Just a shade over a year ago, Los Angeles County reaped the economic disaster harvest planted by the California legislature's 2020 expansion of its sexual abuse claim statute of limitations. Not only did it extend the limits to 40 years of age or five years after discovery (whichever was later), extend the 40 age limit with 'if someone knew,' etc., caveats, and add triple 'cover-up' damage awards, etc., it also made the entire package retroactive. Claimants whose cases had never been filed or never adjudicated 'to finality' now had three additional years to file new claims.
The floodgates were opened, as well you might imagine. And, in all fairness. Los Angeles County has a horrific track record taking care of its kids, either in its juvenile court system or in the child protective services division.
All were more than ripe for demonstrably legitimate plunder, as I reported at the time. For instance, in the most notorious of the county's children's centers, staff went decades without criminal background checks.
...L.A. County Chief Executive Officer Fesia Davenport had warned county supervisors back in 2023 that the bill coming due was going to be enormous, but the law firms handling the complaints were sure at the time she'd underestimated even her breathtaking numbers.
...Davenport made headlines in 2023 when she estimated in a public budget hearing that the county could be looking at $1.6 billion to $3 billion in liability for the roughly 3,000 sex abuse claims it expected.
Her estimate was met with shock and a dash of skepticism from seasoned attorneys suing the county, who said it would blow any previous sex abuse payout out of the water.
Bless her heart - she underestimated her overestimation, because the settlement the county finally agreed to was $4B for what they thought would be 7000 claims (it's now around 11,000).
That's the kind of number that induces a gasp and a momentary woozy feeling in whoever has to write the checks.
But in retroaction, there is chaos, and in chaos, there is profit, and I'll have to look for Sarah Hoyt's shocked face later, because this certainly qualifies for wearing it.
Particularly when it's all being done with that most cherished of justifications:
FOR THE CHILDREN
Six months after the settlement announcement, the Los Angeles Times (for whatever reason, bless their little prog pinheads) wandered over to the LA County Health Department's social services office and spent some time with the locals.
They heard some kind of interesting stuff, specifically about the 'sexual assault' claims even though they were investigating payment for other services, and, to their credit, they followed up on it.
In the biggest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history, some claim they were paid to sue
Every day, some of L.A.’s poorest residents line up outside the county benefits office in South Central, weaving their way through a swarm of salesmen hawking deals that feel too good to be true.
Would you like $15 for a quick blood pressure exam? A free phone? Perhaps $2 for a COVID swab?
How about cash to sign up to sue L.A. County for sexual abuse at juvenile halls?
Over the last year, a Times investigation found a practice of paying for plaintiffs among a nebulous network of vendors, who usher people desperate for cash toward a law firm that could profit significantly from their business.
The Times spent two weeks outside the county social services office in South Los Angeles, where a constant flow of people applied for food stamps and cash aid, and spoke with seven people who said they were paid there within the last year to sue the county for sex abuse.
Most said they were abused inside the county’s juvenile halls, but had not planned to sue until they were flagged down on the sidewalk and offered cash. Two people said they were told to fabricate stories of abuse.
All the claims involving alleged payments were filed by Downtown L.A. Law Group, a pivotal player in the county’s recent $4-billion settlement for sex abuse inside its juvenile halls and foster homes — the largest such payout in U.S. history. Of the roughly 11,000 plaintiffs in the settlement, The Times found that nearly one-fourth were represented by the firm.
Marlon Bland, 31, said he got $200 — half in cash outside the county’s social services office and the other half when he went to meet with lawyers from Downtown L.A. Law Group, or DTLA. The receptionist there handed him a $100 check, he said. DTLA sued the county on his behalf on Aug. 23, 2024.
Well.
That was mid-October last year. By mid-November, the LA District Attorney, Nathan Hochman (who defeated the 2024 reelection bid of reviled and disgraced George Gascón)(or this investigation would have never begun) had looked at what they'd found, heard enough, and opened his own investigation into the claims wheeling and dealing.
...Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said Wednesday his office has started a wide-ranging probe into claims that plaintiffs made up stories of abuse in order to sue the county, which agreed to the historic $4-billion sex abuse settlement this spring.
The announcement follows Times investigations that found nine people who said they were paid small amounts of cash by recruiters to sue the county for sex abuse in juvenile halls. Four of them said they fabricated the claims.
“They looked at this opportunity to compensate these true victims of sex abuse as an opportunity to personally profit and engage in some of the most greedy and heinous conduct,” Hochman said at a news conference Wednesday morning in the Hall of Justice downtown. “We are going to aggressively go after them.”
All nine plaintiffs had their cases filed by Downtown LA Law Group, a personal injury firm that represents roughly 2,700 people in the county settlement. The firm has denied wrongdoing. The Times could not reach the recruiters who made the alleged payments to plaintiffs for comment.
Hochman indicated his investigation, still in its early stages, showed this was just a small fraction of the “significant number of fraudsters involved in these settlement claims.”
Oh, hello.
The county supervisors, perhaps spurred by their already miserable and incompetent public image, not to mention their desperate fiscal situation, jumped on the investigation bandwagon as well and called for the state bar to begin looking into the law firms that had been named.
...Shortly after The Times’ investigation, the county supervisors voted to launch their own inquiry into possible misconduct by “legal representatives” involved in the lawsuits. The county set up a hotline for tips from the public, and moved to ban “predatory solicitation” outside county social services offices.
The supervisors also joined a chorus of voices — including California lawmakers, labor leaders and a powerful attorney trade group — calling for the State Bar to investigate. The State Bar does not comment on potential investigations, but has previously said California law generally prohibits making payments to procure clients, a practice known as capping.
It was a full-court press to prove everyone wanted to weed out the fraudsters while compensating real victims.
FOR THE CHILDREN
In a stunning development today, DA Hochman has formally petitioned the judge handling the settlement to pause the payout for six months so he can finish his job.
Predictably, 'victims' are screaming 'foul,' but when the staggering breadth of the bold-faced theft involved was revealed?
L.A. County D.A. claims four in five cases in $4-billion sex abuse payout may be fraudulent
They can chill out for another couple of months.
Let them scream.
This has to be done.
Los Angeles County’s district attorney says he believes 4 in 5 claims in the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history may be fake — a claim that dwarfs previous assumptions over the scale of fraud within the $4-billion payout.
Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman has asked the judge overseeing the bulk of the sex abuse cases to pause payments for six months while he continues his sprawling criminal investigation into the plaintiffs, lawyers and therapists behind the claims.
Distributing the money now, he argues, will hamper his investigation “by complicating witness cooperation [and] obscuring financial trails.”
And the pause is selective - only applying to claims relating to juvenile halls.
...Hochman’s pause, if granted, would apply only to the abuse cases stemming from juvenile halls, which make up the bulk of the lawsuits, and not the cases arising from foster care or the children’s shelter. Lawyers in the case are expected to go before Superior Court Judge Lawrence Riff on Monday for a hearing on the request.
The LA DA feels his office is the best equipped to root out the fraudsters in the massive pile of claimants.
...But Hochman indicated in his court filing that he did not believe any of the the myriad inquiries underway compared with what his office could accomplish.
“The prior and ongoing vetting by other agencies and entities has been insufficient to determine whether the claims are fraudulent,” he stated.
Not another dime until they're done.
Dimes are hard to come by in that county. Every last one needs to be vetted as legit.
...He noted at a previous press conference that the massive settlement has had a real effect on county operations, noting his own office's budget was slashed by $24 million to help pay out the settlements, according to Knock LA.
'It is not free money,' Hochman said at the time as he vowed to go after the fraudsters.
This is a bold step forward for a county in a state built on grift in the name of progressive guilt assuagement, and it's terrific.
Hopefully, the judge sees his way to clearing the deck for Hochman's team to bring in a steam shovel and start really digging.
Someone in Fraud Central might be finally learing their lesson.
