All of those who are suing were born after Nov. 26, 1989, and meet the state’s legal standards for filing claims of sexual abuse when they were children.
The entrance to the state-run Loysville Youth Development Center in Loysville, Pa., is seen on Monday, May 20, 2024. A set of newly filed lawsuits claims children who were sent to juvenile detention centers in Pennsylvania, including Loysville, suffered a range of sexual abuse, including violent rapes.HARRISBURG, Pa.
The lawsuits involve the Loysville Youth Development Center, the South Mountain Secure Treatment Unit and the North Central Secure Treatment Unit in Danville, which are run by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services; Merakey USA’s Northwestern Academy outside Shamokin, which closed in 2016; and facilities run by Tucson, Arizona-based VisionQuest National Ltd. and Villanova-based Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health.
Block said the legal team also represents more than 100 people who were similarly abused, but too long ago under time limits to file civil claims. Proposals to open a two-year window for such outdated claims have been blocked by Senate Republicans in the General Assembly. One of the plaintiffs says she became pregnant as a teenager as the result of a violent rape by a counselor at North Central about 20 years ago, and that another staffer didn’t believe her when she reported the rape. The lawsuit doesn’t describe what happened regarding her pregnancy.
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