Charges dismissed for man now barred from collecting cash in controversial rape case
Seven years after a Crown Heights man’s charges were dismissed after spending 10 months on Rikers Island for repeatedly raping and sex trafficking his Orthodox Jewish neighbor, a Brooklyn judge tossed his civil rights lawsuit.
Damien Crooks and four others, all black men, were accused in 2010 by a 22-year-old woman of beating, raping and prostituting her for several years.
As prosecutors reinvestigated the woman’s claims, she signed a recantation document with detectives where she admitted to forming a bond with her alleged captures — known as traumatic bonding — and had consensual sex with Crooks. Under pressure from the police to continue to press charges or get arrested for prostitution, the case continued, according to court documents.