LA County’s $4 Billion Abuse Case: Payouts, AB 218, Fraud Probe

The Los Angeles County $4 billion juvenile abuse settlement, approved by the Board of Supervisors on April 29, 2025, resolves more than 6,800 claims of childhood sexual abuse at county-run juvenile halls, probation camps, and the MacLaren Children’s Center foster shelter, with alleged abuse dating back to 1959.¹ It is believed to be the largest settlement of its kind in U.S. history. As of mid-2026, no general payouts had been made: the money is frozen while a sprawling fraud investigation plays out and a court-supervised vetting process reviews individual claims.

Who the Settlement Covers

The claims span decades, with most alleged abuse occurring in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.² Two sets of facilities are at the center of the case.

MacLaren Children’s Center, often called MacLaren Hall, operated from 1961 to 2003 as a temporary emergency shelter for foster youth. Originally built as a juvenile detention center under the Probation Department, it was transferred to the Department of Social Services in 1976. The facility did not begin conducting routine background checks on staff until 2001; when it did, at least 17 then-current employees were found to have disqualifying backgrounds for working with children. A 2022 lawsuit filed on behalf of 12 former residents alleged the county stood by while hundreds or thousands of children were abused over four decades.³

The second set of facilities is the county’s Probation Department juvenile halls and camps. A December 2022 complaint brought claims for roughly 1,200 plaintiffs alleging abuse there.⁴ By 2024, about 2,300 of the roughly 5,200 claims then filed against the county involved abuse in probation-run facilities. In 2023, 23 probation employees were placed on leave for sexual misconduct allegations, with 18 more following in early 2024.⁵

In October 2025, the county announced a tentative additional settlement of up to $828 million covering more than 400 cases not included in the original agreement. Even after both deals, about 2,500 cases remain unresolved, bringing the total caseload above 14,000.⁶

How Individual Awards Are Decided and Paid

There is no flat per-person figure. Individual awards are being set by an independent team of retired judges serving as allocation experts, who weigh the severity of each claimant’s abuse.⁶

The county is paying the $4 billion out over five years, with annual costs projected in the hundreds of millions through 2030 and continuing payments stretching through fiscal year 2050–51.¹ In January 2026, the county agreed to deposit roughly $396.4 million into a settlement trust for claims that had already been validated. Those funds were not being distributed, however, because the court-supervised allocation process remained incomplete.⁷ Unvetted claims remain frozen pending the fraud investigations.⁸ Attorneys for survivors have warned that continuing delays could cause additional harm to victims who have been waiting years for resolution.

Why Payouts Are On Hold: The Fraud Investigation

The settlement has been engulfed by allegations that a significant share of claims may be fraudulent. The controversy centers on the Downtown LA Law Group (DTLA), which represents about 2,700 of the claimants, roughly a quarter of the total.⁹

The California State Bar is probing allegations that the firm used third-party recruiters who paid people to file lawsuits and, in some cases, instructed them to fabricate abuse claims. The Bar served a subpoena in November 2025 for documents on the firm’s roughly 2,700 clients.⁹ DTLA moved in February 2026 to block the subpoena on client privacy grounds.¹⁰ In June 2026, the Bar formally charged three DTLA attorneys. Founding partner Farid Yaghoubtil faces 16 counts including practicing law without a license in multiple states and charging illegal fees; co-founder Daniel Azizi was charged with 11 counts; litigation attorney Igor Fradkin with 4. A former partner, Salar Hendizadeh, had already been charged in March 2026. The firm denies all wrongdoing, saying it “categorically does not engage in, nor has it ever condoned, the exchange of money for client retention.”¹¹

Former L.A. County Superior Court presiding Judge Daniel Buckley was retained to vet DTLA’s cases, with the firm agreeing to cover the cost. Under the terms of the review, cases found to be fraudulent can either be settled for $50,000 or removed from the process entirely.¹²

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman opened a criminal investigation and, in January 2026, asked for a six-month pause on settlement payouts.⁸ By June 2026, Hochman’s preliminary investigation led him to assert that as many as 80% to 81% of the more than 11,000 claims in the settlement may be fraudulent. He argued that distributing funds would hamper his investigation by complicating witness cooperation and obscuring financial trails.¹³ The DA’s office planned to ask Superior Court Judge Lawrence Riff for a formal delay on payments.¹⁴ As of June 2026, no ruling on that request had been reported.

The Law That Opened the Door: California AB 218

The volume of claims was made possible by California Assembly Bill 218, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2019 and effective January 1, 2020. The law, also called the California Child Victims Act, extended the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse civil claims to the victim’s 40th birthday or five years after discovering a connection between the abuse and adult injuries, whichever is later. It also opened a three-year revival window, from January 1, 2020, through December 31, 2022, allowing people whose claims had been previously time-barred to file lawsuits regardless of when the abuse occurred.¹⁵

AB 218 also introduced the possibility of triple damages against institutions that actively concealed abuse, and it removed government immunity provisions that had previously shielded public entities from such claims.¹⁵ The revival window produced the wave of litigation that led directly to the county’s settlement.

A Separate Settlement for Conditions, Not Sexual Abuse

If you were held in a county juvenile facility and your claim is about conditions rather than sexual abuse, a different case applies. Herrera v. County of Los Angeles (Case No. CV 22-1013-HDV), a federal class action in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California before Judge Hernan D. Vera, produced a $30 million class settlement covering about 7,000 current and former youth detained in county juvenile halls and camps from 2002 onward.¹⁶¹⁷

The Herrera claims allege constitutional violations including excessive use of shackles, pepper spray, and room confinement; uninhabitable living conditions; and inadequate mental health care. The settlement explicitly excludes claims of sexual abuse, which fall under the $4 billion agreement. Awards are based on the number of days a class member spent in a facility, with greater value assigned to days in juvenile halls than in camps. After deducting court-approved fees estimated at $9 million to $10 million and a $25,000 service award for named plaintiff Agustin Herrera, remaining funds are distributed among claimants who submitted forms by the November 28, 2025, deadline.¹⁶ A final approval hearing was scheduled for February 19, 2026.¹⁸

Who Represents the Claimants

Two firms served as co-lead counsel for plaintiffs in the $4 billion settlement: Slater Slater Schulman LLP, led by founding partner Adam Slater, and McNicholas & McNicholas, LLP, led by Patrick McNicholas.⁴ Slater Slater Schulman alone represents more than 3,500 survivors, including the plaintiff in the original 2021 case and more than 1,500 MacLaren Hall claimants.¹⁹

Additional firms participating in the litigation include ACTS LAW, Becker Law Group, Boucher LLP, and Herman Law.⁴ Civil rights attorney Ben Crump joined Slater Slater Schulman in representing MacLaren Hall survivors.²⁰ Downtown LA Law Group, the firm now at the center of the fraud investigation, represents roughly 2,700 claimants.⁹

1
Courthouse News Service. LA County Board Approves $4 Billion Settlement Over Sexual Abuse Claims at Juvenile Facilities
2
Los Angeles County. LA County Reaches $4 Billion Tentative Settlement in Thousands of Sexual Abuse Cases
3
The Imprint. Notorious Los Angeles Children’s Shelter Was Once a House of Horrors, Lawsuit Alleges
4
McNicholas & McNicholas, LLP. LA County Juvenile Hall Settlement Approval Press Release
5
The Imprint. A Staggering Tally: Cases Alleging Sexual Abuse of Children in Los Angeles County Custody Now Number Thousands
6
Los Angeles County. LA County Announces Tentative Settlement of Additional AB 218 Cases and Heightened Anti-Fraud Provisions
7
Los Angeles Times. LA Sex Abuse Lawsuit Investigations and Payouts
8
Claims Journal. LA County Agrees to Pause Sex Abuse Settlement Payments
9
Los Angeles Times. State Bar Investigation of LA County Sex Abuse Settlement
10
AOL News. Downtown LA Law Group Moves to Block Subpoena
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Los Angeles Times. DTLA Law Firm California State Bar Charges
12
Los Angeles Times. LA County $4 Billion Sex Abuse Settlement Vetting
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Los Angeles Times. LA County DA Claims Four in Five Cases in $4 Billion Sex Abuse Payout May Be Fraudulent
14
ABC7 Los Angeles. LA County DA Nathan Hochman Calls for Delay on Sex Abuse Settlement Payments
15
Zalkin Law Firm. California AB 218
16
LA County Juvenile Detention Settlement. Frequently Asked Questions
17
Los Angeles County. Herrera v. County of Los Angeles Settlement Recommendation
18
CourtListener. Agustin Herrera v. County of Los Angeles Docket
19
PR Newswire. Slater Slater Schulman LLP Reaches Historic $4 Billion Settlement With Los Angeles County
20
Ben Crump Law. Ben Crump Joins Slater Slater Schulman Representing Survivors of Sexual Abuse