Los Angeles County is set to pay $4 billion to resolve roughly 7,000 claims of childhood sexual abuse that allegedly occurred within juvenile facilities, and warns the largest sexual abuse settlement in US history.
The mammoth settlement, which still needs to be approved by both the county claims board and the county supervisor, is $1 billion more than county officials had expected as the worst-case scenario to resolve the gust of the lawsuit.
In comparison, the American Boys Scouts agreed to pay $2.46 billion. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles paid about $1.5 billion for alleged abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest. The victim of USC gynecologist George Tyndale won $1.1 billion. Michigan State has paid $500 million to the victims of Team Doctor Larry Nasser.
The unprecedented settlement comes from AB 218, a 2020 state law that gave victims of childhood sexual abuse a new window into lawsuits.
Many California counties responsible for caring for children in foster parents and boys halls saw an increase in lawsuits. For LA County, it was a huge flood that had not stopped yet.
Thousands of men and women have been jailed as children in the county’s vast network of juvenile halls and camps, saying they were abused or raped by probation staff decades ago.
Thousands more suspect sexual abuse at the now-shuttered McClallen Children’s Center, a county-run home for foster children that plaintiffs’ lawyers compared to “homes of horror.” The report found that the facility has been decades without checking its staff’s criminal history.
Taken together, thousands of cases paint a picture of a government that failed to intervene as the facility was transformed into a hunting ground for predators who held enormous power within the supervision, in thousands of cases that involved alleged abuse in the 1980s and 2000s.
“On behalf of the county, I sincerely apologize to everyone who has done harm to these reprehensible conduct,” LA County Chief Executive Fesia Davenport said in a statement.
She said the county has been working in recent years to crack down on sexual abuse of minors. The improvements that the county advertised include strengthening reviews of foster parents and probation staff and closing the use of group homes such as the McLaren Children’s Center.
Davenport made the headline in 2023 when he estimated that the county could consider liability between $1.6 billion and $3 billion for allegations of sexual abuse that could potentially be about 3,000 people.
Her estimates were filled with shock and skepticism from experienced lawyers suing the county.
Thousands of additional victims have been sued since then, moving even further each month. In addition to creating a three-year window for victims who were closed at the end of 2023, new state laws have brought plaintiffs suing if they are under 40 or have discovered abuse they have suffered as children recently.
The county said the $4 billion settlement covers most of the child sexual abuse lawsuits. According to the county, some attorneys are unwilling to participate in the “global mediation process,” and negotiations with plaintiffs are ongoing.
Patrick McNicholas, whose law firm represents 1,200 plaintiffs, said in the settlement debate he is careful to reach out to figures that will bring justice to thousands of casualties without bankrupting the county, which serves as a social security net for the region. He reasoned that the government could maintain the solvent with a $4 billion payment, but it was still the biggest sexual abuse payment he’d ever heard.
“This is a historic settlement,” he said. “It recognizes the terrible harm that has been done.”
Painted around the age of 11, Dominique Anderson is one of the thousands of plaintiffs who accused of abuse in the county’s juvenile department. Anderson said when she was 13, her probation officer boss abused her in a motel room.
(Dominique Anderson)
The $4 billion payments will be a major blow to counties in already turbulent financial waters, thanks to the threat of funding cuts from the Trump White House and the costs of recovering from the devastating palace. Davenport warns that county governments, which have a budget of around $49 billion, could face a “fiscal crisis” unless jobs are frozen.
County officials say it comes from emitting the county’s rainy day fund, cutting the department’s budget and stealing bonds. The county is expected to owe hundreds of millions of dollars in interest on bonds that need to be paid back by 2051.
The county said it would pay the settlement between January 2026 and January 30, 2030, providing billions to “independent allocators” who will decide how to divide it between the approximately 6,800 plaintiffs.
There were few criminal charges for county officials accused of abuse in the lawsuit. The Probation Department presented evidence to the LA County District Attorney’s Office in December 2023 against two staff members, Thomas Jackson and Altvis Abner. The status of these cases was not immediately available.
Some of the employees accused of being the most prolific abusers were participating in the county salaries until recently. Jackson resigned from the probation department in the fall of 2023, ending his 33-year career, accusing at least 20 women of sexually abusing them as girls.
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