My 36-year-old son has lived with schizophrenia for seventeen years. In 2025, untreated psychosis pushed him into the criminal legal system—not because he was a criminal, but because the mental health system failed to intervene when treatment was urgently needed.

While he was experiencing severe psychosis and delusions, I repeatedly tried to secure help through his psychiatrist and the New York State Office of Mental Health. Instead of support, I was repeatedly shut out and gaslit under the misuse of HIPAA consent laws, despite his long history of illness and obvious decompensation.

Between February and July, he was hospitalized approximately six times. Each time, he was released without any meaningful aftercare plan, coordination with his treating psychiatrist, or continuity of treatment. No stabilization. No follow-up. No protection.

In July, during a psychotic episode, he attacked me. I was forced to obtain a restraining order—an act no mother should ever have to take against her child. In August, he violated that order by calling me for help.

For that call, he was jailed.

On August 25, while incarcerated, he was assaulted by three correctional officers. He has no criminal history. One officer later claimed he initiated the incident, and additional charges were filed—charges I believe were intended to conceal the excessive force used against him.

He was pepper-sprayed directly in the face, beaten on his head, stomach, back, and chest, and punched in the face, resulting in a hemorrhagic eye. He was then restrained and handcuffed on the floor for over thirty minutes. He received no medical treatment for his injuries.

I learned of the beating only because another incarcerated person called my older son.
He later told an attorney that the assault occurred off-camera, in a shower area. Reports from the officers conflict with each other and with documents I obtained through a FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) request. I have reported the incident to the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and multiple policymakers in New York.

Before the assault, he had spent twenty-five days in jail without receiving his prescribed medication or seeing a doctor. He was severely decompensated.

Initially, the District Attorney attempted to combine unproven charges to elevate his case to a felony, seeking prison rather than hospital treatment. After two competency evaluations, a judge ruled him incompetent to stand trial on November 5, 2025, and ordered that he be transferred for psychiatric treatment and stabilization.

I requested that he be treated at a civil psychiatric hospital. I do not want him placed in a forensic facility, which is essentially another jail. His charges do not warrant incarceration, let alone placement in a prison-like psychiatric setting.

His rights have been repeatedly violated. A public defender was assigned for an alleged assault on a guard despite him already having private counsel. His attorney was never contacted during or after the incident. A restraining order—originally set to expire December 17, 2025—was extended by another court, further cutting him off from family support. I am his only support.

To this day, he remains in jail, waiting for a hospital bed.

Given the documented abuse and dangerous conditions in New York’s jails and prisons, I fear for his life. He is a good person. He lives with anosognosia—a neurological condition that prevents him from recognizing his illness. He does not understand what is happening to him.

I am seeking rehabilitation and treatment, not punishment. He does not deserve this.