abuse and neglect and recommending corrective action.
New York law and prison regulations describe residential mental-health units as therapeutic settings, not disciplinary housing. The rules call for structured treatment and additional time outside cells for people with serious mental illness.
A temporary injunction, entered by agreement while the case is pending, requires four hours of structured therapeutic programming or treatment on weekdays, three hours of other congregate activity, and one additional hour of recreation. That totals seven hours outside a cell each day. The order also required out-of-cell mental-health evaluations for consenting residents, a step later reported complete.
Judge D’Agostino dismissed several defendants and other claims, including claims against the state, DOCCS, the Office of Mental Health, Governor Kathy Hochul, and agency commissioners. The surviving Eighth Amendment claim is narrower and remains directed at Thorpe and LoRusso in their official capacities.
The plaintiffs seek court orders changing conditions, not monetary damages in the surviving claim described by the ruling. Class-certification deadlines will resume as the case proceeds.
The unanswered questions are concrete. The state has not yet been found responsible for the alleged conditions. The record still must show what Thorpe and LoRusso knew, what authority they had, what actions they took, and whether current safeguards can prevent a return to prolonged isolation during future staffing crises.
For people sent to a unit because they need intensive mental-health care, time outside a cell is part of the treatment structure. The lawsuit will test whether Marcy officials met that duty when the prison system was under strain.
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