Frank Gervasi, Patchogue father of girl who went missing for 25 days, sues NYS, Suffolk for $10M

A Long Island father has filed a federal lawsuit accusing Suffolk County and state officials of failing to protect his 14-year-old daughter after her 25-day disappearance in 2024 — when she was allegedly raped and sex-trafficked by multiple defendants — alleging she was assaulted by state workers while in protective custody despite assurances she would be safe.

Frank Gervasi, 50, of Patchogue, is seeking more than $10 million in damages for physical pain and suffering and emotional trauma endured by himself and his daughter, according to a complaint filed Friday in New York’s Eastern District Court in Central Islip. Newsday is not naming the girl, who is now 16 years old, because she is a minor and the victim of alleged and convicted sex crimes.

The lawsuit alleges the abuse occurred after the girl was remanded by a Suffolk Family Court judge to Sagamore Children’s Psychiatric Center in Dix Hills in January 2025 and was later placed at the Brentwood Residential Center for Girls. An employee of each facility is facing criminal charges for their interactions with the girl during her time at those locations, court records show, and the civil suit alleges a third state worker also "assaulted" the girl while in Brentwood.

"The father was encouraged and reassured by the Country [sic] of Suffolk and the Court that this was safe and in [his daughter’s] best interest to be placed in a facility operated by the State of New York and ... Suffolk County," Gervasi's attorney Christopher Ross wrote in the lawsuit, alleging the agencies and workers violated the family’s federally protected rights to due process, equal protection and reasonable search and seizure.

“It’s an unfortunate set of circumstances that those who are charged with protecting our children would deliver them to more predators,” Ross said by telephone on Monday.

Michael Martino, a spokesperson for Suffolk County County Executive Edward P. Romaine, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Officials with the New York State Office of Family and Children Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The lawsuit was filed 14 months after Suffolk County police arrested Sagamore mental health therapist aide Deshaun McClean, 43, of Deer Park, on charges of child sex abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. Court records allege McClean touched the girl’s private body parts both inside and outside of her clothing, gave her massages and watched her touch herself on various occasions at the Dix Hills facility between Jan. 9 and 28, 2025.

The lawsuit alleges that officials at Sagamore reported the "inappropriate contact" to Gervasi but the abuse continued.

"Less than a week later, on or about Feb. 1, 2025, defendant Deshaun McClean, whom the facility was warned about, and the Father was assured would not be a threat to his daughter, sexually assaulted the minor while she was in the care and custody of Sagamore," Ross wrote in the lawsuit.

The Patchogue attorney did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.

A second state worker, Darryl Joyner, 58, of the Bronx, was later accused by Suffolk police of offering the girl drugs in exchange for seeing her nude while she stayed at the Brentwood facility on May 1, 2025, according to a criminal complaint. Both McClean and Joyner are named as defendants in the lawsuit along with a third state worker who has not been criminally charged.

The lawsuit also alleges the family’s rights were violated when an employee of Stony Brook University Hospital "inappropriately accessed" the girl’s medical records in January 2025, after she was treated there following her disappearance. The civil claim states the hospital notified the family that the records included sensitive information related to her diagnosis and medical history, but the hospital was not named as a defendant.

Hospital officials did not immediately respond to comment Monday.

The lawsuit alleges the girl was remanded to Sagamore on Jan. 5, 2025, two days after she was found aboard a boat in Islip, where Suffolk prosecutors have said she was held since Dec. 13, 2024. The lawsuit credits Gervasi’s efforts with locating and saving his daughter on Jan. 3, 2025, after she was "being trafficked by a sex-trafficking ring."

Suffolk prosecutors have alleged the girl, who was already under the supervision of Suffolk County Child Protective Services, left her father’s home in Patchogue the evening of Dec. 9, 2024, and spent nights at three other locations in Bellport, Bohemia and Islip before she ended up at Whitecap Marina on a 56-foot yacht owned by Francis Buckheit, 64, of East Islip.

Suffolk prosecutors have alleged the girl was repeatedly raped by adult men during her 25-day disappearance. An 83-count indictment charging 11 defendants with a range of crimes from kidnapping to child sex trafficking and rape was unsealed in Suffolk County Criminal Court in Riverhead last year. Cases against 10 of those defendants remain active.

McClean and Joyner, who are free on cash bail, were charged under separate criminal complaints at the district court in Central Islip. Both men are due back in court later this month.

Attorneys for McClean and Joyner did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Monday.