Days after Mayor Eric Adams took office, his hand-picked correction commissioner ousted the official overseeing thousands of backlogged use-of-force investigations inside the city jail system — a move cheered by correction officer unions that long viewed her as overly aggressive.
More than four years later, that same investigator, Sarena Townsend, is returning to the Department of Correction with the backing of the federal court’s remediation manager who has tapped her to help overhaul the agency’s maligned disciplinary system, THE CITY has learned.
Under a new organizational structure laid out in a recent court filing, remediation manager Nicholas Deml will have final authority over the unit, which inherits what officials have described as the nation’s largest jail use-of-force investigative caseload.
The unit will probe allegations of officer and supervisor misconduct and make decisions on how they should be potentially disciplined. DOC Commissioner Stanley Richards and Deml will share final authority.
The hiring signals Deml intends to take an aggressive approach toward labor groups as he seeks to force long-stalled reforms at the city jails.
Liz Glazer, who ran the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice during the de Blasio administration, hailed the appointment.
“She’s aces,” said Glazer, who now operates Vital City, a nonprofit website and magazine focused on civic well-being.
Townsend “knows the jails inside and out” and “has the drive and judgment to fix what’s broken,” she added.
Since leaving city government, Townsend has built a private law practice representing, among others, correction officers and supervisors suing the department or facing internal charges for alleged misconduct.
It is unclear how those pending cases will proceed.
“I regrettably can’t comment,” Townsend told THE CITY.
Representatives for the city’s DOC did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Her salary and benefit package also remains a mystery. Federal Judge Laura Swain, who oversees the remediation manager, has refused to disclose how much Deml and his team will be compensated.
For years, the federal monitor overseeing the jails has warned that investigators routinely downplayed or mishandled staff misconduct cases, even when incidents were captured on body-worn cameras.
In one December incident detailed in a recent monitoring report, an officer could be heard yelling “Don’t leave marks” as staff tackled a restrained detainee. Another officer appeared to kick the detainee while he lay on the floor, according to the report. Despite the footage, the incident was classified as a low-level use of force and resulted in no documented injuries.
In another case, a correction officer sprayed a chemical agent onto his own boot inside a sanitation closet before placing the contaminated footwear near the face of a fully restrained detainee, the report said. Other staff nearby appeared to joke about the incident and pretended no spray had been deployed.
Steve Martin, the court-appointed monitor, said the episodes exposed “the toxicity that lies at the center of the culture that must be reformed” and reflected behavior “fundamentally incompatible with staff’s constitutional and ethical obligations.”
Martin has for years been highly critical of how jail officials decide who to discipline and how they carry out those punishments.
Townsend has an active social media presence. She regularly posts updates on the Luigi Mangione case and publicly touts her legal victories on TikTok and other platforms.
Correction Captains Association President Paul Idlett said the union is prepared to work with Townsend if she approaches disciplinary cases fairly.
“The CCA is willing to work with anybody that’s going to treat our members fairly, listen to all the facts and mitigating circumstances, and not be a headhunter,” Idlett told THE CITY.
But he said he was concerned about Townsend’s past social media activity criticizing the department, especially during the Adams years.
“I don’t want the negative aspect that she promotes on social media about the department carrying over into this role,” he said. “I’m willing to sit down with her to see what the direction is. But if she’s coming in with the energy that the department did her wrong, it’s not going to be good.”
Last month, she was a guest on Harsh Truths, a podcast hosted by Norman Seabrook, the former longtime head of the correction officers’ union who was sentenced to close to five years in prison in part for taking a $60,000 kickback stuffed inside a Salvatore Ferragamo bag.
“She’s a fantastic attorney,” he told his listeners at the start of the episode. “What’s important about her is she’s been on both sides of it.”
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