What happened to you at Central Juvenile Hall was not okay.

Eastlake. 1605 Eastlake Avenue, Boyle Heights, the oldest juvenile hall in Los Angeles County, open since 1912 and empty of kids since July 13, 2023, when Probation moved the last 86 of them to Los Padrinos. Everyone who was ever held there called it Central, or Eastlake, or just the hall. Two complaints in August 2022, one in December 2022 and one in June 2023 name it as a place where probation staff sexually abused children in the County's custody, and on September 8, 2026 a federal complaint added two more people, held there in 2004 and 2014. If you were locked up at Central as a kid and a person on the County's payroll crossed a line, this is about you, and the building being closed changes nothing.

WatchingSeptember 2026: Doe v. County of Los Angeles, 2:26-cv-10077, filed September 8 in federal court, is the newest complaint naming Central; we have read the complaint and nothing after it. The County is paying its 2025 settlements and says about 5,000 new cases arrived after them. The questions work now.

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Looking for the page about every LA County hall and camp? Los Angeles County juvenile halls survivors: Los Padrinos, Nidorf, Central, Challenger and the camps, one defendant, one page.

This applies to you no matter what

You knew it as Eastlake, not Central. Same 22 acres on Eastlake Avenue. The federal complaint filed this September gives the address on its fourth page, 1605 Eastlake Ave, and calls it Central Juvenile Hall; older paperwork says Los Angeles County Juvenile Hall. Pick the first answer whatever you called it.
It was the '80s or '90s and you assume that's gone. Read the record below: the August 2022 complaints reach back to 1985, the December 2022 one to the 1970s, and the County's own settlement covered conduct back to 1959. What counts is your birth year more than the year it happened; the deadline section says why.
You were only there a few days, waiting on a court date. Central was a pre-disposition hall, so that's most people who ever passed through it. Nobody asks how long.
You were moved out in the chaos of March 2022, when about 140 kids went to Nidorf over one weekend, or in July 2023, when the last of you went to Los Padrinos. If it happened before the move, at Central, this is still your page. If it happened at the next place too, say so; the County is the defendant either way.
You told an officer, or you filed a grievance, and nothing came of it, or something worse did. The September 2026 complaint describes exactly that at Central in 2016. It's an allegation, but it's why the questions ask whether you told anyone.
You're a parent, a sibling, a friend asking for someone who can't. Pick 'I'm asking for someone else' and the questions adjust.

The Central Juvenile Hall lawsuits and the state's findings: what the public record says, and when

None of what follows is ours. The complaints were filed by former detainees and their lawyers, the findings were made by the California Attorney General and the state's Board of State and Community Corrections, the settlements were voted by the Board of Supervisors, and reporters wrote it up. Every line links to where it came from. Where a complaint is the source it's an allegation and we say so. One distinction we keep the whole way down: the Attorney General's judgment and the state board's findings are about conditions, staffing, safety checks, force. They are not findings of sexual abuse. The sexual-abuse record at Central is the civil complaints, and the County's settlements are the County's own acts. This page carries what names Central; the County-wide record, everything the same defendant has faced across every hall and camp, is on the Los Angeles County page linked below and isn't re-told here.

January 13, 2021

The Attorney General and the County of Los Angeles entered a stipulated judgment after a state Department of Justice investigation, opened in October 2018, into Central Juvenile Hall and Barry J. Nidorf. Site visits, more than 80 witnesses, thousands of pages. The state's complaint alleged the County "provided insufficient services and endangered youth safety, including, among other things, by relying on excessive and inappropriate physical and chemical use of force." The County agreed to a four-year corrective plan, use of force, room confinement, mental health, education, training, with an independent monitor. A conditions case, start to finish, and a record of what the state told the County about how it ran Central. California Attorney General, January 13, 2021.

June 9, 2022

The state's Board of State and Community Corrections found Central "unsuitable for the detention of minors" because officers weren't doing the safety checks the rules require, a look into every room every 15 minutes, and gave the County until August 7 to move the kids out. The second such finding in nine months; on September 16, 2021 the board had found Central and Nidorf unsuitable over physical exams and the documentation of psychotropic medication. In between, over one weekend in March 2022, Probation moved about 140 youths out of Central to Nidorf with a day's notice to staff and none to parents, and shut the hall for 90 days ahead of a state inspection. The board found Central suitable again on July 25, 2022. None of this is a finding about sexual abuse. It is a record of who was, and wasn't, looking into the rooms. Board of State and Community Corrections, June 9, 2022.

August 26, 2022

Two complaints in Los Angeles Superior Court, more than 70 women between them, alleging sexual abuse by probation staff from 1985 to 2019 at six County places: Camp Scott, Camp Scudder, Camp Challenger, the Dorothy Kirby Center, Los Padrinos, and Central Juvenile Hall. The Imprint's report recalls what the Los Angeles Times had found in 2010, that at least 11 of the County's juvenile probation officers had been disciplined or criminally convicted for misconduct and that there were 102 misconduct allegations at the facilities from 2007 to 2010. Probation's answer, through a spokesperson: anyone found to have engaged in sexual misconduct with a youth in its care would be discharged and referred to the District Attorney. Allegations, in pending cases. The Imprint, August 26, 2022.

December 2022

279 people who'd been held as kids sued the County, saying probation staff sexually abused them in its halls and camps from the 1970s to 2018. Central, the Eastlake hall, is one of six facilities named; Challenger, Los Padrinos, Nidorf, Camp Scott and Camp Scudder are the rest. Their lawyer described how kids were kept quiet: comply or be punished, sent to the SHU, lose your phone privileges. Probation wasn't available for comment. Allegations, every one. CBS Los Angeles, December 27, 2022.

June 12, 2023

The same firm's fourth complaint, 78 more plaintiffs, conduct from 1998 to 2018 at Camp Kilpatrick, Central Juvenile Hall, Barry J. Nidorf and Los Padrinos, children as young as 12. One of them is about Central and it's the kind of detail a lawyer reads twice: a 15-year-old boy who says that on six separate occasions the same guard beat him, pepper-sprayed him, took him to the showers "to get washed off," and sexually assaulted him there. The complaint says the County failed to staff, train and supervise its facilities and failed to investigate what was reported; a 15-year-old girl who tried to report abuse in 2014, it alleges, was put in solitary instead. Nearly 600 plaintiffs across the firm's four suits by then. Allegations in pending cases, none proven. Pasadena Star-News, June 16, 2023 (via Corrections1).

July 13, 2023

The last kids leave. On May 23 the state board had voted, unanimously, that Central and Nidorf were both unsuitable to hold youth, inadequate safety checks, room confinement past what the rules allow, no programs or recreation, not enough staff, use of force, and gave the County 60 days. Probation moved 87 youths from Central to the reopened Los Padrinos on Wednesday, July 12, and 86 more on Thursday night, and its interim chief said it plainly the next morning: "Central no longer houses youth." It hasn't since. That's the cohort's end date, and it's why nothing that happened at Central can fall under the newer no-deadline rule explained further down. County of Los Angeles, July 14, 2023.

April 29, 2025 to February 27, 2026

The County's money, in one paragraph, because the rest is on the County page. The Board of Supervisors approved a $4 billion settlement on April 29, 2025 for claims at Probation facilities and MacLaren going back to 1959, more than 11,000 claimants once the count settled; $828 million more on October 28, 2025 for more than 400 further cases; and by February 27, 2026 County Counsel was saying about 5,000 additional cases had been served after the two settlements, more than 16,000 claims in all, "a figure that is expected to rise." Every plaintiff now files a sworn factual summary. None of it is broken out by hall. The County has never published a Central number and we won't invent one. Los Angeles County Counsel, February 27, 2026.

September 8, 2026

The newest one, and the first we've read that puts a case number next to Central. Doe v. County of Los Angeles, 2:26-cv-10077, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by six plaintiffs suing as Jane and John Does. Two were held at Central: Jane T.H. Doe, who says she was 13 to 16 there in about 2014 to 2017, sexually abused by five staff members she describes by appearance and nickname, and beaten about a week after she filed a written grievance naming one of them in 2016; and John R.H. Doe, who says he was 12 or 13 there in 2004 and 2005 and was abused by two staff members who had their own offices and control over meals and going home. The other four were at Los Padrinos and Nidorf. The complaint pleads childhood sexual assault under California's statute, says no government claim was required, and says the plaintiffs learned of the County's alleged failures "through public disclosures and advertisements in approximately 2025." It's a complaint; nothing in it is proven, and the County hasn't answered yet as far as we've seen. We don't repeat the partial names in it. Complaint, Doe v. County of Los Angeles, 2:26-cv-10077 (C.D. Cal.), on RECAP.

We checked this on September 15, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from September 8, 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 Central Juvenile Hall lawsuit

The County of Los Angeles. Central was never its own defendant; it was a County building, run by the County's Probation Department, and the County is the party named in every complaint on this page, the one the state sued in 2021, and the one whose Board voted the settlements. That doesn't change because the hall closed. The theory is the plain one. A staff member who abuses a kid in a locked unit answers for himself. A County that hired him, put him alone with children in a closet or a shower or an office, and ran a hall the state found wasn't checking rooms every 15 minutes answers for what it let happen. That is what the September 2026 complaint alleges in its own words, failure to screen, train and supervise, grievances that went nowhere, and it's what the 2022 and 2023 complaints allege too.

Because the County is a public body, three things change, and a lawyer walks you through them. No punitive damages against the County; California law bars them. No cap on what a jury can award. And a childhood sexual abuse claim doesn't need a government claim filed first, no six-month form, no missed window, whatever year you were at Central. The September 2026 complaint pleads exactly that.

The County has a page of its own on this site, /la-county-juvenile-halls-survivors, with every hall and camp it ran and the whole County-wide record. This page is Central's: the same defendant, the same questions, sorted by where you were held so the person who calls you knows where to start. If you were at Central and somewhere else too, answer for Central here and say the rest on the call.

Your deadline: the California statute of limitations for sexual abuse at a county juvenile hall

Until you turn 40, or five years from the day you understood what it did to you, whichever comes later. That's California's rule for anything that happened to a minor before 2024, Code of Civil Procedure section 340.11, and since nobody has been held at Central since July 2023 it's the rule for everyone who was ever there. It's why the questions ask your birth year. Born in 1987 or later and the door is open on age alone. Born before that and it turns on discovery, and for a suit against the County filed at 40 or older the statute also asks for a showing that the County knew or had reason to know, plus certificates of merit from a lawyer and a therapist. Hurdles, not walls; the County's settlements covered claims from the 1980s and earlier. A lawyer decides, not a calendar.

One rule that cuts your way because the County is a public body. A childhood sexual abuse claim doesn't need a government claim filed first, under Government Code section 905(m) and section 340.11(s). Any year, 1985 or 2019. No form, no missed six months. And to be straight about the newer law: California took the clock off entirely for conduct from January 1, 2024 onward, but Central had been empty for five months by then, so that rule doesn't reach anyone on this page.

Plainly. Born in 1987 or later: you have time. Born earlier, held at Central in the '90s or the 2000s or before: you may, and one call finds out. We don't quote figures here because a lawyer has to look at your dates first.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. Not a parent, not a public defender, nobody.
You told an officer, or you filed a grievance, and it got worse. That's what one of the September 2026 plaintiffs describes at Central.
You were only there a week, waiting on court. Or you kept coming back for years.
You bounced between Central, Nidorf and Los Padrinos, or went from Central to a camp. Most people who were ever held did.
You don't have a word for what happened and you're half sure it wouldn't count. That's for a lawyer to weigh, not you.
You live in Nevada, Arizona, anywhere else now. The case sits in California and you don't need to.

Facilities covered

Central Juvenile Hall, 1605 Eastlake Avenue, Los Angeles 90033, in Boyle Heights next to the Eastlake juvenile courthouse: the County's first permanent juvenile detention facility, opened in 1912 as Los Angeles County Juvenile Hall, called Eastlake by most of the people who were ever inside it, and the County's only hall for 45 years until Los Padrinos opened in 1957. A pre-disposition hall, kids waiting on court, to the end. The state found it unsuitable in September 2021, June 2022 and May 2023; Probation emptied it for 90 days in March 2022 and for good on July 13, 2023, and the County's own directory now lists Los Padrinos and the secure youth treatment facilities at Nidorf, Kilpatrick and Dorothy Kirby as where youth are held. Everything that happened to a minor at Central, any year up to that July, is on this page. Held somewhere else the County ran, Los Padrinos, Nidorf, Challenger, Camp Scott, Camp Scudder, Dorothy Kirby, MacLaren, one of the camps? That's the County-wide page, /la-county-juvenile-halls-survivors (Los Padrinos and Nidorf have their own pages too), but the questions here still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Central Juvenile Hall?

You'd sue the County of Los Angeles, which owned and ran it. More than 70 women did in August 2022, 279 people did that December, 78 more in June 2023, and two of the six plaintiffs in a federal complaint filed September 8, 2026 say they were held at Central. Whether you can depends mostly on your birth year and when it happened, which is what the questions above sort out.

Central Juvenile Hall is closed. Does that matter?

Not to a claim. The last kids left on July 13, 2023, after the state board said the place was unsuitable; the building is still the County's. You'd be suing the County anyway, never the hall, and it's the same County that settled thousands of juvenile-hall claims in 2025. Where the closing does matter is the deadline. The no-deadline rule only covers conduct from 2024 on, and Central was empty by then, so everyone here is on the age-40-or-discovery rule, up above.

Eastlake Juvenile Hall, Central Juvenile Hall: same place?

Same place. The hall on Eastlake Avenue opened in 1912 as Los Angeles County Juvenile Hall and became Central once the County had more than one; people who were there in any decade call it Eastlake, and the courthouse next door still carries the name. Answer the first question with the first option, whatever you call it.

I already got money from the LA County settlement. Can I file again?

Not for the same thing. A settled claim is settled, and the County now requires every plaintiff to file a detailed factual summary under penalty of perjury. Say so on the call and nobody wastes your time. If something different happened, at a different time or place, that's a separate question, and a lawyer answers it, not us.

Was anyone at Central Juvenile Hall convicted?

Not in any record on this page. The 2021 judgment and the state board's findings are about conditions, not sexual abuse, and nobody was charged under them. The complaints from 2022, 2023 and 2026 are civil, the staff members in them are unnamed or described only by nickname, and none of it has been proven. The Imprint's 2022 report recalls that the Los Angeles Times found in 2010 that at least 11 County juvenile probation officers had been disciplined or criminally convicted for misconduct; it doesn't say which facilities. A civil case against the County doesn't need a conviction.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Here, nothing. 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.

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 California 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.