The Yonkers family of Layleen Polanco, who died in solitary confinement on Rikers Island, has agreed to settle a lawsuit against the city for $5.9 million —a record for an inmate’s death in a New York City jail.
She was only 27 when she died from a seizure on June 7, 2019, after spending nine days in solitary confinement at Rikers’ on $500 bail.
Layleen Polanco had been jailed in lieu of $500 bail for a 2017 arrest for misdemeanor sex work and drug possession charges.
An undercover cop picked her up at a West Side hotel.
Layleen Polanco was sent to Manhattan’s human trafficking court, a “problem-solving” court that aims to refer people it deems victims of sex work to services instead of prosecuting them.
But she missed court dates and her case was never dismissed.
She was arrested again in April 2019 for allegedly assaulting a taxi driver and could not make the $500 bail from the missed human trafficking court dates.
After initially denying that Polanco was in solitary, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration announced this summer that it would change solitary rules to explicitly exclude people with seizure conditions and certain other health problems, including asthma.
The mayor said the city will ultimately end the practice of solitary confinement, citing Layleen Polanco’s death as the catalyst.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration promised that it would discipline 17 uniformed jail staffers.
The fate of the transgender woman, who died in isolation, spurred local and national calls to ban solitary confinement, and inspired some Yonkers protesters who carried her image while chanting “Black Trans Lives Matter.”
The record setting settlement will allow Layleen Polanco’s Yonkers family to move forward without enduring years of protracted litigation.
Layleen Polanco, a member of the city ballroom scene’s known as the “House of Xtravaganza”.
Layleen Polanco’s casket, at her Yonkers funeral, was flanked by a rainbow banner bearing the word “Human”.
The $5.9 million payout is believed to be a record for a death in a city jail, surpassing the $5.75 million that went to the family of Bradley Ballard, a mentally ill man who was found naked and covered in his own waste after being locked for six days in a Rikers Island cell in 2013.
Last year, the city reached a $3.3 million settlement with the family of Kalief Browder, a teen who spent three years on Rikers Island after being accused of stealing a backpack. In 2015, two years after being released, he hanged himself at age 22.