What happened to you at Devereux was not okay.

Devereux is the big one. Headquarters in Villanova, campuses in nine states, three of them in Chester County, where a county, a court or a school district sent you because somebody decided you needed more help than home could give. In 2020 the Inquirer counted at least 41 children who said a Devereux staff member assaulted them over 25 years, ten of them here. If you were a resident at Devereux Mapleton, Brandywine, Kanner or one of the Devon programs, any year, this 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 placed there by a county, a judge or a school district, not by your parents. That is most of the people this page is for. It changes nothing about your right to ask.
You told a staffer, or your DHS worker, and nothing happened. Seven of the thirteen people in the 2020 Philadelphia lawsuit say exactly that. It's part of the case, not a reason you don't have one.
It was another resident, not an adult. A 2019 suit against Devereux was about a boy whose roommate hurt him after he'd asked staff twice not to be roomed with him. The complaint says they did it anyway.
You have a diagnosis, or a record, and figure nobody would believe you. The kids in these cases have autism, intellectual disabilities, trauma histories. The courts took the cases.
You were there recently, 2020 or later. The man a jury convicted in February 2026 was on shift at the Kanner campus in June of 2024.
Maybe it isn't you. A parent, a sibling, a spouse, asking for someone who can't ask. Reach out anyway.

The Devereux lawsuits and convictions: what the public record says, and when

We didn't write what's below. Chester County juries did, and federal and Philadelphia courts, and the reporters who sat through the hearings, and we link to every one. Where a staff member was convicted we say convicted. Where it's a lawsuit, it's an allegation, and Devereux denies liability in every case still open.

June 28, 2012

Fofee Sayon. Residential counselor, Devereux's Mapleton campus, Willistown. A Chester County jury convicted him of felony institutional sexual assault, and of endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of minors and unlawful contact with a minor besides. His victim was a 16-year-old girl who'd lived there from August to October 2010 and whose one-on-one aide he was. Daily Local News.

February 8, 2017

Four to eight years in state prison. That's what Judge Ann Marie Wheatcraft gave Everol David Brackett, who'd been a residential supervisor at the Willistown campus, after a jury convicted him in September 2016 on seven counts of institutional sexual assault, three of unlawful contact with a minor, three of possessing child pornography, and corruption of minors besides. She was 15 and 16, the resident, and it happened in her bedroom and in a campus van in the spring of 2015. "She was a child," the judge said. "He preyed on her." Daily Local News.

August 11, 2020

The Philadelphia Inquirer published its investigation: at least 41 children, some as young as 12, some with IQs as low as 50, said Devereux staff had raped or sexually assaulted them over 25 years, ten at the three Chester County campuses. Reporters found understaffed dorms, staff asleep on shifts, and warning signs that went nowhere; a manager had found Brackett's letters to the girl before the abuse began and told her to stop writing. It also reported that Robert Flood, a Brandywine staffer, was sentenced in Chester County that June to eight years for abusing three boys, 16 and 14, in early 2018. Inquirer investigation.

September 24, 2020

Philadelphia's Department of Human Services said it would pull all 53 city children from Devereux's campuses after a six-week review and 13 unannounced visits. "They weren't doing their jobs," the commissioner said of the staff. Governor Wolf had already ordered the state DHS to investigate. Devereux called the city's decision "unjustified." Inquirer.

October 5, 2020

Thirteen former residents sued in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County (E-Filing No. 2010005141): the Devereux Foundation, its Pennsylvania affiliates and Brackett. The complaint describes abuse by staff between about 2004 and 2014 at Mapleton in Malvern, the Manor in Berwyn, Stone and Gables in Devon and Brandywine. Seven of the thirteen say they complained to a staffer or their DHS worker at the time and were ignored. The complaint alleges Devereux "knew or should have known that the low salaries offered to staff and lack of oversight was and did lead to misconduct and other abuse." The complaint.

January 26, 2021

Then the federal cases. Jines v. The Devereux Foundation, No. 2:21-cv-00346 (E.D. Pa.), a class action for children in Devereux's care nationwide, named Devereux and its staffing arm. Two more followed it into the same court, one in June 2021, one in June 2022, and in January 2023 Judge Anita B. Brody refused, for the third time, to throw one of them out. Devereux's answer was that it would "continue to defend itself vigorously." Jines itself went quiet in February 2026. Settlement papers went in under seal, and most of the plaintiffs then dismissed their claims by stipulation. The terms aren't public. Docket.

May 22, 2024

Four related lawsuits were filed in Pennsylvania for 66 adults who say they were abused as children in juvenile facilities. Eighteen describe sexual abuse at Devereux; one says a staff member abused him at 14 while he was sedated and restrained. Every plaintiff was born after November 26, 1989, for the reason in the deadline section below. Devereux's vice president, asked about it, said the organization has "worked to prevent abuse" and, the statement went on, that no setting is "entirely immune from the risk." Associated Press.

February 25, 2026

There was a camera. What it recorded on June 30, 2024 was a direct-care staffer on the Kanner campus in West Whiteland, Shakur Austin, 28, with a 14-year-old resident, and the Chester County jury watched the tape. Every count came back guilty, involuntary deviate sexual assault, institutional sexual assault of a minor, unlawful contact with a minor, the rest of it. He hasn't been sentenced yet. Daily Local News.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from February 25, 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 Devereux lawsuit

Not just the man. Sayon, Brackett, Flood and Austin were each convicted in Chester County. The lawsuits are about something else: the organization that hired them, put them alone with children, and, the complaints say, didn't listen when a kid spoke up. The Devereux Foundation is the named defendant in Philadelphia and in federal court, with the affiliates that run the Chester County campuses. A place that takes children from 33 Pennsylvania counties, at up to $84,000 a child a year, has a duty to watch the adults it puts in charge of them. The complaints say Devereux knew low pay and thin oversight led to abuse, and kept going the same way.

The knowledge part matters, and it is pleaded, not guessed. Seven of the thirteen 2020 plaintiffs say they reported it at the time. The Inquirer found emails showing a manager cleared Brackett after finding his letters to a 15-year-old, and walk-in closets left in Brandywine bedrooms after a 2016 assault in one; Flood used one in 2018. Whether that adds up to negligence is a jury's question. Nothing has been decided, and Devereux denies it.

Devereux is a nonprofit, but a large one, about $467 million a year as of 2020, nearly all of it public money, and it is still open, still licensed, still admitting children in Chester County. That is who the claim is against. Not you, not another kid, not a man already in prison.

Your deadline: the Pennsylvania statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse

If you were under 18 and were born in December 1989 or later, Pennsylvania gives you until your 55th birthday. That is Act 87 of 2019, now 42 Pa.C.S. § 5533(b)(2): thirty-seven years after you turn 18. Born in December 1989 or after, the door is open on age alone, and for most Devereux kids from 2003 onward that is you. Every one of the 66 plaintiffs in the May 2024 suits was born after November 26, 1989. Not a coincidence.

Here is the hard part, said plainly. Act 87 took effect on November 26, 2019, and the claims it reached were the ones still alive that day, nothing older; under the law before it you'd had until you were 30. So if you had already turned 30 by then, roughly anyone born before December 1989, your Pennsylvania claim was already closed and the new law did not reopen it. Right now there is no route in Pennsylvania for that group. Could that change? Maybe, someday; there are bills for it, and the questions below say where they stand. Neither has passed. We won't tell you one is coming, because nobody knows.

Two things even so. Born before December 1989, a lawyer should still look at your dates: the arithmetic is to the day, and a Devereux campus in another state runs on that state's clock. And if you were 18 or older when it happened, the rules are different and shorter. Answer the questions and we'll get you to someone who does this math for a living.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. Not then, not since. Most people in these cases carried it fifteen years first.
You did tell someone at Devereux and were told you were confused, or making it up, or that it could get the staffer in trouble.
You were medicated, or restrained, and the memory has holes in it. One of the 2024 plaintiffs describes exactly that.
It was another resident, not an adult. The 2019 Brandywine case was.
You went AWOL from there, got written up, have a record now. So what.
You live in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland or farther now. Devereux drew kids from all over.

Devereux campuses covered

Devereux Mapleton and the Beneto Center, 655 Sugartown Road, Malvern (Willistown Township) · Devereux Brandywine, Glenmoore (Wallace Township) · the Leo Kanner campus, East Boot Road, West Chester (West Whiteland Township) · the Devon programs, Stone and Gables, Whitlock and the Manor in Berwyn · the Gateway School in Newtown Square. A Devereux campus in another state? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Devereux?

Thirteen people already have, in Philadelphia in 2020, and they weren't the last: federal court in 2021 and 2022, then 18 more in the Pennsylvania suits filed in May 2024. Whether you can turns mostly on when you were born and where it happened, which is what the questions above sort out.

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.

The staff member who hurt me was never charged. Does that matter?

No, not for a civil case. Think about who the lawsuits name: Devereux, for how it hired, how it supervised, whether it listened. And most people in those suits are describing staff nobody ever prosecuted.

What's the Pennsylvania statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, and does it reach me?

Until you turn 55, if Act 87 of 2019 reaches you. Here's the catch. It took effect November 26, 2019 and reached only claims still alive that day, and the old rule killed a claim at 30. So it comes down to birthdays: born about December 1989 or later, you're inside; earlier, and Pennsylvania has no window for you. Harrisburg keeps almost passing one. The House voted for a window in June 2025. The Senate hasn't, and a summer push to make it vote went nowhere. Watch it, but don't plan around it.

Is Devereux still open?

Yes, and that matters. Still licensed, still running, all three Chester County campuses. And the February 2026 conviction was for June 2024 at Kanner. Not twenty years ago. Philadelphia pulled its kids in 2020; Chester County went and looked at its own placements, then left them there.

How much is a Devereux settlement?

We won't put a number on this page, and be wary of anyone who does. The one federal settlement on the docket was filed under seal. It depends on what happened, what Devereux knew, and when. A lawyer will tell you plainly after looking at your facts.

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 Pennsylvania 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.