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What happened to you in a Los Angeles County juvenile hall was not okay.

Downey. Sylmar. Eastlake Avenue in Boyle Heights. The camps up Bouquet Canyon and out in Lancaster. Different buildings. One defendant, though, because the County of Los Angeles runs all of them, every hall and every camp, through its Probation Department. In April 2025 the County agreed to pay $4 billion, which settled more than 6,800 sexual abuse claims out of those places and out of MacLaren. Then in October it put up another $828 million, 414 more cases. Then, its own County Counsel said this February, roughly 5,000 new cases arrived after the settlements were signed. If you were held in any LA County hall or camp as a minor and a person on the County's payroll crossed a line, this is about you, whichever building it was.

Question 1 of 6

Were you held, as a minor, at an LA County juvenile hall or probation camp?
Roughly when were you there? A guess is fine.
Who was it? Just the role. No names yet.
Were you born in 1987 or later?
Two quick ones.

Did you, or a parent, ever report it to anyone at the hall or camp, at Probation, or to a lawyer or a judge?

Have you already hired a lawyer about this, or signed on to one of the County settlements?

Where should a real person reach you? One call. Nothing happens unless you say so.

When is a good time to call? (your time)

Say we miss you. Okay to leave a voicemail, or text you?

You never pay a dollar. Every case is on contingency.

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

This applies to you no matter what

The LA County juvenile hall lawsuits, the settlements 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 settlements were voted by the Board of Supervisors, the findings were made by the California Attorney General, a Superior Court judge and the state's corrections board, 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. And because this page covers a whole system, one more thing said plainly: the complaints and findings below name Los Padrinos, Barry J. Nidorf, Central, Challenger, Camp Scott, Camp Scudder, Dorothy Kirby and MacLaren. Kilpatrick, Afflerbaugh, Paige, Rockey and the closed camps are on the quiz because the same County ran them in the same years; no separate record on any of them is cited here.

August 26, 2022

Two complaints land in Los Angeles Superior Court. More than 70 women between them, and what they allege is sexual abuse by probation staff, 1985 to 2019, at Camp Joseph Scott, Camp Kenyon Scudder, Camp Challenger, the Dorothy Kirby Center, Los Padrinos and Central. The Imprint's report also looks back at what the Los Angeles Times had found in 2010. At least 11 of the County's juvenile probation officers disciplined or criminally convicted for misconduct, molestation of minors in custody among it. 102 misconduct allegations at the facilities in the three years 2007 to 2010. And one officer who, after abuse was reported, was simply moved to another facility. Allegations, every one. The Imprint.

December 2022

279 more people sued the County. Their lawyer talked about how kids got kept quiet (isolation, no phone privileges, no family visits), and the conduct alleged goes back to the 1970s and runs to 2018. This time it wasn't a few camps. Challenger in Lancaster. Los Padrinos in Downey. Central on Eastlake. Barry J. Nidorf in Sylmar. Camp Scott and Camp Scudder. Probation, asked for comment, didn't have anyone available. CBS Los Angeles.

May 9, 2023

The state went back to court to make the County keep its word. It got what it asked for: Judge Michael P. Linfield of the Los Angeles Superior Court enforced the stipulated judgment in People v. County of Los Angeles, case 21STCV01309, on the Attorney General's motion. That judgment dated from January 2021; the state had won it after investigating Central and Nidorf. Ten provisions the County still hadn't met, the court found. Getting kids to class. Getting them to medical care. Outdoor recreation, use-of-force documentation, a plan to install cameras throughout the juvenile halls. Miss the new deadlines, the judge warned, and an order to show cause on sanctions would follow. Two weeks later the state corrections board found Central and Nidorf unsuitable to hold youth at all. Order to Enforce Judgment, LASC (via the Attorney General).

July 13, 2024

A reporter went and counted. Roughly 2,300 plaintiffs about Probation's halls and camps, most of the rest about MacLaren Children's Center in El Monte, about 5,200 in all with childhood sexual abuse filings against the County in Los Angeles Superior Court, as of May 2024. The piece also describes two Los Padrinos complaints, and they're hard to read. A girl, 15 in 2011, says an officer groped her in a van and at meals. A boy who was 13 in 2005 says a probation employee sexually assaulted him in his room. Both are allegations in pending cases. The Imprint.

March 3, 2025

The Attorney General unsealed a grand jury indictment of 30 County detention services officers at Los Padrinos: child abuse and endangerment, conspiracy, and battery, over 69 fights between youths from July 1 to December 31, 2023 that the officers are accused of allowing or encouraging, 143 kids aged 12 to 18 hurt. These are charges about fights, not sexual abuse. Then it thinned out. By April 2026 nearly half the cases were dismissed, at the state's own request; four officers had pleaded no contest on terms that end in dismissal; 16 were still on the docket. Nobody's been convicted. Every remaining defendant is presumed innocent. California Attorney General.

April 29, 2025

The Board of Supervisors voted $4 billion. It settles more than 6,800 sexual abuse claims at Probation facilities and at MacLaren (closed in 2003), with conduct reaching all the way back to 1959, though most of it is from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The payments run through 2030, and then they keep going, into the 2050s. "On behalf of the County, I apologize wholeheartedly to everyone who was harmed by these reprehensible acts," the County's chief executive said. On October 28 the Board approved a second settlement, $828 million for 414 more cases. CBS Los Angeles.

February 27, 2026

County Counsel's own numbers, in a release announcing a fraud investigation into one plaintiffs' firm: the $4 billion settlement grew to more than 11,000 claimants after it was announced; the October agreement settled more than 400 cases; and "after entering into these two settlements, the County was served with an estimated 5,000 additional cases, for a total of more than 16,000 claims, a figure that is expected to rise." The same release says every plaintiff now files a detailed factual summary under penalty of perjury. Worth knowing before you call. County of Los Angeles, Office of County Counsel.

September 8, 2026

Six plaintiffs, Jane and John Does, sued the County of Los Angeles in federal court in Los Angeles, Doe v. County of Los Angeles, 2:26-cv-10077. Three say they were held at Los Padrinos around 2001 to 2003, two at Central (2004-05, and 2014-17), one at Barry J. Nidorf in 2001-02, all aged 12 to 16. 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. As of September 9 the docket showed nothing else. CourtListener docket, C.D. Cal..

We checked this on September 13, 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 Los Angeles County juvenile hall lawsuit

The County of Los Angeles. Not the hall, not the camp, not Probation as a separate thing. The County. Every complaint on this page names it, every settlement was voted by its Board, and the Attorney General's judgment runs against it. The theory is the plain one. An officer who abuses a kid in a locked unit answers for himself. A County that hired him, put him alone with children, heard about it and moved him to another facility, answers for what it let happen. That is what the complaints allege, and the 2010 findings the Imprint recalls, 11 officers disciplined or convicted and 102 allegations in three years, are the kind of thing a lawyer uses to show the County knew.

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 for a childhood claim there is no government-claim form to file first, no six-month window to have missed. That last one is why the settlements could reach back to 1959.

Where you were held sorts the intake, not the case. Los Padrinos has its own page on this site, with its 2023 reopening and the criminal case laid out. Barry J. Nidorf has one as well. Central, Challenger, the camps and MacLaren don't, because the records above name them inside County-wide filings rather than on their own, and that's fine: pick the place in the first question and the person who calls you knows where to start.

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

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 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 itself filed at 40 or older the law also asks for a showing that the County knew or should have known, plus certificates of merit from a lawyer and a therapist. Real hurdles, not walls; thousands of the settled claimants were over 40. A lawyer decides, not a calendar.

For anything from January 1, 2024 onward, no deadline. None. The Legislature took the clock off entirely for conduct from that date forward, section 340.1, which covers Los Padrinos since its reopening and Nidorf today. And one more 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. No form, no missed six months.

Plainly, then. Held in 2024 or after? You have time, full stop. Born in 1987 or later, same answer. Born earlier, held in the '90s or the 2000s or before: you may, and the County has already paid people from exactly those years, so one call finds out. And if you were already 18 when it happened, which does happen at Nidorf's treatment facility where young men stay past 18, a different clock runs and that's a call too.

Your situation still qualifies even if

Facilities covered

Eight places the records actually name, then a handful more the same County ran. Challenger Memorial Youth Center in Lancaster. Camp Joseph Scott and Camp Kenyon Scudder, up in Santa Clarita. Dorothy Kirby Center in Commerce. MacLaren Children's Center in El Monte, which was the County's foster shelter, run by DCFS rather than Probation, closed in 2003, and named in the County's settlement all the same. Then the halls. Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall, 16350 Filbert Street in Sylmar, found unsuitable by the state in May 2023 and again in July 2025 and run since as a secure youth treatment facility. Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, 7285 Quill Drive if you're looking it up; its reopening, and the young men moving back to Nidorf in August 2026, are covered further up. Central Juvenile Hall in Boyle Heights, the Eastlake one, 1605 Eastlake Avenue, held youth until July 2023 and is what Probation now calls a medical hub. Los Padrinos and Nidorf both have a page of their own on this site, /los-padrinos-juvenile-hall-survivors and /barry-j-nidorf-juvenile-hall-survivors. Kilpatrick in Malibu, Afflerbaugh and Paige in La Verne, Rockey in San Dimas, and the camps that have since closed: same department, same defendant, listed here for that reason and no other. Somewhere else the County ran? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue LA County for abuse at a juvenile hall or probation camp?

You'd sue the County of Los Angeles, which runs all of them. More than 16,000 claims had been filed by County Counsel's own count in February 2026, and the County has settled over 11,000 of those claims. Whether you can depends mostly on your birth year and when it happened, which is what the questions above sort out. Asking is free.

Who qualifies for the LA County juvenile hall settlement?

Nobody new. The $4 billion and $828 million settlements resolved claims that were already filed; there's no fund to apply to and no claims deadline. A new case is filed on its own, in court, the way the six plaintiffs did in September 2026. If you already signed on to a settlement, say so on the call and nobody wastes your time.

I was at Camp Scott, not a juvenile hall. Does this cover me?

Yes. The August 2022 complaints named Camp Scott, Camp Scudder, Challenger and Dorothy Kirby before they named the halls, and the December 2022 complaint named the Santa Clarita camps alongside all three halls. Same County, same theory. Pick the camp in the first question.

Is the state taking over LA County's juvenile halls?

It asked to. In July 2025 the Attorney General moved to put the halls in receivership, saying the County was out of compliance with three-quarters of the 2021 judgment. Judge Peter Hernandez denied that on October 10, 2025 and kept the case under the court's own supervision instead; the judgment stays in force. That's a conditions case, about staffing and drugs and fights. It bears on a sexual abuse claim only for what it says about who was watching the units.

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

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.

  1. You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
  2. A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
  3. 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.