New York City has sent a small number of young inmates from Rikers Island to a jail upstate where they allegedly were held in solitary confinement in violation of the city’s own policy prohibiting its use for anyone under the age of 22.

A complaint filed in federal court on Friday on behalf of four pre-trial detainees accused the city of transferring dozens of young inmates since 2015 to a jail in Albany County to punish them and circumvent the city’s own solitary-confinement rules.

The complaint alleged the Albany County jail staffers beat the young men and forcibly conducted rectal searches. The lawsuit was first reported by The New York Times.

Eric Phillips, spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, called the jail transfers "the safest option" for some young detainees facing threats. He also noted that New York City was the only municipality statewide that banned solitary confinement.

“This mayor ended solitary confinement for young adults and for the sake of the thousands of them in solitary confinement from the rest of the state he believes those jails and prisons should, too,” he said.

Phillips said the mayor did not plan to end transfers even if some viewed the practice as an end run around the city's own policy.

Keith Powers, chair of the City Council's criminal justice committee, told WNYC that he planned to call oversight hearings if the transfers don't stop.

“We don't have eyes and ears in any of those facilities,” Powers said Sunday. He added, “We really lose track of what's going on and how people are being treated when we send them so far away from New York City.”

Steven Goldman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the case will now move into the discovery phase which he believes will reveal that city officials knew about the abuse and sent the young inmates to Albany, “for that reason, and not in spite of that.”

Phillips said it was “100 percent false” that the city knew of any abuse allegations.

A spokesman for the Department of Correction did not respond to a request for comment about the number of inmates who were transferred to other sites. In July, the New York Times reported that 10 inmates were sent to other facilities this year.

Read the full complaint below.

Black Site. Complaint With Jury Demand (00358851x9CCC2) by Brigid Bergin on Scribd