What happened to you at the Female Secure Care and Intake Facility in Bordentown was not okay.

Every girl New Jersey sentences to a term goes through one door: the Hayes building on Burlington Street in Bordentown. Intake for a few weeks, or the whole sentence. Filings now consolidated in Middlesex County allege staff there did things to girls in their care and the State let it go on. If some part of your time there has never really left you, then yes. This page is about you.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

You were only there for intake. Three weeks, waiting on a placement, then gone. Intake is what the building is for, and the filings don't sort anyone by how long they stayed.
You were 18 by then. The criminal case the Attorney General brought out of this facility in October 2024 was about an 18-year-old resident. New Jersey gives adults their own deadline, seven years from the day you connected what happened to the harm.
You never told a soul. Or you told an officer and it went nowhere, which is its own kind of telling. The State's own lawyers wrote that the complaints describe scores of incidents nobody acted on.
It wasn't an officer. The filings name counselors, teachers and nurses too, anyone the State put in charge of you.
You've been locked up since, or you have a record now. So what. The claim is about what the State owed a girl in its custody. It doesn't ask what came after.
You live in Pennsylvania, or New York, or Delaware. Most of the women who went through Hayes are somewhere else now, and the lawyer we work with files in New Jersey wherever you live.
You're a mother, a sister, a partner asking for someone who can't. Reach out anyway. People do.

The Bordentown facility lawsuits: what the public record says, and when

None of what's below is ours. It's the Supreme Court of New Jersey, the Superior Court in Middlesex County, the State's own lawyers, the Attorney General and the reporters who covered them, and every line links to where it came from. The word for the civil claims is allegation. The two officers charged in 2024 have not been convicted of anything, and the State has denied liability in every case. Nothing here says otherwise.

June 5, 2024

Levy Konigsberg filed a complaint in Superior Court, Burlington County, for eight men and women who say they were abused as juveniles on the Johnstone Campus in Bordentown, at the Juvenile Female Secure Care and Intake Facility and the Juvenile Medium Security Facility, and at two residential community homes. The suit names the State of New Jersey and alleges it failed to protect children from its own staff. The firm's announcement says the complaint recites earlier warnings, among them a 2002 conviction of a campus officer for molesting two female inmates in early 2001. Filing announcement.

October 29, 2024

The New Jersey Attorney General charged two Juvenile Justice Commission senior corrections officers at the Female Secure Care and Intake Facility, Gary Nieves, 53, and William Young, 35, by criminal complaint with second-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree criminal sexual contact and second-degree official misconduct; Nieves was also charged with witness tampering. The affidavit alleges staff learned on August 14, 2024 that the two were having repeated sexual contact with a resident. They are presumed innocent, and we have found no public record of a disposition. NJ Attorney General.

March 12, 2025

By now 108 plaintiffs had filed across three counties, and Levy Konigsberg went to the Administrative Director of the Courts asking that all of it be handled together as multicounty litigation. The Female Secure Care and Intake Facility in Bordentown is on the application's list of facilities. What the claims are, in the application's words: negligence; negligent training, supervision and retention of guards, counselors, nurses and teachers; and a failure to enact policies that would have stopped it. MCL application (NJ Courts).

April 21, 2025

The State opposed. Its letter lists ten complaints and 202 plaintiffs, and summarises the Bordentown one, J.G. v. State of New Jersey, BUR-L-1145-24: eight plaintiffs, alleged abuse between 1998 and 2010, about eight alleged abusers, none of them named as defendants. The State argued each claim must proceed on its own, and noted the complaints describe conduct ranging from touching to rape. We quote that only because the State's lawyers did. State's opposition letter (NJ Courts).

June 4, 2025

The Supreme Court of New Jersey designated all pending and future suits alleging sexual assault of juvenile inmates at state-run juvenile detention facilities as multicounty litigation, centralised in Middlesex County before Judge Bruce J. Kaplan. The Court's order is dated May 28; the Notice and Order went out June 4 and was published June 18. The master docket, opened by the judge's first case management order on July 3, is MID-L-3913-25. Notice and Order (NJ Courts).

July 30, 2025

Outside the Middlesex County courthouse, survivors and their lawyers said more than 350 people had now sued over abuse in the State's juvenile lockups, with claims running from 1982 to 2024, at Jamesburg, the Female Secure Care and Intake Facility and the Juvenile Medium Security Facility. The Attorney General's office said abuse of people in the State's care 'will not and cannot be tolerated' and repeated that the Bordentown girls' facility would close by 2028. New Jersey Monitor.

October 30, 2025

Case Management Order #3 set the trial plan: plaintiff fact sheets due January 20, 2026, a first group of 40 test cases, paper discovery through December 1, 2026. Those first test cases are limited to Jamesburg; Bordentown claims stay in the litigation and wait their turn. The State, meanwhile, has filed a third-party complaint against 'John Does 1-100', the staff it says committed, knew of, or failed to report the abuse. CMO #3 (NJ Courts).

April 20, 2026

New Jersey Monitor, working from state budget documents and court filings, counted about 350 active suits, roughly 250 of them consolidated in Middlesex, and put the State's potential cost at $340 million or more. In a September 2025 filing the State largely denied the claims and demanded a jury trial. The court's own case list, updated May 19, 2026, runs past 260 dockets. The Bordentown facility is still open; its replacement is due in 2027. New Jersey Monitor.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from April 20, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Bordentown Female Secure Care lawsuit

The State of New Jersey. That's who every one of these complaints names, and it is the part most people don't know they can do. The facility belongs to the Juvenile Justice Commission, which the State runs out of the Attorney General's office and has lately renamed the Youth Justice Commission. The officers and counselors were State employees. A state that locks a fifteen-year-old girl in a building has a duty to watch the adults it puts on her hall, and to act the first time somebody says something.

The complaints consolidated before the Superior Court in Middlesex County allege the State didn't. They plead negligence, negligent hiring, training, supervision and retention of staff, failure to write and enforce policies that would have stopped it, and violations of the State constitution. They allege the same names come up across different girls and different years. The State denies all of it and has demanded a jury trial. That is what a case looks like before it is decided.

One thing worth saying plainly: you do not sue the officer. The State is the defendant, the State pays, and the State has already gone to court to name the staff it says were responsible. You don't need his name to start. Many of the women in these cases know only a face and a shift.

Your deadline: the New Jersey statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse claims

New Jersey rewrote its deadline in 2019, and for a girl who went through Bordentown it is generous. Under N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2a, a claim for sexual abuse that happened before you turned 18 can be filed any time until you turn 55, or within seven years of the day you reasonably worked out that the abuse caused your harm, whichever comes later. It is permanent. There is no closing date to beat. And the same law took away the notice-of-claim trap that usually protects the State: the 90-day Tort Claims Act notice does not apply to these claims.

That's why we ask your birth year. Born in 1971 or later, you are under 55 as of this writing and can file on age alone. Born earlier, the seven-year discovery route is still there, but it turns on facts only you know, and a lawyer walks through them with you. One more thing: New Jersey opened a two-year window in December 2019 for claims that had already expired. That window closed on November 30, 2021, and we won't pretend otherwise.

If you were 18 or older when it happened, the rule is seven years from discovery, not from the date. And New Jersey doesn't allow class actions for these claims, so nobody files for you. Your case is yours.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You went from Hayes to a residential home, or to the medium security building, and it happened there instead.
You've never said it to anyone. Not a partner, not a counselor. Nobody, ever.
You were there in 1988, or in 2023, or you got stepped down and sent back somewhere in between. Plenty were. The claims now sitting in Middlesex go back to 1982 and run right up through 2024.
There isn't a word for what happened, not one you'd use anyway, and some part of you figures it wouldn't count. The filings cover the whole range, not just the worst of it.
You live outside New Jersey now.

Facilities covered

The Female Secure Care and Intake Facility, the Hayes building, on Burlington Street at the Johnstone Campus in Bordentown, the State's only secure facility for committed girls, built for 48 with eight detention cells · the Juvenile Medium Security Facility on the same campus, where the complaint says girls were held in the 1990s and early 2000s · the Albert Elias Residential Community Home in Bordentown and Costello Prep in Tabernacle, both named in the same 2024 complaint · the other residential community homes girls were stepped down to. If it was the training school at Jamesburg, that facility has its own page on this site. If it was somewhere else the State sent you, answer the questions anyway and say so on the call.

Questions people are asking

I never knew the officer's name. Does that matter?

It doesn't. The defendant is the State, and the State has itself gone to court to identify the staff it says were responsible. A description, a unit, a year. That is enough to start, and the lawyer works from there.

Can I sue the Juvenile Justice Commission for abuse at the Bordentown girls' facility?

You would sue the State of New Jersey, which runs the Commission, and more than 350 people already have. The Bordentown facility is named in the filings and the cases now sit before one judge in Middlesex County. Whether you can depends mostly on your birth year and what happened, which is what the questions above sort out.

What is the New Jersey juvenile detention sexual abuse lawsuit?

It's not one lawsuit but a few hundred, filed against the State since January 2024 over abuse at Jamesburg, the Female Secure Care and Intake Facility in Bordentown, the medium security facility and the residential homes. In June 2025 the Supreme Court of New Jersey gathered them as multicounty litigation under Judge Bruce J. Kaplan, master docket MID-L-3913-25. The first test trials are Jamesburg cases; Bordentown claims are in the litigation and waiting.

Is the Bordentown girls' facility closing?

The State says yes, along with Jamesburg, and has a working group planning what to do with the site. As of April 2026 it was still open, with replacement facilities in Ewing and Winslow due in late 2027. None of that touches a claim, though. It's the State you'd be suing, building open or building closed.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Nothing, here. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case. And we won't put a dollar figure on this page; be wary of anyone who does.

New Jersey's statute of limitations for child sexual abuse: has mine run out?

For most women who went through Bordentown, no. The long version is above, under your deadline. The short one: until you're 55. Or seven years from the day you connected what happened to the harm, if that gives you longer. That's been the law since 2019, N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2a. The thing that did run out was something else, a two-year window New Jersey opened for old claims that had already expired. It shut November 30, 2021. Born before 1971, a lawyer needs a few more facts from you before saying yes.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed New Jersey attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.