An accused rapist shrink known as “Big Foot” was allegedly a serial molester who abused at least five victims at an upstate New York juvenile detention facility, including one as young as 15, whom she groped and asked if they liked “big boobs,” according to two lawsuits.
Maya Hayes allegedly plied the teens in her care at the Brookwood Youth Facility near Albany with phone privileges, hair products and food, while regularly fondling them and forcing them to squeeze her breasts, four victims claimed in court papers.
One victim, who was just 15 when he arrived at Brookwood in October 2019, said Hayes, 47, confessed her reasons for going after young boys.
“Hayes said that because she was sexually frustrated at home, [she] wanted to give oral sex to residents,” the victim said in a Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit filed by three accusers. He added Hayes claimed “it was her fantasy and it gave her a rush to give residents ‘blow jobs.’”
The ex-resident also accused Hayes of “ordering” him “to fight three or four other residents on her behalf.”
He “was threatened by Hayes that if he did not fight other residents, [she] would have him jumped and it would affect his Parole Board reviews,” the alleged victim, who left Brookwood in June 2022, said in court papers.
“Do you like big boobs?” she allegedly asked another boy, who was 16 when he arrived at Brookwood, a secure facility for those under 21, in October 2020, before lifting her shirt to show off her chest, he said in the legal filing.
Another time Hayes was accused of asking the boy to squeeze her breasts — and then complaining that he was “not squeezing her breasts hard enough,” he said in the litigation.
Staff knew about the abuse and allegedly joked with victims about Hayes, referring to her as “Big Foot.”
A third victim, who was 18 during his stay at Brookwood from April to September 2021, claimed in court records Hayes gave him audio recordings “of people having loud sex,” would show him racy YouTube videos, and forced him to touch her genitals.
Hayes allegedly told a fourth accuser, a 17-year-old from the Bronx, “he was a handsome and pleasant young man;” “referred to the bulge in his pants as a ‘prince;’” and touched his penis with her foot under a desk in March 2020, he claimed in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.
“The scale of sexual abuse at Brookwood represents a fundamental failure of the system itself,” a lawyer for the victims, Evan Brustein, said. “What happened to our clients is horrific, and we are committed to holding both the sexual predator and those who enabled the abuse fully accountable.”
New York State Police arrested Hayes in April on 65 counts of criminal sexual act in the third degree and rape. She pleaded not guilty, and was released. The case is pending.
Hayes denied “all allegations” in court papers responding to the federal lawsuit, asking for the case to be paused pending the outcome of her criminal case.
Hayes did not respond to messages seeking comment.
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