What happened to you at Los Padrinos was not okay.

Downey. Quill Drive. The hall LA County shut in 2019 and opened again in July 2023 because the state had found its other two unfit. By the middle of 2023 nearly 600 people had sued the County over what officers did to them in its juvenile halls, Los Padrinos among them, and the County has since put $4 billion, then $828 million more, toward settling the claims it already had. If you were locked up there as a kid and someone who worked there crossed a line, this is about you.

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This applies to you no matter what

You were there after it reopened in July 2023. The claims the County settled in 2025 were the old ones. A complaint filed in federal court in July 2025 describes a County social worker and a young man locked up at Los Padrinos between September 2024 and February 2025, and for anything after the start of 2024 there is no deadline at all.
You told an officer, or you filed a grievance, and it went nowhere or got worse. The state's own monitor told a judge in November 2024 that kids at Los Padrinos were being retaliated against for filing grievances. That is in the Attorney General's motion, not our words.
It was the '90s. Or the 2000s, you're not sure exactly. Of the 6,800 claims the County settled in April 2025, most reach back to the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, so you'd be in familiar company. What counts more than the year is when you were born, and the deadline section further down says why.
You were only there a couple of weeks. Stays at Los Padrinos run 7 to 23 days by Probation's own count. Nobody is asking how long.
You were there for something serious. Why you were held has no bearing on this. None.
You're a parent, a sibling, a friend asking for someone who can't. Reach out anyway.

The Los Padrinos lawsuits, the state's findings and the criminal case: 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 corrections board, and reporters wrote it up. Every line links to where it came from. Where a civil complaint is the source, it is an allegation and we say so. The 30 officers the Attorney General charged in March 2025 were charged, not convicted, over fights, not sexual abuse, and many of those cases have since been dropped; nothing here decides any of them.

December 20, 2022

279 former detainees sued Los Angeles County over sexual abuse by probation and detention officers in its juvenile halls and camps, Los Padrinos in Downey among the six facilities named alongside Central, Barry J. Nidorf, Challenger and two camps. The complaint describes conduct from the 1970s through 2018 and says officers used isolation, lost privileges and cut-off family contact to keep kids quiet. CBS Los Angeles.

July 13, 2024

A reporter's tally put the filings in Los Angeles County Superior Court at about 5,200 plaintiffs by May 2024, roughly 2,300 of them about Probation facilities. Two of the complaints read for that story are about Los Padrinos: a girl of 15 held there for two months in 2011 who says an officer groomed her, took her aside in a van and groped her at meals, and a boy of 13 in 2005 who says a probation employee sexually assaulted him in his room. Both are allegations. The Imprint.

November 19, 2024

The Attorney General and the County jointly asked the Los Angeles Superior Court to tighten the judgment already in place over the County's halls. The state's independent monitor had reported conditions at Los Padrinos getting worse, not better: staffing below minimums, drugs coming in, assaults between youths that staff set off, missed medical appointments, kids retaliated against for filing grievances, and cameras that didn't cover the units. Bonta's words: the County "has utterly failed in this responsibility to date." California Attorney General.

December 12, 2024

The deadline the Board of State and Community Corrections had set for the County to fix the staffing at Los Padrinos or stop holding youth there came and went. The board had found the hall unsuitable in October 2024. About 260 kids were inside. The County said it would keep the hall open and appealed the finding. FOX 11 Los Angeles.

March 3, 2025

The Attorney General filed criminal charges in Los Angeles Superior Court against 30 County detention services officers: child abuse and endangerment, conspiracy, and battery. The indictment describes 69 fights between youths at Los Padrinos from July 1 to December 31, 2023, which the officers are accused of allowing and in some cases encouraging, with 143 kids aged 12 to 18 hurt. These are charges about fights, not sexual abuse, and every defendant is presumed innocent. 22 were arraigned that day. California Attorney General.

April 29, 2025

The Board of Supervisors approved a $4 billion settlement of more than 6,800 sexual abuse claims against the County's Probation facilities and the old MacLaren Children's Center, over conduct reaching back to the 1980s. Payments run through 2030 and continue into the 2050s. The County's chief executive apologised "to everyone who was harmed by these reprehensible acts." ABC7 Los Angeles.

July 17, 2025

A new suit, this one in federal court, and the defendants this time are the County, its Probation Department and its Department of Mental Health. The plaintiff, 19 when he filed, was held at Los Padrinos from September 2024 to February 2025, and the social worker the County assigned to his case, he says, used those months to pursue a sexual relationship with him. Unproven, all of it; it's a complaint. The County's line was that it takes the allegations seriously, and nothing beyond that. NBC Los Angeles.

April 14, 2026

The criminal case had thinned out. At the Attorney General's own request nearly half of the 30 officers' cases had been dismissed; four more officers pleaded no contest on terms that end in dismissal after community service; 16 cases were still open. The AG's office said it weighs each officer's own actions and that some were "appropriately dismissed." We will update this line as the remaining cases move. Los Angeles Daily News, via Corrections1.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from April 14, 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 Padrinos Juvenile Hall lawsuit

The County of Los Angeles. Los Padrinos isn't its own thing; it is a building run by LA County Probation, and the County is the defendant in every one of these suits. The theory is not complicated. An officer who abuses a kid in a locked unit answers for himself. A County that put that officer on a unit without enough staff, without cameras that covered it, and with a grievance system its own monitor says kids were punished for using, answers for what it let happen. That is what the complaints allege, and it is close to what the Attorney General's office told a judge in November 2024. Because the County is a public body, three things change, and a lawyer will walk you through them: no punitive damages against it, no cap on what a jury can award, and for a childhood claim under section 340.1 no government-claim form to file before you sue.

The officers and staff the complaints name are defendants too, where they are named. Said plainly so nobody reads this page wrong: the 30 officers charged in March 2025 were charged over fights, not sexual abuse, and by April 2026 nearly half of those cases had been dropped at the state's own request; we don't name them here and nothing on this page accuses any of them of anything the charges don't. And your case doesn't wait on theirs, or on anyone's.

One more thing, because people ask. The $4 billion the County approved in April 2025 and the $828 million it added in October 2025 settled claims that were already filed, about 14,000 of them across Probation and foster care. If you signed on to that, it's done, and say so on the call. If you didn't, or if what happened to you happened after Los Padrinos reopened in July 2023, none of that money was for you and none of it closes your door.

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 anyone abused as a minor, Code of Civil Procedure section 340.1, 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, which is a conversation with a lawyer, not a date on a calendar.

And for anything from January 1, 2024 onward, no deadline. None. The Legislature took the clock off entirely for conduct from that date forward, and that covers most of the time Los Padrinos has been open since it reopened. One more thing that matters because the County is a public body: a childhood claim under 340.1 does not need a government claim filed first, under Government Code section 905(m). No six-month form. No letter saying you missed a window you never heard of.

Plainly. Los Padrinos in 2023 or after: you have time, full stop. The 2000s or the 2010s: you almost certainly do too. If it was the 1990s or before, you may; hundreds of people from those years are in the settled cases, and one call finds out. And if you were already 18 when it happened, which does happen at a hall where cases drag, a different clock runs. That's a call too.

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. The state's monitor has written that down about this hall.
You were only there a week or two.
You went back more than once. That is most of the people who were ever held there.
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, Oregon, anywhere else now. The case sits in California and you don't need to.

Facilities covered

Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall. 7285 Quill Drive, Downey. It opened in 1957. Closed in 2019. Reopened July 18, 2023, when about 274 pre-disposition youth were moved over from Central and Barry J. Nidorf, because the state had found those two unsuitable. Not Los Padrinos but one of the others? Central Juvenile Hall (Boyle Heights). Barry J. Nidorf (Sylmar). Challenger (Lancaster). Camp Scott, Camp Scudder, Camp Kilpatrick. The questions still work; answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall?

You would sue the County of Los Angeles, which runs it. Nearly 600 people had done exactly that in four suits by June 2023, and the County went on to settle more than 6,800 claims across its halls, camps and MacLaren in April 2025. Whether you can depends mostly on your birth year and when it happened, which is what the questions above sort out.

What is the Los Padrinos gladiator fights case?

A criminal case, not a civil one. In March 2025 the California Attorney General charged 30 County detention officers with child abuse and endangerment, conspiracy and battery over 69 fights between youths at Los Padrinos in the second half of 2023. The charges are about fights, not sexual abuse. By April 2026 nearly half of the cases had been dismissed at the AG's request and 16 were still pending. It matters to a civil case only for what it says about who was watching the units.

I was at Los Padrinos in the 1990s, is that too long ago to do anything?

Maybe not. Most of the claims the County settled in 2025 came from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The clock in California is your 40th birthday or five years after you connected what happened to what it did to you, whichever is later, and for anyone born before 1987 that second part is where the answer lives. One call sorts 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 has said it will scrutinise repeat and fraudulent claims hard. Say so on the call and nobody wastes your time. If something different happened, at a different time or place, that is a separate question, and a lawyer answers it, not us.

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.