Los Angeles County Plans to Pay $4 Billion to Settle Sex Abuse Claims
The New York Times
The settlement, which still needs formal approval, covers more than 6,800 claims of abuse, some of which date back to 1959.
Los Angeles County has agreed to pay a staggering $4 billion to settle sex abuse claims from generations of children in its juvenile detention and foster care systems in what lawyers said would be the largest payout of its kind in U.S. history.
The sweeping agreement, announced Friday, was the latest in a wave of settlements precipitated by a five-year-old state law that dramatically expanded the number of child sexual abuse lawsuits filed against municipalities and school districts.
The settlement is expected to be formally approved over the next two weeks by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the county’s claims board, covering more than 6,800 claims of childhood sexual abuse that date as far back as 1959. County officials have warned that the amount of the settlement will likely lead to budget cuts.
Most of the cases stem from abuse allegations that occurred in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s at probation and foster care facilities, county officials said. A significant number took place at the MacLaren Children’s Center, a county-run children’s shelter that operated for 42 years east of downtown Los Angeles in the city of El Monte.
Opened in 1961 as a temporary foster home, MacLaren permanently closed in 2003 amid lawsuits that claimed severe mistreatment of children. A civil grand jury report at the time found that MacLaren managers had allowed convicted burglars and drug traffickers to care for children and had not checked the criminal background of employees for decades. In subsequent lawsuits, former residents said staff members had crawled into their bunks at night and sexually assaulted them, punishing them if they reported the abuses. Some said they had been as young as 5 at the time.
“On behalf of the county, I apologize wholeheartedly to everyone who was harmed by these reprehensible acts,” the county’s chief executive, Fesia Davenport, said in a statement on Friday. “The historic scope of this settlement makes clear that we are committed to helping the survivors recover and rebuild their lives — and to making and enforcing the systemic changes needed to keep young people safe.”
