Derisma v. City of New York; Index No.:25-cv-1576

New Action filed in the United States District Court Eastern District of New York

On March 21, 2025, Plaintiff Derisma, by and through his attorneys, Borrelli & Associates, P.L.L.C., as and for his Complaint against The City of New York (“Defendant,” “City,” or sometimes both together), alleges upon knowledge as to himself and his own actions, and upon information and belief as to all other matter, as follows:

Plaintiff worked at the New York City Department of Corrections (“DOC”), a mayoral agency of Defendant City, as a corrections officer on Rikers Island, specifically at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center (“OBCC”) located in East Elmhurst, New York, and the Anna M. Kross Center (“AMKC”) located in Flushing, New York, from August 2015 until January 2024. For at least the three-year period pre-dating the commencement of this action through September 2023 (“the Relevant Period”), Defendant willfully failed to pay Plaintiff all overtime wages lawfully due to him under the Fair Labor Standards Act, either in full or in a timely manner. Specifically, throughout the Relevant Period, in addition to Plaintiff’s regular schedule of thirty-two hours per week, Defendant required Plaintiff to work additional unscheduled back-to-back shifts, ranging from sixteen to twenty-three hours each, for a total of  approximately eighty-eight hours of work in a week. Moreover, frequently, after Plaintiff’s shifts ended, on those instances when an inmate was unaccounted for, Defendant required Plaintiff to remain on Rikers Island until the missing inmate was accounted for. However, Defendant did not pay Plaintiff for many of the unscheduled hours of the unscheduled hours of his back-to-back shifts that were all over forty in a workweek, and never paid him for the time when he was required to remain on Rikers Island after his shifts concluded. Defendant did not pay Plaintiff for either category of these hours at any rate of pay, much less at the rate of one and one-half times his regular rate. In further violation of the FLSA, for the unscheduled overtime hours for which Defendant did pay Plaintiff, Defendant not pay Plaintiff for those hours in a timely manner, i.e., at the end of each pay period, paying him usually two or three pay cycles later instead. Defendant paid and treated all of its corrections officers, captains, and/or assistant deputy wardens, in the same manner.

If any individual is or has previously been an employee of the Defendants named in the lawsuit and/or has information that may be relevant to this case, please contact Borrelli & Associates, P.L.L.C. as soon as possible through one of our websites, www.employmentlawyernewyork.com or www.516abogado.com, or any of our phone numbers: (516) 248–5550, (516) ABOGADO, or (212) 679–5000.