Father Sues Suffolk County, State Over Daughter's Assault at Psych Centers

Frank Gervasi, the East Patchogue father who personally tracked down his 14-year-old daughter and pulled her from a sex-trafficking ring aboard a boat docked at Islip's WhiteCap Marina, filed a federal lawsuit Monday accusing Suffolk County and New York State of failing to protect her from further sexual abuse while she was held in their legal custody.

The complaint, filed through his attorneys at Keegan & Keegan Ross & Rosner in Patchogue, traces a chain of institutional failures that began the moment the state took over her care. After Gervasi rescued Emmarae from the marina on January 3, 2025, a Suffolk Family Court judge remanded her to Sagamore Children's Psychiatric Center in Dix Hills, a state-run inpatient facility operated by the New York State Office of Mental Health, for treatment following her 25-day trafficking ordeal. She had vanished from East Patchogue on December 9, 2024, when she stepped into an unknown car just after 5 p.m.

Within days of her admission to Sagamore, the abuse resumed under state supervision. DeShaun McClean, 42, a mental health therapist aide from Deer Park, allegedly molested Emmarae on at least two documented occasions. Surveillance footage cited in court records showed McClean touching the teenager's private body parts, performing massages, and watching her engage in sexual activity on multiple occasions between January 9 and January 28, roughly three weeks when she was supposed to be recovering under state care.

The lawsuit's central allegation is that the danger was knowable, and known. Sagamore staff had already reported to a supervisor that McClean was being "handsy" with the teenager, according to the notice of claim preceding the federal filing. Facility administrators then told Gervasi directly that an employee's inappropriate contact "was being addressed and that the individual would not pose any further risk to his daughter." The suit argues that assurance was broken, and that both Suffolk County and the state violated his constitutional family rights by placing Emmarae in custody without ensuring the basic safeguards they promised.

McClean, the tenth person charged in connection with Emmarae's case, was arrested February 4, 2025, on two counts of criminal sexual contact with a person incapable of consent and endangering the welfare of a child. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in Suffolk County District Court and was released on $5,000 bail. More than a dozen people in total have been charged in connection with the trafficking ring that held Emmarae captive, including boat owner Francis Buckheit, 64, and Alton Harrell, 35, both facing rape, kidnapping, and child endangerment charges.

Suffolk County and state officials declined to comment on the civil action, citing the ongoing criminal proceedings. The federal lawsuit now asks a court to assign institutional liability to the agencies that held custody of Emmarae during what was supposed to be her recovery, and to determine whether the safeguards governing New York's state-run psychiatric placements for trafficking survivors are adequate to the task.