Stab vic rips NYCHA ‘broken door’ policy
A woman who was brutally stabbed and nearly killed by an intruder in a New York City Housing Authority complex in Brooklyn last year has filed a negligence suit against the agency for allegedly failing to secure the entrance to the building — further tarnishing NYCHA’s reputation as the nation’s largest slumlord.
Sophia Rostom, 26, was visiting a friend in the Farragut Houses at 111 Bridge St. on March 28 when serial criminal Maurice Brister, who entered the unlocked building, stabbed her 14 times in the head, heart, lungs, arms, leg and buttocks while she was waiting for an elevator in the lobby, the lawsuit says.
Brister stabbed at least one other woman that day and was charged with attempted murder.
Rostom, a medical technician and mother of a young child, lost nearly half of her blood and was left clinging to life after the attack, having sustained puncture wounds to vital organs. She underwent emergency heart and lung surgeries and spent more than a week in NewYork-Presbyterian’s intensive care unit, the suit said.
Rostom still suffers from severe physical and psychological trauma stemming from the incident and is unable to work, her lawyers, John Morgan and Moses Ahn of Morgan & Morgan, told The Post.
The lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court Jan. 24, cites audits conducted by the city Comptroller’s Office in 2018 and 2022 that found nearly all front entrance doors at the Farragut Houses were “unsecured” due to broken or faulty locks.
The complaint claims Brister entered the building through the “unlocked, unsecured, broken, and/or inoperable” door. It also says NYCHA leadership knew about the findings and failed to fix or replace the locks or doors.
Investigators working with Rostom’s legal team recently visited the same building where she was attacked and discovered the entrance door was still unlocked.
“All landlords — from the owner of a single home residence to the nation’s largest public housing authority — have a responsibility to ensure residents and guests will be safe. What our client suffered is a terrifying example of what can happen when landlords allegedly fail in that duty,” Rostom’s lawyers said in a statement to The Post. “Ms. Rostom’s injuries forever altered her young life and derailed her career.”
‘90% of doors open’
The lawsuit said NYCHA’s failure to secure lobby entrances is a systemic problem.
“NYCHA needs to take immediate steps to improve safety, not only for the 3,000-plus residents of the Farragut Houses, but also for all 360,000 residents of its properties and its guests. Our lawsuit alleges this incident was preventable, and Morgan & Morgan won’t rest until NYCHA is held accountable and improves its security for its residents and guests,” her lawyers said.
An audit released by then-Comptroller Scott Stringer in October 2018 found eight of the 10 entrance doors of the Farragut Houses were open. It also discovered similarly malfunctioning locks at numerous other NYCHA projects.
In September 2022, current city Comptroller Brad Lander issued a follow-up audit warning to NYCHA
that found a “large, systemic, and apparently worsening” problem, with 40% of the entrance door locks of the 262 developments visited broken and 37% of the building entrance doors open. At the Farragut Houses, 90% of the locks were broken and doors open.
NYCHA and the office of Mayor Adams — who appoints NYCHA leadership — had no comment. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams’ office has repeatedly named NYCHA one of the city’s worst landlords.