After a random assault in NYC, I turned to the New York State Office of Victim Services for help. Nine months later, I’m still waiting—unheard, unpaid, and silenced by bureaucracy.
“What’s your case number?”
That’s the first thing she said when I called—no greeting, no acknowledgment, not even a pause when I stated my name. Just a cold, transactional demand for digits. In that moment, I wasn’t a person. I wasn’t a victim. I wasn’t someone whose life had been disrupted and reshaped by trauma. I was a number in their system—an entry on a spreadsheet, easily filed, delayed, or erased.
This was the first human contact I had received from the New York State Office of Victim Services after months of silence, unanswered messages, and waiting. And that—“What’s your case number?”—was the very first thing ever said to me.
I was the victim of a random, unprovoked attack on the streets of New York City in August 2024.
It happened just after midnight, right outside my office building in Hudson Square. The streets were quiet. I had just wrapped up my shift and was heading to the subway station when a man I didn’t know came charging up behind me. Within seconds, I felt a brutal yank to my hair—and then I was slammed backwards onto the pavement.
There was no warning. No confrontation. Just the raw force of impact.
I landed hard on my back, my body crashing against the sidewalk. My elbow struck something sharp, but I didn’t feel it right away. I leapt to my feet in shock, heart racing, confused and disoriented. The man who had attacked me was already gone—vanishing around the corner into the night.
I stood frozen for a few moments, unsure if I was hurt, unsure if it was real. Then I screamed for help. A few passersby heard me and rushed over. One of them reached me and gasped, “You’re bleeding—badly.”
The adrenaline masked it at first, but when I was slammed to the ground, my elbow landed directly on one of the sharp metal spikes of a tree guard. The spike tore into my skin and exposed the bone.
Then the pain came. All at once.
The injury to my elbow was severe. The paramedics who arrived on the scene urged me to go to the hospital immediately. During the ambulance ride, one of them looked at me and said, “You should really contact the New York State Victim Compensation Fund. They can reimburse you for all your medical bills.”
I had never heard of it. I asked the paramedic for more details, and he gave me a quick overview. I’m grateful he did. Without that single moment of compassion and information, I may never have known the fund even existed.
That, in itself, is a problem.
This program is not widely discussed, not well-publicized, and for many victims, completely unknown. Since then, I’ve spoken with and interviewed numerous other New Yorkers who’ve been victims of random assaults, and nearly all of them had the same experience: they had no idea the fund existed.
How is that acceptable?
The New York State Victim Compensation Fund is meant to provide financial relief and support for survivors of violent crimes. Yet no one—not the police, not the hospitals, not even the detectives assigned to our cases—tells us about it. At a minimum, law enforcement and medical institutions should be legally required to inform crime victims of this resource. The fact that this isn’t already protocol is a systemic failure in plain sight.
Once I regained enough strength and had started to physically recover, I decided to begin the process of applying for compensation from the New York State Office of Victim Services. I was hopeful—relieved, even—to know that there was a system in place to help cover the mounting medical bills I had already paid out-of-pocket. But what I encountered instead was an outdated, disjointed, and needlessly exhausting bureaucratic maze.
To begin with, the website is difficult to navigate. It feels like it hasn’t been properly updated in years. The layout is confusing, the language unclear, and there are countless redundant steps built into the process. Victims are asked to fill out form after form, many of which ask for the exact same information multiple times.
Still, I complied—because I deserved the help. I uploaded everything they asked for: the police report number, all hospital records, medical bills, and details of the assault. Each category of expense or claim required a separate form—yes, even if it was all from the same incident. The document upload system is so antiquated that it often glitches or freezes, and there’s no confirmation to indicate whether your evidence was successfully received.
At this point, you’re still not assigned to a person. There’s no one to contact. You’re just sending sensitive, personal, sometimes traumatic information into a portal and hoping someone on the other end sees it.
Then, days later, I was mailed physical copies of the same documents I had already filled out online—along with instructions to now complete them again and send them back by mail. It felt like a bad joke. It was redundant, exhausting, and totally unnecessary. For someone who is still recovering—physically, emotionally, and financially—this process is not just inefficient. It’s disrespectful. It demands a level of labor and patience that most victims simply don’t have to spare.
And still, I did it. I followed every step, mailed back every form. And yet, after all that effort, no one had been assigned to my case. It sat pending. Silent. Unacknowledged. No email. No phone call. No confirmation that a single human being had reviewed the evidence or even received it.
At that point, I was already exhausted. Not just from the trauma of the assault itself—but from the sheer amount of labor required just to apply for basic compensation. The process felt less like support and more like a prolonged test, as if I had to prove I was truly a victim. For an organization allegedly designed to help survivors, that felt both absurd and deeply insulting.
Still, I knew this wasn’t going to be fast. I accepted that the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, and I told myself to be patient. Eventually, I received a letter in the mail notifying me that a case investigator had been assigned. There was no personal outreach—just her name and a generic office phone number. No direct contact info. No email. No instructions on what would happen next.
So, I waited.
It wasn’t until February 2025—months after my assault in August 2024—that I finally received a voicemail from the investigator. It was brief, generic, and impersonal. She asked for more information about what had happened to me. That was the first and only direct human communication I had received from the compensation fund since submitting my application.
I called back and it went straight to voicemail, so I left her the details she had asked for, and then—silence. No reply. No follow-up. Just more waiting. More crickets.
So, I figured—I’d just wait again.
By this point, waiting had become the norm. I had grown used to it. My life moved forward—work, obligations, personal matters—until eventually, the application slipped to the back of my mind.
Nearly three months later, I remembered and decided to log back into the online portal to check the status. What I saw left me stunned:
My case had been marked as closed as of February 3, 2025.
No explanation. No notification. No letter. No email. No phone call. Just a quiet stamp of finality in a system that had barely acknowledged me in the first place.
I immediately searched for the case investigator’s number—I had saved it from the one and only voicemail she had left months earlier. To my surprise, she picked up.
I said my name and asked calmly but firmly: “I’m calling to get an update on my case. I just logged in and it says it was closed. What does that mean? I haven’t received any compensation. I’m confused.”
She didn’t acknowledge my confusion. She didn’t offer a greeting. She didn’t apologize.
Instead, without a hint of empathy, she said:
“What’s your case number?”
Just like that. Cold. Robotic. Detached. As if I were just another file on her desk. Not a woman who had been assaulted, injured, and left to navigate this impossible system alone.
She told me my case had been closed and that a letter had been sent to my home address. I told her—plain and simple—I never received any such letter.
I then asked the obvious: Why haven’t I received any compensation for my medical bills? I followed every step. I filled out all the forms. I uploaded every piece of required evidence. I did everything that was asked of me—despite how taxing and redundant the process was.
Her response was cold, mechanical. She said the case had been “settled” and forwarded to their medical unit, who would now be handling the compensation. I told her I had no idea that had happened. No one contacted me. No email. No phone call. No update.
At this point, I spoke with firm clarity—not as someone “complaining,” but as someone speaking truth.
I told her directly: this process has lacked compassion from the start. That for an organization supposedly dedicated to helping survivors of violent crime, the absence of empathy, transparency, and basic communication was unacceptable. I wasn’t blaming her personally—but I made it clear that every single employee within the fund plays a role in how victims are treated. And collectively, the system was failing.
She didn’t like that.
She started talking over me. Cutting me off. Trying to reassert control—as if holding the power over my compensation gave her permission to dismiss my voice. It was classic bureaucratic posturing: authority without accountability.
Then she said—point blank—
“Since you don’t want to listen to what I have to say, I’ll just send you an email with the medical unit’s contact info,”
—and then she hung up on me.
Just like that. No closure. No resolution. No compassion. After months of silence, I was finally speaking to a human being—and she chose to end the conversation by silencing me again.
Here I am, nine months after my assault, and I still haven’t received a single dollar in compensation for my medical bills.
Now, I want to be clear: I was able to cover those bills on my own. I had the financial means to pay out-of-pocket. I realize that puts me in a position of relative privilege, and I’m deeply grateful for that. But that is not the point.
The point is—I was a victim of a crime. And I am entitled to compensation, just like any other victim.
This fund exists for that reason. Not as a favor, not as charity—but as a form of justice and support. And while I’ve managed to shoulder the costs, I know many other survivors cannot. I’ve spoken to victims who are drowning in debt, who’ve had to choose between paying their rent or their hospital bills, who are living with untreated injuries because they simply don’t have the resources to get help.
What happens to those victims when the system delays or denies their compensation? What happens when they never even learn the fund exists? What happens when they hit the same wall of silence, cold bureaucracy, and unreturned calls that I did—only they don’t have a safety net?
The emotional and financial burden is heavy enough after an assault. Adding red tape and indifference only deepens the wound.
I have since emailed the medical department, as instructed. No personal response—just a generic auto-reply that read:
“Please be advised that our review time for submitted documents is currently 6–8 weeks. Please allow 6–8 weeks before asking for a status update.”
So, here I go—waiting again.
Nine months after being assaulted.
Months of paperwork.
Months of silence.
One phone call that ended in a hang-up.
And now I’m being told to wait another 6 to 8 weeks for a response about medical bills I already paid nearly a year ago.
This isn’t just inefficiency—it’s systemic neglect. It’s a state-run fund that claims to support victims, but instead forces them into a bureaucratic maze with no clarity, no humanity, and no urgency.
I’ll wait, because that’s what I’ve been conditioned to do. But I’m done being quiet about it.
I want to be clear: I’m not here to bash this organization. I’m here to share my firsthand experience—honestly and unapologetically—because I know I’m not alone.
I know there are other victims out there who have gone through this. Who are still waiting. Who’ve sent messages into the void and never heard back. Who’ve followed every instruction and still received no compensation.
These state-run organizations are created to help—to assist victims during some of the most painful and vulnerable moments of their lives. But where is the help?
I haven’t received any. And I know many others haven’t either.
This is a call to action.
If you or someone you know has experienced a similar situation with the New York State Office of Victim Services—or any other victim support program in your state—I want to hear from you. Your story matters. Your voice matters. And together, we can hold these systems accountable.
You can reach me at kelly@kellydillon.com
