John Barber, an ex-employee at Nassau County Correctional Center, attempted to kiss one of the women in his car and told two more they were “beautiful” and he was interested in meeting them, according to the suits, filed in New York’s Eastern District.
Barber retired in February 2025, and Nassau County officials did not comment further on the case, according to Newsday.
One woman, Lisarose Potts, visited the jail on Sept. 26, 2024, to speak with her incarcerated fiancé, according to her suit. After the meeting, Barber told Potts to meet him at a bar during his break, the suit claims.
Potts, believing the meeting was important for her fiancé, agreed and later got into Barber’s car when he said he couldn’t enter the bar, according to the lawsuit. But instead, Barber attempted to kiss Potts on the lips “without warning,” and she quickly exited the vehicle, she said in the suit.
She later learned Barber’s conduct was “part of a pattern of behavior where he used the visitor’s system to gain access to the personal information of female visitors,” the suit reads.
In another lawsuit, jail visitor Michelle Miranda said Barber messaged her on her phone and through WhatsApp after she visited an NCCC inmate on Sept. 10, 2024.
Barber “made inappropriate remarks regarding how he thought she was beautiful and wanted to reach out to her” immediately after the visit and later messaged Miranda, according to her lawsuit.
Both claims, filed Wednesday, April 22, followed a previous suit in January from Mayra Nunez, who described similar behavior.
After Nunez visited NCCC on Oct. 31, 2024, Barber swiped her phone number from required sign in data and messaged her, “Hi, Mayra, this is John Barber, please only use this app to reply back to me. I missed you in visiting today, by the way, I think you’re very beautiful,” according to her lawsuit.
Barber then messaged Nunez again the next day after she ignored his first text, according to the suit.
The lawsuits demand a total of $12 million in damages and also named Nassau County and Sheriff Anthony LaRocco as defendants, claiming leaders should have stopped Barber’s alleged behavior before it became a pattern.
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