Bailey Glasser Files New Lawsuits on Behalf of 193 Survivors of Sexual Abuse as Children in the Cook County, Illinois Juvenile Court System
MEDIA REQUESTS: To schedule an interview with counsel or for other media inquiries, please contact Joe Carey at joe@careystrategiccommunications.com
July 24, 2024, Washington, D.C.: Bailey & Glasser, LLP and co-counsel have filed another round of new complaints on behalf of 156 male and 37 female survivors of sexual violence and abuse against the State of Illinois; the Office of the Chief Judge for Cook County, Illinois; the Illinois Department of Corrections and Department of Juvenile Justice employees, alleging that these state entities failed to protect children from rampant sexual abuse perpetrated by adult employees at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (formally known as the Arthur J. Audy Home). Monday’s filing comes on the heels of two other lawsuits filed on May 6 and June 3 of this year arising from state-operated Illinois Youth Centers, now raising the total number of plaintiffs to nearly 400.
All sexual assault survivors were between 9 and 17 years old at the time of the abuse with the assaults taking place between 1995 and 2022. The perpetrators of the sexual abuse were male and female Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center staff. Bailey Glasser is on the forefront of lawsuits seeking justice on behalf of childhood sexual abuse survivors and has brought hundreds of similar lawsuits in the State of Maryland on behalf of survivors of abuse in its juvenile hall detention facilities.
Partner D. Todd Mathews is the lead counsel on the Bailey Glasser litigation team. In a press conference held on Tuesday, the attorneys and victims discussed the physical, psychological, and emotional injuries detailed in the lawsuits. During the press conference, Todd Mathews called out the systematic failures by the Illinois Department of Justice and the State of Illinois: “This abuse has been going on since 1995 and it is still going on to this day. It must stop… We will continue to have press conferences and file lawsuits until the folks in Springfield and Cook County hear us and do something.”
As alleged in the complaints, the Illinois juvenile detention centers systemically failed to protect youth inmates from violence and sexual abuse perpetrated by staff, and several had the highest rates of sexual victimization in the nation according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The record shows that the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice and related entities that operated these youth facilities allowed staff to abuse these minors for decades. The survivors in the cases include plaintiffs sexually abused when they were children ranging from ages 9 to 17. The perpetrators of the sexual abuse were correctional officers, counselors, supervisors and other Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center staff.
The lawsuits filed by Bailey Glasser along with co-counsel Levy Konigsberg were brought under the recently amended Childhood Sexual Abuse Act as codified at 735 ILCS 5/13-202.2. This statute allows survivors to pursue damages from their abusers and from the institutions that enabled the abuse by increasing the time in which survivors of sexual abuse are permitted to come forward and file civil lawsuits.
The Bailey Glasser litigation team includes D. Todd Mathews; founding partner Brian A. Glasser; partner and Mass Tort Practice Group Leader David Selby; and lawyer Samira Bode.
To review a data sheet about our new lawsuits, please visit this link.
Watch the full press conference here.
MEDIA REQUESTS: To schedule an interview with counsel or for other media inquiries, please contact Joe Carey at joe@careystrategiccommunications.com.
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