‘HOUSE OF HORRORS’: Los Angeles Approves $4-BILLION Child Sex Abuse Settlement, Largest in U.S. History

The County of Los Angeles has agreed to thousands of victims who were sexually assaulted as children while housed at MacLaren Children’s Center (“MacLaren Hall”), an emergency shelter placement facility that it operated for more than four decades in the City of El Monte.

Photo above of a Christmas Party at MacLaren Hall (photo courtesy of the archives of Mr. and Mrs. Vincent Graziano. source here.)

The Los Angeles County-run shelter meant to be a safe space for children as they awaited placement in foster homes was for decades a den for sexual predators among the staff — and some residents — who preyed on children as young as 5.

MacLaren Hall was a ten-acre facility operated by the County between 1961 and 2003 to temporarily house children that were removed from their homes and had nowhere else to live while awaiting placement with a foster family. It was never intended to permanently house children for extended periods of time. Until 1976, MacLaren Hall was managed and run by the Los Angeles County Probation Department; as a result, it was operated more like a prison, rather than a home for dependent children. Guards and staff frequently physically restrained and abused children. Children were frequently sexually assaulted and abused by staff members and other children, based on the total lack of supervision. There have been numerous reports by former residents of being overmedicated, taunted by staff, restrained, physically beaten and mentally abused.

“MacLaren Hall was run like a child prison, with sky-high walls, barbed wire fences, floodlights, and massive gates and doors guarded by probation officers,” said Adam P. Slater, Founding Partner of Slater Slater Schulman LLP. “It was a literal house of horrors for the children who were brought there, often taken from an abusive home only to be re-abused at MacLaren. The County of Los Angeles had one responsibility – to protect and care for vulnerable children, but these children were sexually abused by the very people who were supposed to protect them and ignored by other adults when they reported the abuse. Hundreds of children who lived at MacLaren are still suffering from the unimaginable trauma they experienced within its halls.”

“The County of Los Angeles systematically failed to protect the welfare of the children in its care at MacLaren Hall for four decades,” said James W. Lewis of Slater Slater Schulman. “It was overcrowded, dirty, and inhumane. Through a total lack of supervision, and by failing to respond to reports of abuse, the County stood by as hundreds – if not thousands – of society’s most vulnerable children entrusted to its care became victims of sexual assault. They had a responsibility to adequately and properly investigate, hire, train and supervise the staff at MacLaren Hall, and yet they only started performing background checks two years before it closed, resulting in an astounding 17 people being deemed unfit to work with children. It’s unconscionable.”

The pattern of abuse at MacLaren Hall is well-documented throughout its history:

• In 1976, control of MacLaren Hall was transferred from the County Probation Department to the Department of Social Services following public outcry stemming from the inappropriate treatment of foster children.
• In 1984, five MacLaren Hall employees were arrested following discovery of their crimes against residents, including child molestation and selling drugs to children.
• A year later, in 1985, the County Board of Supervisors requested a grand jury investigation in response to abuse allegations.
  Between 2001-2002, a Los Angeles County civil grand jury report in June 2001, the County ran criminal background checks on existing staff and discovered that at least 17 employees had criminal histories that rendered them ineligible to work at the facility. Four additional employees resigned before their background checks could be completed.
• Nearly two decades later, in 2003, MacLaren Hall was finally shuttered as part of a class action settlement spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

It was a popular Hollywood fundraising cause.

L.A. County approves $4-billion sex abuse settlement, largest in U.S. history

The settlement includes thousands of claims from victims who said they were sexually abused, including at the now-shuttered MacLaren Children’s Center, pictured above.

By Rebecca Ellis, LA Times, April 29, 2025:

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history on Tuesday, agreeing to pay $4 billion to victims abused as children in county-run juvenile facilities and foster homes.

The vote is the culmination of years of fighting by victims, who argued that no one had paid the price for the rampant sexual abuse they said they suffered in county custody. The settlement includes nearly 7,000 claims, most of which involve alleged abuse from the 1980s through the 2000s.

“I never would have imagined persons hired to be the safety net and care for the most vulnerable could or would abuse their position and power in this way,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger. “It angers and sickens me.”

The thousands of claims tell the story of a county government that did little to screen for abusers, allowing a sprawling network of facilities for young people to become hunting grounds for predators. Victims said staffers were seldom disciplined for preying on vulnerable kids.

“We have to remember the people who are being compensated were victims of horrific abuse and rapes,” said Adam Slater, a lead plaintiffs’ attorney in the settlement. “This will hopefully give them some measure of closure and the ability to move on with their lives.”

The settlement dwarfs the most infamous sex abuse settlements. The Boy Scouts settlement was for $2.46 billion. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has paid out about $1.5 billion to victims of abuse by Catholic priests. Victims of USC gynecologist George Tyndall got $1.1 billion, and Michigan State University paid $500 million to victims of team doctor Larry Nassar.

L.A. County, which has a roughly $48-billion budget, has said it will pay for the mammoth settlement by taking out bonds and draining its rainy day fund. All the money will be made available to victims in the next five years, while the county expects to be paying for the bonds for the next 25 years.

“We are going to be paying hundreds of millions of dollars that could be invested into the communities, into parks, libraries, beaches, public social services, until 2050,” said L.A. County Chief Executive Fesia Davenport.

The county has taken several steps to try and prevent abuse, Davenport has said, including bolstering the vetting of foster parents and probation staffers and winding down the use of group homes.

Continued…..