Attorneys Jerome Block, Jacob Jordan and co-counsel Levy Konigsberg have filed lawsuits on behalf of nearly 200 men and women who were sexually abused by staff members while they were incarcerated as children at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, formerly known as the Audy Home.

NEW YORK, July 22, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Levy Konigsberg and his co-counsel filed lawsuits on behalf of nearly 200 sexual abuse victims on Monday against Cook County and that State of IllinoisThe complaints claim that the Cook County and the state failed to protect children from rampant sexual abuse by adult staff at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. These lawsuits are the latest in a series of youth prison abuse lawsuits led by Levy Konigsberg along with his co-counsel across the country. State of Illinois And The United States.

The Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) has been under scrutiny for years due to inhumane conditions and a lack of security for juvenile inmates from violence and sexual abuse by JTDC staff. Due to chronic mismanagement, paternalism, overcrowding and inadequate supervision, a climate of violence, fear and sexual abuse has prevailed at the JTDC for decades. It was not until 2022 that a report by the Office of the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County reported on the “harsh reality that the youths of the JTDC are locked in their cells most of the day, every day… No parent should subject their child to such a thing.”

The lawsuits filed by Levy Konigsberg were brought under the recently amended Childhood Sexual Abuse Act, codified at 735 ILCS 5/13-202.2. The Child Sexual Abuse Act provides victims of this type of sexual abuse with legal avenues to seek compensation from their abusers and the institutions that enabled the abuse. It extends the time period within which survivors of sexual abuse can come forward and file civil lawsuits.

Survivors who have filed lawsuits so far include those who were victims of sexual abuse as early as the 1990s and in recent years. The plaintiffs, who are now adults, were sexually abused as children between the ages of 9 and 17. The perpetrators of the sexual abuse included supervisors, correctional officers, counselors, supervisors and other staff.

In announcing the lawsuits filed on Monday against the State of Illinois And Cook CountyJerome Block, Partner at Levy Konigsberg, said:

“The Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center has been a house of horrors for children who have been sexually abused there for decades. Cook County The facility is one of the largest youth prisons in the country and has been repeatedly found to subject children there to inhumane conditions. State of Illinois And Cook County collectively failed to protect children and enabled this institutional sexual abuse. The perpetrators in these cases were adult correctional officers and other staff who committed serious sexual abuse against the very children they were entrusted to protect. Sexual abuse this severe and widespread simply cannot occur without a culture of secrecy and institutional conduct that goes beyond negligence.”

Levy Konigsberg has filed over a thousand lawsuits on behalf of victims of sexual abuse across the country and is at the forefront of litigation in New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania and other states.

Levy Konigsberg represents hundreds of survivors of childhood sexual abuse in juvenile detention centers in the US state of Illinois and will continue to fight tirelessly for their rights.

More information about Illinois Lawsuits for sexual abuse in juvenile detention centers led by Levy Konigsberg and his co-counsel, media representatives and journalists are encouraged to contact the lawyer Jerome Block via the law firm’s contact form: https://www.levylaw.com/contact-us/

Media contact: Attorney Jerome Block; (email protected)

SOURCE Levy Konigsberg