Los Angeles Times, May 1, 2023
As California legislators prepared to pass a law providing victims of childhood sexual abuse a new window to file lawsuits, the bill’s chief backer recalls most of the resistance coming from entities with famously troubled histories: school districts, colleges and youth athletic groups, along with some of their insurance companies. Los Angeles County “just didn’t come up,” said former Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego), who sponsored the Child Victims Act. The Child Victims Act went into effect, permanently allowing victims of childhood sexual assault to sue up to age 40; previously, they could sue only until they were 26. The law also opened a three-year window for victims older than 40 to sue. “The only way this cycle of abuse stops is that everybody in every institution takes it seriously,” said Gonzalez Fletcher, who left the Assembly last year to lead the California Labor Federation. “And the way to get folks to take it seriously sometimes is for there to be a financial penalty.”
But three years after the law went into effect, L.A. County — responsible for facilities meant to protect and rehabilitate the region’s youth — has emerged in court filings as one of the biggest alleged institutional offenders.
Two weeks ago, in an otherwise dry budget document, county officials delivered figures that stunned even some of the most seasoned California sex abuse attorneys. County officials predicted that they may be forced to spend between $1.6 billion and $3 billion to resolve roughly 3,000 claims of sexual abuse that allegedly took place in the county’s foster homes, children shelters, and probation camps and halls dating to the 1950s.
The county is gearing up to litigate the cases, bringing on 11 law firms to work through the claims — many of which they can’t investigate, they say, because they no longer have the relevant records. Veteran sex abuse attorneys are calling for an outside investigation, saying that not even they realized the full scope of the alleged abuse taking place in county facilities.
Experts say the volume is unlike anything they’ve heard of in local government. A spokesperson for Riverside County says it has had 13 cases associated with the Child Victims Act. Orange County says it has had nine such claims. There is only one apt comparison, attorneys say: the Catholic Church.
Attorneys say it’s only now — years after the county shuttered many of its juvenile facilities — that the scope of sex abuse across L.A. County facilities is coming into focus, with new lawsuits filed nearly every week. “It has not gotten the right amount of attention,” said Doug Rochen, an attorney with ACTS Law, who says he represents more than 500 people alleging that they were abused at the county probation camps and halls.
With so many clients, Rochen said he has picked up common threads among the stories of abuse: children threatened with extra time if they told higher-ups about the abuse; those rewarded with McDonald’s or extra commissary items for staying quiet; children groped in the bathrooms and showers outside of camera angles. One of the most consistent themes: higher-ups turning a blind eye to rampant abuse. He said he is aware of only one of the 20 alleged perpetrators identified by his clients by name facing discipline.“It only takes one to slip through the system that makes it unacceptable,” he said. “The fact that we have hundreds here makes it repulsive.”
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