What happened to you at Maryville Academy was not okay.

Maryville Academy in Des Plaines. The City of Youth, people called it. If DCFS sent you there, any year, and something happened that you have never quite put down, then yes. This is about you.

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

Your years there were under Father John Smyth? There is a page about him, too.

This applies to you no matter what

You were a ward of the state. That is most of the people this page is for. It changes nothing about your right to ask.
You never told a soul. Not then, not since. Around thirty people have gone to court over Maryville, and nearly all of them carried it alone for twenty years first.
You got in trouble there, or after you left, and maybe there's a record now. So what. That has no bearing here.
Father Smyth died in April 2019, which some people hear as "case closed." The lawsuits were never only about him, though. They're against Maryville, which is still on River Road, and the Archdiocese, which is still downtown.
It happened thirty years ago. We know. Illinois rewrote its deadline law in 2014, and for a good number of Maryville kids that means no deadline. Details below.
You're a brother, a wife, a grown child asking for someone who can't. Reach out anyway. Plenty of people do.

The Maryville Academy lawsuits: what the public record says, and when

We didn't write what's below. Courts did, and the Archdiocese, and the reporters who covered it, and we link to every one of them. We don't add to it. Father David Ryan has denied the allegation against him, and nothing here says otherwise.

1985

A Maryville youth counselor named Robert Friese, a priest, was convicted that year. The boy was 13. They'd met at Maryville. Four years' probation, then laicization, and today his name sits on the Archdiocese of Chicago's own list of clergy with substantiated allegations. Assignment record and conviction.

January 18, 2019

Cardinal Cupich's office announced it had withdrawn Father John Smyth's faculties, citing allegations out of 2002 and 2003, the tail end of his 33 years running Maryville. He died that April, before any of it reached a courtroom. Sun-Times.

September 2019

The first lawsuit naming Smyth was filed against the Archdiocese of Chicago, on behalf of former state wards. CBS Chicago.

January 2021

By this point the Archdiocese had paid four six-figure settlements to people who said Smyth abused them. More accusers had come forward. Twenty, maybe more, one lawyer said. CBS Chicago.

July 31, 2025

Lawyers for about thirty former residents announced 23 more claimants in the consolidated Cook County cases. The suits name Maryville Academy, Smyth, and Father David Ryan, and say the Academy knew and covered it up. Ryan was placed on leave two days earlier. He denies it. Sun-Times.

February 2026

Ryan retired from his parish with the third investigation into him still open. Lake McHenry Scanner.

We checked this on September 11, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from February 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 Maryville Academy lawsuit

Not just one man. The cases on file are against Maryville Academy itself, and the first of them was against the Archdiocese of Chicago. That is the part most people don't know they can do. A place that takes in children for the state has a duty to watch the adults it puts in charge of them, and to act when a kid says something. The complaints say Maryville knew, and kept people in place anyway. If that is what happened to you, the institution, not just the man, is who answers for it.

Maryville is a separate nonprofit with its own money, about $90 million in net assets by its last filing. The Archdiocese has paid Smyth settlements out of its own funds. A lawyer will look at both.

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

Illinois took the deadline off in 2014. For childhood sexual abuse there is no statute of limitations anymore (735 ILCS 5/13-202.2). That is the good news, and it is real.

Here is the catch, and it is why we ask your birth year. What the 2014 law didn't do is reach backward. A claim that had already expired under the old rules stayed expired; Illinois courts have said so more than once. So, roughly, if you were born in 1983 or later, your claim was still alive when the law changed and you can file on age alone. Born earlier, and a lawyer needs a few more facts: when you first understood that what happened to you caused the harm, and what Maryville said, or didn't say, over the years. Illinois lets that second path stay open when an institution kept quiet.

In plain words. For a lot of Maryville kids there is no clock at all. For the rest there may still be a way, but it turns on facts only you know. Either way the answer takes a conversation, not a guess.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You have never said it out loud. Not to a spouse, not to anyone.
You don't have a word for what happened, and you're half convinced it wouldn't count.
You went back to Maryville later, or kept in touch with people there.
It was a staff member, not a priest.
You live in another state now. Most people who were placed there do.

Maryville homes covered

The Des Plaines campus on River Road, the City of Youth · the group homes and programs Maryville ran around Chicago in the same years · the shelter and residential programs that continued after 2003. If you were placed somewhere else by DCFS and something happened there, the questions still work. Answer them and say so on the call.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Maryville Academy?

About thirty people already have, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, and their cases name the Academy itself, not only the priests. Whether you can depends mostly on when you were born and what happened, which is what the questions above sort out.

Is there a statute of limitations for child sexual abuse in Illinois?

Mostly, no. Since January 1, 2014, Illinois hasn't had one, as long as the claim was still alive that day. Claims that had already lapsed under the older rules are the exception. Those need discovery or concealment facts, and that is the whole reason we ask whether you were born in 1983 or later.

Father Smyth is dead. Can I still bring a claim?

Yes. The claims that matter are against Maryville Academy and the Archdiocese, and both are very much still here. Several of the people suing now describe abuse by Smyth.

I was a ward of the state at Maryville. Does that change anything?

Only in your favor. The state paid Maryville to keep you safe. Nearly everyone in the current cases was a DCFS ward.

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.

How much is a Maryville Academy settlement?

We won't put a number on this page, and you should be wary of anyone who does. It depends on what happened, what the Academy knew, and when. A lawyer will tell you plainly after they have looked at your facts.

What kind of lawyer handles a case like this?

A civil lawyer who does institutional sexual abuse cases, meaning cases against the organization, not only the individual. That is the only kind we work with, and the firm we work with handles Illinois cases whether you are in Chicago or three states away now.

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 Illinois 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.