Los Angeles County has been ordered to pay nearly $5 billion dollars to survivors of sexual abuse within the county’s juvenile justice system in a historic series of settlements. The amounts — totaling approximately $4.8 billion respectively — represent more than 11,000 cases and mark the largest sexual abuse settlements in US history.
The abuse, which survivors described taking place as far back as the 1950s, occurred in various sites within Los Angeles County’s juvenile justice system, including MacLaren Children’s Center (now permanently closed) and juvenile probation facilities. This wave of cases stemmed from the creation of AB 218, a California law passed in 2020 that removed the statute of limitations for survivors of sexual abuse pursuing justice. AB 218 was designed in recognition of the fact that many survivors do not feel safe or able to report abuse until years or even decades later.
In the aftermath of the historic settlement payouts, allegations have raised concerns about fraud within the process. Earlier this fall, an LA Times investigation revealed a network of individuals approaching people on the street and incentivizing them to fabricate claims of sexual abuse within the juvenile justice system in exchange for cash payments. People recounted being paid between $50 to $200 to file a claim specifically with Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA. One person claimed a vendor drove them to the DTLA office and paid them cash after the claim was filed. Another said that someone in a Tesla drove up to vendors outside a social services office in South Central on Fridays and handed them envelopes of cash. Vendors, in turn, would encourage passersby to fabricate and file claims. Some scripts with exact wording as to what to tell attorneys were given to those who agreed to file.
DTLA, which represents around a quarter of the total cases filed, is well-known for representing victims of automobile accidents and dog bites. A question puzzling many observers and experts is how such a firm came to represent over 2,700 alleged sexual abuse victims in under two years. Within the total number of plaintiffs represented by DTLA, seven told the LA Times that they were paid to invent fraudulent claims.
DTLA has denied any wrongdoing and only claims they only want “justice for real victims.” When the firm discovered that some of their clients had spoken to the LA Times, they contacted those individuals and urged them to stop talking to the media.
Patrick McNicholas, a partner at the firm McNicholas & McNicholas, which represented almost 1,100 plaintiffs, told Knock LA that it was “fortunate” that the fraud was discovered and that his firm put claims through a multi-step screening process when they were received.
“There are certain patterns that emerge,” McNicholas said. “You know at certain institutions that there are certain bad actors, there is certain conduct that took place and identifying factors.”
McNicholas expanded on their firm’s process, stating that analyzing the facts and content of a person’s claim would give insight into the veracity of their experience.
“If somebody comes to you and gives you a recitation of facts that [are] completely incongruous with the circumstances that we’d already come to know had existed at a particular institution, that would be a red flag,” McNicholas told Knock LA. “It’s really hard to make those individualized facts up unless somebody had actual first hand knowledge of the situation.”
In light of the announcement of the $828 million second settlement, McNicholas said that this should be viewed as the county’s investment in addressing and repairing past harms.
“If they do not come up with this money, the damages and the harm are just going to continue to spiral,” he said. “There’s a long history and a lot of data on the fact that people who have been sexually abused have a lot of mental health issues, have a lot of physical issues, and it includes everything up to suicide.”
Following the news of the $828 million settlement, LA County announced that every case from both settlements would be internally reviewed for credibility and that any plaintiff determined to have submitted a fraudulent claim would receive no compensation. According to a memo from the LA County CEO’s office, additional review procedures will be applied to any claims submitted by Downtown LA Law Group (DTLA).
“The higher level review may require plaintiff interviews and additional proof of allegations, depending on the nature of the claim and the suspected fraud,” the memo stated.
As the review work gets underway, county officials have underscored the financial strain that nearly $5 billion in payouts could place on the county. The monumental sum awarded in the settlement will affect LA County’s finances for decades to come. Nathan Hochman, the Los Angeles District Attorney, mentioned that his own office’s budget was cut by $24 million to help with paying out the settlements and simultaneously vowed to bring fraudsters to task. Hochman is a former federal prosecutor who ran on a platform of removing politics from law enforcement and rolling back the policies of progressive former District Attorney George Gascon.
“It is not free money,” Hochman said in a press conference. “We are going to aggressively go after them.”
As blame ricochets across County leadership and anxieties mount over LA’s fiscal future, it’s essential to note that AB 218 is not the culprit. County counsel Dawyn Harrison argued that the law was “unmanageable” and that “no one can meaningfully vet” the claims of sexual abuse that flooded in. However, the issue lies not with whether the law in itself was unmanageable, but in the fact that the legislation was not accompanied by any supportive infrastructure that would have increased capacity for the state and county to review cases and evaluate them for fraud.
Given the pervasive nature of sexual abuse, it was predictable that opening the door for survivors would overwhelm existing systems. The burden, then, does not rest on the law for being too lenient, but instead on elected officials who did not consider increasing the abilities of legal systems to handle a substantial uptick in claims.
The current focus of alleged fraud committed by individuals looking to make quick money off a new legal opening overshadows the reason for the settlements in the first place. The number of people claiming to be sexually abused within the LA County juvenile justice system as youth paints a haunting portrait of a system rife with violence and child abuse. Many survivors recount being assaulted by probation officers, the very people tasked with keeping youth safe.
The abuse is not just a relic of the past. One more current instance was discovered in March of 2024 and involved a probation officer that forced a sexual relationship onto a minor. The sexual misconduct took place at the officer’s workplace. Earlier this year, 30 probation officers at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall were accused of facilitating “gladiator fights” among youth. The resulting lawsuit led to a $2.7 million payout to a teen that was attacked in such a fight.
Sexual abuse thrives in institutions that operate without meaningful external accountability. That has long been and still remains the case with the LA County Probation Department and juvenile justice system. The respective settlements dwarf the $2.6 million amount awarded in the previously largest sexual abuse payout in US history, in the case against the Boy Scouts of America.
As attorney Patrick MacNicholas highlighted, turning away from this historical moment would only harm the County as the consequences of sexual abuse play out over decades. If LA County hopes to avoid record-breaking payouts and furthering strain on its public finances, it must address the root of the problem: the unchecked violence and sexual abuse against children in their facilities.
