{"id":122482,"date":"2025-08-06T02:37:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T02:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/122482\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T02:37:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T02:37:23","slug":"federal-investigation-requested-into-la-county-juvenile-system-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/122482\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal investigation requested into LA County juvenile system \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorneys representing more than 200 women who say they were sexually abused while they were in LA County juvenile custody are calling for a federal investigation.<\/p>\n

Even after a record-setting $4 billion settlement<\/a> in April for sexual abuse claims made by more than 6,800 victims, attorneys Courtney Thom and John Manly said Tuesday that no one has been indicted in connection with any sexual abuse claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot one of those current or former LA County probation department officers have been prosecuted, not one has been arrested,\u201d Thom said. \u201cWithout a full investigation about what happened, how can anyone, including the Board of Supervisors who’s tasked with maintaining a safe environment for its citizens, how can anyone assure this won’t happen again?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The demand for action comes about two weeks after California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced<\/a> in July that the juvenile system had been placed in receivership due to what he called a \u201cpublic safety crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since a 2021 settlement agreement to monitor county juvenile facilities, Bonta claimed the county failed to comply with court judgments and orders regarding management of the system’s locations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The attorneys sent a letter to U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli Tuesday, detailing their request for a federal investigation.<\/p>\n

The attorneys allege the sexual abuse occurred at \u201cboot camps,\u201d which were run by the Department of Probation, separate from the juvenile halls. Hundreds of girls who committed minor offenses from ages 12 to 17 were sent to the camps by their families or by juvenile court, they said.<\/p>\n

The Office of County Counsel said in a statement that records are no longer available in many cases due to statutory requirements because the childhood sexual abuse claims span decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The counsel added that, in the vast majority of claims, plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys \u201chave not produced evidence enabling the County to identify perpetrators,\u201d but they \u201cwholeheartedly\u201d support efforts to ensure those who have committed crimes against minors are \u201cprosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLed by our Board of Supervisors, we will continue working to reform systems to safeguard young people in our care and doing everything in our power to ensure that victims get the justice they deserve,\u201d the counsel said in a statement.<\/p>\n

NBC4 contacted a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office in Los Angeles, who declined to comment. The Probation Department has not responded to NBC4\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

Kathryn Barger, the chair of the County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement that she will support the process if the U.S. Attorney determines a federal investigation is warranted.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurvivors deserve the truth\u2014and a clear signal that such harm will never be tolerated again,\u201d Barger said.<\/p>\n

Attorney John Manly said that the purpose of the request is to bring criminal charges federally, if possible, but added that residents and survivors of the abuse also deserve to know who is responsible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people of the state, and the people of our country and especially the survivors deserve to know how this happened,\u201d Manly said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorneys representing more than 200 women who say they were sexually abused while they were in LA County…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":122483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2961,20362,224,5337],"class_list":{"0":"post-122482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-county","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-losangeles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114979500591520634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}