Rikers investigations leader's return sets up battle with correction officers' union

Less than four months after a court-appointed manager took over key parts of the city's jail system, the correction officers' union is already fighting one of his first big hires: Sarena Townsend, a reformer who ran the department’s misconduct investigations until she was forced out four years ago.

Townsend is returning to an expanded version of her old job, and the union, which celebrated her ouster, is asking the federal judge in charge of the overhaul to "reassess" the move.

The Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association called Townsend’s return “a regressive decision” in a letter filed this week in the long-running federal case over violence in the city’s jails. The letter signed by COBA President Benny Boscio Jr. said Townsend “has shown herself to be incapable of dealing fairly with the uniformed members of DOC” and accuses her of taking the job “to exact revenge upon COBA and its membership.”

Townsend has rejoined the Department of Correction as senior deputy commissioner of investigations, intelligence and accountability, a newly created post that will handle staff misconduct investigations, gang intelligence and discipline across the jails, according to a May court filing. Townsend's return was first reported last month by The City Reporter.

This time, she answers not to the correction commissioner, but rather to Nicholas Deml, the system’s court-appointed “remediation manager,” who has sweeping powers to force reforms after Judge Laura Taylor Swain found the city in contempt of more than a dozen provisions of her orders. The appointment of Deml, a former CIA officer and Vermont corrections chief, was announced in January.

The union’s protest underscores how quickly Deml's early moves, and Townsend's appointment in particular, are unsettling the jails' status quo.

Elizabeth Glazer, the founder of the policy journal Vital City and a former director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, called the choice of Townsend “very telling” about how Deml intends to operate.

“It signals somebody who wants to understand and fix how the department operates, and wants somebody who is a truth teller, who will give it to him straight, whether it's good or bad,” Glazer said.

Glazer said Deml’s choice of Townsend also shows he wants someone who is “a problem solver … whose ultimate goal is the well-being of everybody in the facility, both incarcerated people and the officers.”

Townsend did not respond to an email requesting comment. Under the court's order, Deml and his team are barred from speaking to the media.

As a practical matter, the union may have little recourse. It is not a party to the case, and Boscio’s letter was filed as a friend-of-the-court submission. What’s more, Swain’s earlier judicial order creating the remediation manager position gives Deml wide latitude to “recruit, hire, train, terminate, promote, demote, transfer and evaluate employees” while making him “answerable only to the court.”

A spokesperson for the union did not return a request for comment.

The union and Townsend have long fought one another. As deputy commissioner for intelligence and investigations, Townsend dug through a backlog of thousands of use-of-force cases, work that earned her the admiration of reformers and made her a target of union criticism. In a report filed just days before former Mayor Eric Adams took office, Steve Martin, a federal monitor who conducts frequent assessments of the city’s jails for Swain, called Townsend “highly competent” and said her leadership was “critical to the success of this reform effort moving forward.”

However, roughly two weeks later, Louis Molina, Adams’ pick to oversee the department, fired Townsend, according to media reports at the time. The Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association celebrated the decision on social media.

“Good riddance!” the organization posted on X, writing that Townsend had a single mission to “serve as the puppet of a remote fed monitor hellbent on destroying the morale of our essential workforce by writing them up on frivolous charges.”

Townsend has returned fire in the years since. The union’s letter cites several public statements by Townsend, including social media posts calling the union “corrupt” and “bought-and-paid-for.” In another post cited in COBA’s letter, Townsend responded to reports that correction officers had threatened a city councilmember by replying “This is COBA 101. They despise women in power; especially those with the ability to see through their lies and the wherewithal to expose them.”

In the letter, Boscio uses these examples to illustrate what he calls Townsend’s “deliberate and unapologetic bias.”

Glazer, who has known Townsend's work for years, had a different reaction to her hiring: “joy.” Glazer called the union’s campaign against Townsend “head-scratching” and said Townsend had performed her job well and fairly.

“Sarena is just an incredibly able, smart person, who most importantly is with her soul committed to justice,” Glazer said. “When she was at the department initially … she had a real sense of why it was terrible, both for officers and for people who are incarcerated and for the institution as a whole, for that process of discipline to be so slow and uneven and unjust to both sides.”