Hundreds of former juvenile detention center residents are accusing the state and Cook County of failing to protect them from “persistent and widespread” sexual abuse by Illinois youth prison workers, in another round of high-profile lawsuits.
“These abuses are horrific in nature,” attorney Todd Matthews said at a news conference Tuesday in the Loop. “This has to stop, this has to stop. It has to be addressed.”
The complaints, filed Monday in the Illinois Court of Claims and Cook County Circuit Court, detail widespread abuse from 1996 to 2021. The more than 270 plaintiffs in the lawsuits — about 40 women and 230 men — join hundreds of others who have denounced similar abuses.
Michael Moss, now 30, said in the complaint that he was sexually assaulted by two corrections officers when he was 17 at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, formerly known as the Arthur J. Audy Home. One officer abused Moss while he was in the bathroom and in his cell, performing oral sex on him, according to the complaint, and another threatened to send Moss to solitary confinement if he did not allow the abuse to continue.
“When I was 17, I made some mistakes (and) ended up at the Audy House. Cook County employees beat me, threatened me and sexually abused me,” Moss said Tuesday. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
“I have a wife and two children, and even now I sometimes find it difficult to talk about it. I went through what I went through because I felt a lot of shame, a lot of guilt and a lot of pain for many decades,” he added.
The complaint alleged that chronic mismanagement, overcrowding and inadequate supervision allowed an “environment of violence, fear and sexual abuse” to persist for decades. A federal class action lawsuit was filed in 1999 also alleged a series of problems in the installation.
A spokesman for Chief Justice Tim Evans’ office said the office does not comment on pending litigation.
The state facilities where the abuse allegedly occurred, according to the complaint, are current and former youth centers in Warrenville, Chicago, Harrisburg, St. Charles, Murphysboro, Valley View, Joliet and Kewanee. The complaint accuses the state of failing to respond to reports of abuse and of failing to comply with parts of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which was enacted to prevent abuse in prisons.
Khadafi Muhammad, now 37, said a warden and a corrections officer sexually assaulted him from 2001 to 2002, when he was 15 and 16, at the Illinois Youth Center in Murphysboro. According to the complaint, the men entered Muhammad’s dorm room while other residents were sleeping and took him to an employee break room. There, the men forced Muhammad to perform oral sex on them and threatened to “disappear” him if he reported the abuse, the complaint said.
The following year, while Muhammad was in St. Charles Prison, two corrections officers entered his cell after closing time and were forced to perform a strip search, which the lawsuit says was “nothing more than a pretext for sexual abuse.” The officers took turns penetrating his anus, telling him he was “handsome for a black boy,” the lawsuit says, before forcing him to perform oral sex.
Muhammad said Tuesday that he still has nightmares about the incidents, adding that it has impacted his relationships.
“I want to bring attention to the sexual abuse and corruption that people in Illinois youth centers face, and I want to thank Allah for finally bringing justice after all these years,” he said. “I pray that this never happens to anyone again.”
In a statement, the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice said it could not comment on pending litigation but that it “takes seriously the safety of youth in the department’s custody” and has adopted policies and procedures to identify potential cases of abuse or misconduct.
“All allegations of staff misconduct are immediately and thoroughly investigated internally, often in partnership with the Department of Corrections, Illinois State Police and the Department of Children and Family Services,” the statement read.
The attorneys also called on Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul to take action to end the abuse and provide justice to victims. Attorney Jerome Block compared the “violation of public trust” to that of systemic sexual abuse by Catholic priests, saying the state should devote resources to an investigation.
“Hundreds of people have been sexually abused in government-run facilities, and we have received no meaningful response from the governor and attorney general,” Block said. “Our clients want to know that their voices are being heard and that action is being taken to provide justice and fix the system.”
