A teenage boy who was sexually assaulted by an employee at the Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility in April of 2024 has sued the county and state for failing to protect him.
The boy was sexually assaulted in April 2024 by employee Svetlana Kuryanova, who was sentenced last year to serve between 71 months — just under six years — and 15 years in prison for the sex assaults of the teen who filed the lawsuit and another teen.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, alleges the staff at the Juvenile Detention Facility, which was at the William Dickerson Detention Facility in Hamtramck at the time, failed to follow state mandates for staff-to-resident ratios and having sufficient staff, as well as following state intervention standards.
Wayne County and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment Monday.
While monitoring live video of the detention facility, one employee saw Kuryanova and the teen holding hands and touching each other for 40 minutes, but did not do anything to stop it, according to the lawsuit. She also went into his room, where there were no cameras, for two minutes, according to the lawsuit.
Kuryanova had previously been scolded for her unprofessional and inappropriate interactions with teens, according to the lawsuit.
Another employee said she saw Kuryanova lead teens, including the one who filed the lawsuit, into a conference room behind staff restrooms, off camera, where she sexually assaulted them.
“Defendants were aware that Defendant Kuryanova was sexually assaulting inmates and did not act upon this knowledge but instead, fostered and created a widespread culture of deliberate indifference to the protection of the juvenile inmates, in particular Plaintiff Rashard Calhoun’s civil rights,” according to the lawsuit.
The teen is asking for $75,000 in damages.
The allegations against Kuryanova by the teens were among at least four sexual assault accusations reported at the former facility in about a year, as overcrowding and understaffing plagued the center.
In another incident, a group of boys allegedly assaulted a 12-year-old at the former juvenile detention facility in March 2023, which was blamed on poor supervision by staff. It resulted in the state intervening at the facility for more oversight, and Wayne County Executive Warren Evans declared a public health emergency for the center because of what he characterized as “untenable” conditions in his 2023 State of the County address.
In the fourth incident, a Michigan Department of Health and Human Services employee working as a monitor at the facility was arrested on accusations of sexually assaulting a teen boy at the center. But prosecutors announced in May 2024 they did not have enough evidence of a crime to file charges.
Another teen filed a lawsuit in June 2025, alleging he was sexually assaulted in 2018 while he was detained at the JDF.
Wayne County opened a new juvenile detention facility as part of its Criminal Justice Center on Russell Street in Detroit. It opened in 2024.
kberg@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Teen sues Wayne Co. after sexual assault at juvenile detention facility
Reporting by Kara Berg, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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