Day by day, a few of L.A.’s poorest residents line up exterior the county advantages workplace in South Central, weaving their manner by a swarm of salesmen hawking offers that really feel too good to be true.
Would you want $15 for a fast blood stress examination? A free telephone? Maybe, $2 for a COVID swab?
How about money to enroll to sue L.A. County for sexual abuse at juvenile halls?
During the last 12 months, a Occasions investigation discovered a observe of paying for plaintiffs amongst a nebulous community of distributors, who usher folks determined for money towards a legislation agency that might revenue considerably from their enterprise.
The Occasions spent two weeks exterior the county social providers workplace in South Central Los Angeles, the place a relentless move of individuals utilized for meals stamps and money support, and spoke with seven individuals who mentioned they have been paid there throughout the final 12 months to sue the county for intercourse abuse.
Most mentioned they have been abused contained in the county’s juvenile halls, however had not deliberate to sue till they have been flagged down on the sidewalk and provided money. Two folks mentioned they have been instructed to manufacture tales of abuse.
All of the claims involving alleged funds have been filed by Downtown LA Regulation Group, a pivotal participant within the county’s latest $4-billion settlement for intercourse abuse inside its juvenile halls and foster properties — the most important such payout in U.S. historical past. Of the roughly 11,000 plaintiffs within the settlement, The Occasions discovered that just about one-fourth have been represented by the agency.
Marlon Bland, 31, mentioned he obtained $200 — half in money exterior the county’s social providers workplace and the opposite half when he went to satisfy with legal professionals from Downtown LA Regulation Group, or DTLA. The receptionist there handed him a $100 test, he mentioned. DTLA sued the county on his behalf Aug. 23, 2024.
Kevin Richardson, 59, whose go well with was filed by DTLA on Oct. 15, mentioned he obtained $50 exterior the social providers workplace.
Quantavia Smith, 38, whose go well with was filed by DTLA on April 29, mentioned a vendor drove her to the workplace of a downtown legislation agency after which gave her $200.
The Occasions couldn’t attain the distributors for the story, and DTLA attorneys declined to be interviewed. The legislation agency strongly denied paying folks to sue and mentioned no consultant of the agency had been approved to make funds.
“We don’t pay our purchasers to file lawsuits, and we strongly oppose such actions,” the legislation agency mentioned. “If we ever turned conscious that anybody related to us, in any capability, did such a factor — we’d finish our relationship with them instantly. We would like justice for actual victims.”
California legislation bans a observe often known as capping, during which non-attorneys straight solicit or procure purchasers to join lawsuits with a legislation agency.
DTLA didn’t reply questions on how the individuals who mentioned they have been paid to sue ended up with the legislation agency.
The agency’s assertion mentioned all their instances undergo an intense overview course of “that assessments for truthfulness and has many checks and balances.”
“On account of this stringent high quality management, we have now rejected purchasers whose instances didn’t meet our standards,” the agency mentioned. “We’re assured that the claims we have now filed are legitimate and can stand up to judicial scrutiny.”
For the final 12 months, a thriller has vexed veteran intercourse abuse attorneys: How did a legislation agency finest recognized for representing victims of auto accidents entice so many intercourse abuse plaintiffs in lower than two years?
In accordance with a Occasions evaluation of courtroom data, DTLA has amassed greater than 2,700 folks to sue L.A. County, greater than practically every other legislation agency concerned within the settlement. The agency will get practically half the payout for every shopper, per retainer agreements seen by The Occasions.
Two authorized consultants warned, talking usually, that providing folks money to sue, significantly those that are financially on the brink, may invite fraud into the historic intercourse abuse settlement.
“In fact, it makes the prospect of fraudulent claims extra possible,” mentioned Richard Zitrin, a authorized ethics professor at UC Regulation SF.
Some plaintiffs say they have been explicitly instructed to make up claims.
“They let you know what to say,” mentioned Carlshawn Stovall, 43, who mentioned he was given about $20 by a vendor exterior the advantages workplace to sue. “You’re imagined to make it up.”
Stovall mentioned he gave the seller his cellphone quantity and was instructed a lawyer would name him quickly and ask him a couple of questions: What facility have been you in? What 12 months? How have been you abused?
The seller handed him a postcard-sized “script” of how one can reply, he mentioned. He didn’t want to fret about getting fact-checked, the seller instructed him, because the county had no data of who was in its amenities many years in the past. It appeared “a great way to get some fast cash,” he mentioned.
By the point the decision got here, he mentioned, he’d misplaced the script, so he ad-libbed that probation officers watched him masturbate within the bathe. The decision, he mentioned, lasted lower than ten minutes and he by no means heard from them once more.
On Nov. 7, DTLA filed a lawsuit on his behalf alleging he was “sexually harassed and abused” by workers in Central Juvenile Corridor. Stovall mentioned he was by no means in juvenile corridor — a lot much less abused there.
“I used to be a very good child,” he mentioned, laughing.
Juan Fajardo mentioned he used to promote telephones subsequent to the lawsuit distributors. He mentioned he would watch a person pull up exterior the social providers workplace in a Tesla most Fridays and hand the recruiters money, which they might dole out the next week to potential plaintiffs. The recruiters instructed him they have been paid per particular person they signed up, he mentioned.
“‘Simply make up a narrative, say you bought touched, right here’s $50,’” Fajardo recalled the recruiters who arrange store subsequent to him saying. “They’ll give it to you after which say, ‘Hey you by no means know, you would possibly even get a lawsuit.’”
One recruiter additionally bought telephones, he recounted. When somebody needed to get a telephone, he mentioned, he’d watch the recruiter first take a name on the brand new telephone and make up a narrative of abuse below the shopper’s identify. The recruiter would then hand the shopper their new telephone and pocket the $50 for himself, Fajardo mentioned.
After a couple of months of watching, Fajardo mentioned, he determined to make up a narrative, too. He didn’t need to give his actual identify, so he gave the recruiter the identify of a member of the family and a faux birthday. He mentioned he took $50 and later obtained a name from a legislation agency. Ten minutes after the decision, he mentioned, he was instructed his case had been accepted.
DTLA filed the lawsuit below the household’s member identify on Aug. 28, 2024. Fajardo mentioned he doesn’t really feel proper making an attempt to gather the cash.
“I mentioned one thing like, ‘They videotaped us whereas we’re within the showers, touching us whereas they pat us down,’” he recounted. “That’s what everybody was saying. I used to be like, ‘I’ll simply use that as an alternative of making an attempt to make up an entire completely different lie.’”
Most plaintiffs The Occasions spoke with solely knew the primary names of the distributors, which some known as “recruiters” for the legislation agency, and mentioned they hadn’t seen them for a couple of months.
They’d often dangle across the folks providing free telephones proper subsequent to the doorway to the county constructing, in line with some who mentioned they have been paid.
“It’s been three completely different folks that I’ve seen. They arrive randomly, perhaps a few times a month,” mentioned Oscar Garcia, who sells cigarettes on the sidewalk. “They promise them $50 to signal.”
Like most sexual abuse instances, all of DTLA’s lawsuits which might be a part of the huge settlement have been filed utilizing solely the sufferer’s initials — JOHN DOE A.R., JANE DOE M.P. The Occasions confirmed the seven individuals who mentioned they have been paid had lawsuits filed by DTLA by sources with entry to plaintiffs’ actual names and case numbers.
After The Occasions reached out to DTLA for remark, the agency referred to as two folks The Occasions had spoken with on the report into its workplace on Sept. 11 and instructed them to cease talking with the reporter.
One man, whom The Occasions isn’t naming as he later requested to not be included within the story, referred to as The Occasions the morning of Sept. 11 and mentioned the agency had ordered him a journey from the damaged down automobile he was dwelling out of in South Central to the agency’s workplace. He mentioned an lawyer had warned him that The Occasions was doing a “smear article” and didn’t need plaintiffs like him receiving any cash from the settlement.
Mitchell Langberg, a defamation lawyer retained by the agency, despatched The Occasions a sworn declaration from the person later that day, accusing the reporter of pretending to be a consultant of DTLA to lure him into talking freely.
The person had saved the reporter’s quantity in his telephone as belonging to the “LA TIMES,” had his image taken by a Occasions photographer, despatched emails to the reporter’s L.A. Occasions e mail account and texted asking when the story would run within the paper.
Shortly afterward, among the DTLA purchasers interviewed for this story acquired a textual content from the agency, they mentioned, warning them towards talking with reporters:
“In case you have been contacted, please notify our workplace instantly,” the textual content learn.
The litigation floodgates opened in 2020 after California handed a legislation permitting survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue the perpetrator despite the fact that the statute of limitations had handed on their instances.
Since then, legislation corporations have hunted aggressively for profitable instances, flooding social media with advertisements and quietly tapping third events to search out former occupants of county-run juvenile halls and foster properties. The hassle has met little resistance from L.A. County officers, who say they threw out related data way back.
This spring, the county agreed to pay $4 billion to settle hundreds of intercourse abuse claims courting again to the Fifties with out taking depositions or figuring out the names of hundreds of plaintiffs. Relatively, the vetting had been achieved nearly solely by attorneys who stand to stroll away with greater than a billion {dollars} in charges.
It’s a lopsided system that, some attorneys concede, dangers squandering taxpayer cash meant for victims who suffered egregious abuse as kids within the county’s custody.
“The entire thing simply stinks,” mentioned John Manly, a longtime intercourse abuse lawyer who served as a lead lawyer within the settlements towards USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nassar and USC gynecologist George Tyndall. “It seems to me like a 3rd of those instances are complete bull—, and [the county] is paying for no motive.”
As a state lawmaker, Lorena Gonzalez pushed for AB 218, which gave victims a brand new window to sue over childhood sexual abuse. Gonzalez, now the president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, mentioned she believes plaintiff legal professionals have taken benefit of the legislation change.
(Okay.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune)
Manly’s legislation agency, Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, is considered one of three distinguished legislation corporations that sued the county below the legislation change, however didn’t be a part of the settlement.
DTLA was began by two cousins, Daniel Azizi and Farid Yaghoubtil, and their childhood good friend Salar Hendizadeh, the companions instructed business actual property firm CoStar after increasing in 2023 to a brand new Banksy-adorned workplace constructing downtown. Attorneys focus on the everyday instances for many private harm corporations — canine bites, falls and auto accidents.
The agency turned the scourge of journey app corporations similar to Uber, which sued DTLA and one other legislation agency in federal courtroom in July. The journey app big alleged that the corporations had filed a flurry of “fraudulent claims” and colluded with an Encino-based physician to inflate the price of plaintiffs’ medical bills. The lawsuit is ongoing. In an Instagram publish, DTLA referred to as it a “calculated try by a billion-dollar company” to suppress respectable claims.
In an interview in June earlier than The Occasions realized of the alleged vendor funds, lawyer Andrew Morrow, the lead lawyer in practically all of the agency’s intercourse abuse instances towards the county, mentioned DTLA’s success was as a result of fame he had cultivated as “the remedy man … out within the streets of downtown LA.” Shoppers referred to as him, he mentioned, as a result of they knew the agency would join them with a therapist.
“And I mentioned, Effectively, let me ask you this, do you’ve gotten a lawsuit? Had been you a sufferer?” Morrow mentioned of the calls. “We have been filling a void within the market.”
Among the DTLA purchasers The Occasions interviewed mentioned they spoke with a therapist supplied by the agency. 4 mentioned they by no means heard from the agency after the day they signed up for a lawsuit.
Morrow mentioned sexual abuse instances have been “a little bit little bit of a brand new frontier” for him. He had beforehand specialised in actual property, leisure and insurance coverage litigation at a agency he based earlier than switching to DTLA in 2023, in line with his outdated bio.
He’s now one of many area’s most prolific filers of sexual abuse instances. His instances, he mentioned, are vetted for fraud by psychological well being professionals.
“I’m certain there are corporations that also have instances like that,” he mentioned. “We don’t as a result of, like I mentioned, ours go to remedy, and our docs determine that stuff.”
For hundreds of intercourse abuse victims, the legislation labored as supposed.
With the passage of AB 218 in 2020, survivors had till they have been 40 relatively than 26 to sue their abuser, giving them an opportunity to get monetary compensation for horrors they have been far too younger to grapple with — a lot much less sue over — as kids. Tales of abuse that had been hidden for many years surfaced, as did the names of prolific abusers, a few of whom have been nonetheless working with minors.
Nevertheless it additionally put an enormous goal on the budgets of presidency entities, which had way back thrown out data that might be used for a protection. Former state lawmaker Lorena Gonzalez, who spearheaded the legislation, says she’s been disturbed by the way it’s panned out.
“It’s clear that the State Bar and attorneys themselves can not maintain themselves accountable,” mentioned Gonzalez, now the president of the California Federation of Labor Unions. “What they’re doing, I feel, to the cities and counties is deplorable.”
Following the legislation change, corporations started amassing hundreds of purchasers to sue the county by social media campaigns promising payouts and privateness.
“You’re going to be a Jane Doe or a John Doe,” Morrow instructed potential purchasers in a video posted to the agency’s TikTok web page final 12 months. “Nobody’s ever going to know your identify.”
The instances are profitable for attorneys, a lot of whom will obtain 40% of their purchasers’ payouts, in line with retainer agreements seen by The Occasions. That features New York Metropolis-based Slater Slater Schulman, which has roughly 3,700 purchasers; Boca-Raton-based Herman Regulation, with about 800 purchasers; and Los Angeles-based Becker Regulation Group and McNicholas & McNicholas, for which The Occasions discovered a mixed 1,100 plaintiffs. Todd Becker, with Becker Regulation Group, mentioned their price differs from plaintiff to plaintiff.
DTLA has the best contingency price The Occasions discovered, requiring 45% of any payout. DTLA mentioned its price construction is “solely normal throughout the trade.” These charges usually vary from 33% to 40%, in line with the American Bar Assn.
With most retainers on the upper finish of the vary, some attorneys concerned within the settlement estimate $1.5 billion in taxpayer cash may simply move to legal professionals — near what the county Hearth Division spends in a 12 months.
Because the county prepares to start out dishing out cash in January, some corporations say they’ve began to search out a couple of flaws of their caseload.
Becker Regulation Group mentioned in a July courtroom submitting that 4 of the agency’s purchasers lately instructed the agency they weren’t abused. Patrick McNicholas, who co-counsels instances with the agency, mentioned the lawsuits have been weeded out as a part of the agency’s vetting course of.
Slater Slater Schulman, which has filed extra instances than every other legislation agency, acknowledged in a September submitting that shopper John Doe J.S. “mustn’t have been included.” The agency beforehand mentioned in a lawsuit that he had been sexually assaulted at Los Padrinos Juvenile Corridor in Downey starting in 2006 when he was 13.
Slater Slater Schulman has discovered related issues in its avalanche of intercourse abuse instances towards the Boy Scouts of America. On Sept. 9, retired U.S. Chapter Decide Barbara Houser, who’s overseeing the $2.4-billion sufferer settlement belief, singled out Slater Slater Schulman for a sample of “irregularities” and “procedural and factual issues” amongst its plaintiffs. The agency beforehand mentioned it represented roughly 14,000 victims.
The agency was requested to pay for an “impartial third celebration” to research its instances for fraud earlier than going by the belief’s normal vetting course of. Clifford Robert, an out of doors lawyer representing the agency in its points with the Boy Scout instances, mentioned Slater Slater Schulman is “working tirelessly” to handle the problems and that justice for survivors is its high precedence.
Tammy Rogers, 56, employed the Slater agency in 2022 to sue after a workers member at MacLaren Kids’s Middle, a county-run kids’s facility now notorious for abuse, allegedly molested her when she was about 9. She mentioned she’s grown unnerved by the monetary incentive legal professionals like hers have in amassing unwieldy numbers of purchasers.
“You possibly can’t get ahold of them,” she mentioned of her agency, which has filed instances on behalf of lots of of latest plaintiffs for the reason that settlement was finalized. “I referred to as them repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly.”

Tammy Rogers, 56, mentioned a workers member at MacLaren Kids’s Middle sexually abused her when she was 9, an incident that despatched her spiraling towards medication and tortured relationships with males. She sued the county in 2022.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Occasions)
County and plaintiff legal professionals nailed down the $4-billion determine on Oct. 30. Since then, hundreds extra plaintiffs have been added.
“[Firms think] ‘there’s a fund on the market, and I’m going to do every thing in my energy to get as a lot as I can,’” mentioned one lawyer suing the county over intercourse abuse, who declined to be named, fearing skilled repercussions.
It’s a fund, critics say, with few safeguards for faux claims.
The instances might be reviewed by retired Los Angeles County Superior Courtroom Decide Louis Meisinger, who mediated related settlements for the victims of the 2023 Maui wildfires and the 2017 Las Vegas live performance mass capturing. Any plaintiff who needs to skip that vetting course of can take $150,000 in a lump sum at the beginning of subsequent 12 months.
Meisinger will distribute the remaining cash after reviewing reality sheets from the victims. If Meisinger believes a case is fraudulent, the county can both give the plaintiff $50,000 to resolve it or get it booted from the settlement, which means it might work its personal manner by the courtroom system, in line with an allocation protocol reviewed by The Occasions.
In any other case, the minimal quantity a shopper can get is $100,000, in line with the protocol. Probably the most is $3 million, far lower than some victims who suffered egregious abuse really feel they deserve.
“I spent two years being tortured by some grown ass males. I imply, I even gave them names,” mentioned a person who was granted anonymity to debate his case. “It looks like, as soon as once more, I’m being taken benefit of.”
He mentioned he had hoped to make use of the cash to purchase 60 acres of land for a bunch dwelling that may give orphaned kids the enjoyment he says was snuffed out of him earlier than he hit puberty. At age 10, he mentioned, he was raped and compelled to carry out oral intercourse on a person at MacLaren Kids’s Middle. At age 43, he mentioned, he can’t scent Pine-Sol with out flashbacks to the availability closet favored by his abusers as a website for his or her assaults.
Trinidad Pena, 52, mentioned she desperately wants the settlement cash to pay for medical care, overdue payments and remedy. At age 12, she mentioned, she was impregnated by a workers member at MacLaren Kids’s Middle — an assault that has haunted her for the reason that Nineteen Eighties.
“What sort of rights did I’ve as a 12-year-old to signal away one other human being?” requested Pena, who recollects seeing the child for seven minutes earlier than the woman was given to a household in Laguna Hills by a closed adoption. “The legal professionals are being made millionaires, however we’re simply going to have the ability to pay our again taxes.”
The county was by no means considering a combat.
As soon as the deluge of lawsuits began, county legal professionals had only one purpose: to make the instances go away with out the county going bankrupt.
They didn’t need to threat a trial. Early in negotiations, county legal professionals understood they have been various instances of brutal rape and molestation that might simply make a disgusted jury award the kind of budget-busting $135-million verdict that obtained handed to the Moreno Valley Unified Faculty District in 2023 for the sexual abuse of two college students by a center faculty instructor. The district employed him regardless of a previous arrest for molesting his foster son, in line with the lawsuit.

Lawyer John Manly mentioned he believes the county didn’t do sufficient vetting of the instances. Manly’s legislation agency, Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, is considered one of three distinguished legislation corporations that sued the county below the legislation change, however didn’t be a part of the $4-billion settlement.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Occasions)
If there have been even 30 instances that appalled the jury as a lot as that one, the county would threat paying way over $4 billion. Higher, the county legal professionals reasoned, to give you a complete sum that wouldn’t drain coffers of the federal government, which is chargeable for the social security internet for the poorest residents, and let another person divvy it up among the many hundreds of victims. With a $45-billion finances, they may make $4 billion work if most county businesses trimmed their spending.
Andy Baum, the county’s exterior lawyer main the protection effort, instructed a decide in a June listening to that he seen it as an “stock settlement.” There have been just too many instances, the county felt, to combat individually. And so legal professionals carried out solely fundamental vetting of the claims — most of which have been filed in courtroom with a pseudonym, an unnamed abuser, and a sentence or two in regards to the abuse. They took no depositions, in line with a number of legal professionals concerned within the settlement.
“We’ve got hundreds of instances, and we don’t even have probably the most elementary info,” Baum mentioned on the listening to.
The county additionally allowed many instances to change into a part of the settlement with out the paperwork the legislation requires. Underneath state legislation, instances during which the sufferer is older than 40 should be filed with a certificates from a therapist, who can attest that there’s a “cheap foundation” to imagine the plaintiff was sexually abused.
DTLA, which specialised in these instances, filed a lot of its older lawsuits with out the certificates, thought of by the Legislature as a vital technique to stop fraudulent claims. The county legal professionals by no means protested, explaining within the June courtroom listening to that they needed to ensure DTLA’s instances have been shortly ushered into the practically finalized settlement.
“We had a gun to our head,” Baum instructed Los Angeles County Superior Courtroom Decide Lawrence Riff, who’s overseeing the juvenile corridor abuse instances, when pressed by the decide on why he waived the rule.
DTLA mentioned practically all of its certificates have since been filed, however didn’t present numbers on what number of stay excellent.
The paltry protection launched by the county has some rethinking the legislation that began the deluge.
Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) tried to push by a invoice this session supposed as a lifeline to entities drowning in intercourse abuse lawsuits by limiting the window victims must sue. He pulled it final month after outcry from sufferer advocacy teams that mentioned it trampled on the rights of survivors.
Maryland went additional after being flooded with intercourse abuse claims for juvenile amenities following the same state legislation change in 2023. This spring, the state capped intercourse abuse instances towards authorities entities at $400,000 and restricted attorneys’ charges to 25% for instances resolved in courtroom.
That’s not occurring in California.
“It’s simply, for my part, not politically viable,” Laird mentioned.
Some lawmakers who attempt to change the legislation have confronted brutal pushback by legislation corporations, together with Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, which has run advertisements branding such payments as “predator” safety.
“I don’t see the urge for food,” he mentioned.
For L.A. County, the tempo of instances stays relentless.
Because the announcement of the $4-billion settlement, James Harris Regulation, a Seattle-based agency that focuses on mass torts, has been aggressively recruiting purchasers by social media advertisements that inform “abused juvies” they will qualify in 30 seconds for as much as $1 million.
After The Occasions entered a reporter’s cellphone quantity in one of many agency’s advertisements on Instagram, a consultant from the agency’s consumption division referred to as greater than 38 instances.
Harris mentioned his agency runs a “simple public consciousness marketing campaign” and didn’t imagine his advertisements contained greenback quantities. The sums have been faraway from the advertisements after The Occasions contacted Harris.
The advertising proved fruitful. This summer time, months after the county introduced the settlement, Baum mentioned, James Harris referred to as him to debate his brimming stock: 2,500 new instances.
Baum mentioned the newcomer acknowledged he was “late to the celebration.”
Sean Greene and Gabrielle LaMarr LeMee contributed to this report.