lawsuits

Los Angeles County is poised to pay out an additional $828 million to victims who say they were sexually abused in county facilities as children, months after agreeing to the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history.

The award, posted on the county claims board agenda Friday, would resolve an additional 414 cases that were not included in the $4-billion sex abuse settlement approved this spring. Both the supervisors and the county claims board will need to vote on the payout before it is finalized.

The record $4-billion settlement covered more than 11,000 people, who say they were abused inside county-run juvenile facilities and foster homes as children. The individual payouts will range from $100,000 to $3 million.

The newest payout would break down to an average of roughly $2 million per person. It involves cases from three prominent law firms: Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, Arias Sanguinetti Wang & Team, and Panish Shea Ravipudi.

The firms declined to comment on the potential settlement until the vote by the Board of Supervisors.

The announcement follows reporting by The Times that found nine plaintiffs who say they were paid by recruiters to sue the county over sex abuse. Four of them have said they were explicitly told to make up claims. All had lawsuits filed by Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA.

The firm has denied any involvement with recruiters who allegedly paid plaintiffs to sue. DTLA said previously it would never “encourage or tolerate anyone lying about being abused” and is conducting new screenings to remove “false or exaggerated claims” from its caseload.

The county said any claims brought by DTLA will undergo an additional level of review before payments are made, citing reporting by The Times. The extra screening “may require plaintiff interviews and additional proof of allegations,” the county said.

DTLA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The exterior of Downtown LA Law Group’s offices in Los Angeles.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who recently launched an investigation into the $4-billion settlement following The Times’ reporting, said the vetting will ensure “money goes only to the true victims of abuse.”

“Our settlements balance our obligation to compensate victims and treat their experiences with compassion with the need to put strong protections in place to protect taxpayers from fraud,” she said.

County Counsel Dawyn Harrison says she wants to see the law changed so “unscrupulous lawyers don’t get windfalls at the expense of survivors of abuse.”

“The conduct alleged to have occurred by the DTLA firm is absolutely outrageous and must be investigated by the appropriate authorities,” said Harrison. “Not only does it undermine our justice system, it also deprives legitimate claimants of just compensation.”

All cases will be reviewed by retired judges before the money is allocated, the county said.

If a judge believes a claim is fraudulent, the plaintiff will not get any money, the county said Friday. The county’s original plan stated that if the county found a fraudulent claim, the plaintiff could be offered $50,000 to resolve it or remove the case from the settlement so that it could be litigated separately.

The flood of claims was unleashed with the passage of Assembly Bill 218 in 2020, which changed the statute of limitations and gave survivors a new window to sue their abusers. Since then, school districts and governments have faced many decades-old claims, for which they say there are no longer records kept on file to allow for vetting.

Dominique Anderson, pictured above around age 11, is among the plaintiffs who sued the county for alleged sexual abuse and would stand to receive payouts as part of a new settlement announced Friday.

(Courtesy of Dominique Anderson)

County supervisors have been increasingly critical of the law, which they argue has left them defenseless against claims dating back to the 1950s. If the supervisors approve the new settlement, the county will have paid out nearly $5 billion in child sex abuse lawsuits this year — with more to come.

The county is still facing an additional 2,500 cases, which they say will further strain the region’s social safety net. The county recently required most departments trim their budgets to pay for the $4-billion settlement.

“L.A. County and other local governments must balance their obligations to past victims with the need to avoid ruinous financial impacts,” said acting Chief Executive Joe Nicchitta.

“Roblox” faced a wave of new lawsuits this week that allege the popular gaming platform hasn’t done enough to safeguard kids from pedophiles and sexual content.

One of the latest complaints, filed in a federal court in the Northern District of California, claims that a predator posed as a child on the platform and sexually exploited a 10-year-old in Michigan. The man, who isn’t named in the lawsuit, allegedly convinced the victim to send sexually explicit images of herself after sharing some of himself.

The 10-year-old, who is anonymous in the lawsuit, met the predator last year on “Roblox” and suffered from mental health issues including anxiety, according to the complaint filed Thursday.

“What Roblox represents as a safe, appropriate space for children is, in fact, a digital and real-life nightmare for kids,” the lawsuit, filed by Dolman Law Group, stated.

Kids and teens create, explore and socialize in virtual spaces on “Roblox,” but the gaming platform has continued to grapple with child safety concerns over as its user numbers and revenue grow. On average, 111.8 million users visit the platform daily.

The San Mateo-based company’s share price closed down more than 6% at $117.34 on Friday.

“The assertion that Roblox would intentionally put our users at risk of exploitation is categorically untrue,” Roblox spokesperson Kadia Koroma said in a statement. “While no system is perfect, Roblox has implemented rigorous safeguards—such as restrictions on sharing personal information, links, and user-to-user image sharing—to help protect our community. Unfortunately, bad actors will try to circumvent our systems to try to direct users off the platform, where safety standards and moderation practices may differ.”

In early August, the company said it’s using artificial intelligence to help detect “child endangerment communications” earlier and alert law enforcement.

The lawsuit is among a flurry of new complaints this year that accuse the gaming platform of prioritizing its profits over the safety of its users.

On Thursday, Louisiana Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill filed a lawsuit against Roblox over child safety concerns.

“Roblox” is also under political pressure. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, has been urging people on social media to sign a petition asking the company to do more to protect children on the platform.

Since July, Dolman Law Group has filed five lawsuits against “Roblox” in courts in California, Georgia and Texas. Matthew Dolman, a Florida lawyer who is a managing partner at the law firm, said a sixth lawsuit is being filed on Friday.

The lawsuits point to several steps “Roblox” could have taken to make the platform safer, such as verifying ages through facial recognition, clearly warning parents about sexual predators and putting a higher age rating for its app.

“This is just the wild west,” Dolman said in an interview. “It’s like a hunting ground for predators.”

The company, he said, misrepresents how safe the platform is to both its users and shareholders.

“Roblox” profits from transaction fees when predators offer children Robux, a digital currency used on the gaming platform, in exchange for sexually explicit photos, according to the federal lawsuit filed on Thursday.

Predators will also tell children they won’t release these photos if they hand over Robux, the lawsuit alleges.

The complaint cites a Hindenburg Research report published last year that stated there were inappropriate games on “Roblox” that researchers were able to access by registering as a child.

Some of those experiences were modeled after criminal conduct by child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“Roblox” rebutted claims made in the report and said it invested heavily in its trust and safety efforts, noting that it has rules against child exploitation on its platform.

The risk of sextortion, especially among young people, is a growing problem, child advocates say. Roughly 1 in 5 teenagers experienced sextortion, according to a report from Thorn, a child safety nonprofit.

Sextortionists have used a variety of platforms, including social media and gaming platforms such as “Roblox,” “Minecraft” and “Fortnite,” to threaten victims.

I stepped on my bathroom scale the other morning and could not believe the three digits staring up at me.

And I mean that literally — the scale was rigged.

I know this because I’ve been dieting my butt off, and I swear I’ve dropped 20 pounds. So the first thing I did was ask my wife whether she messed with the scale as some kind of prank.

She said no, adding, “Maybe you’re retaining liquids.”

Steve Lopez

Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.

I threw the scale out immediately. Then I went back into the bathroom, took one look in the mirror, and got another shock.

That couldn’t be me in the reflection. No way.

I’ve got more hair than that. Everybody knows it, and people comment on it. I go onto social media and people are asking one another, almost every day: “How does he maintain such a full mane and youthful glow?”

I called my barber and fired him.

It’s not the barber, my wife said. You should take another look in the mirror.

Our columnist was dismayed when he discovered the Bible ranks higher in book sales than his own works. “That should be on the list of fake miracles, right up there with the loaves and fishes,” he writes.

(Marta Lavandier / Associated Press)

She’s been somewhat out of sorts lately, ever since I went on Nextdoor to wish all my neighbors a happy Independence Day, including “all you scum I wouldn’t speak to IF YOU WERE THE LAST ONES at the picnic.”

Half the time, my wife doesn’t even live with me, and I don’t know where she is. It’s odd, because the marriage is perfect. People ask us what the secret is, and I say it’s hospitality. We open our hearts and our home to others, and we were planning on building a backyard ballroom until our financial advisor told us we were already running up massive debt.

I sued him for negligence and financial fraud.

My wife brought home a couple of refugees sponsored by her church, and I went along with it, even though I think it’s wrong to blame coyotes every time a neighborhood pet disappears. We were having a cup of coffee and a few pastries, and one of them took a second almond croissant. And then, even before he finished it, he reached out and grabbed a bear claw.

There I am, watching it disappear, and between bites, this freeloader starts telling us our country has to offer more help to his country.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I wanted the bear claw!” I said. “You didn’t even say thanks for the croissant, and now you want a third pastry? Get out of my house!”

To calm myself, I slipped into the living room to relax with a book. I picked one that was on a shelf next to three books I’ve written, which made me curious about how sales have been going lately.

So I went to Amazon to check the rankings.

The first book I checked was ranked 3,907,369. I swear on the Bible, which, by the way, was ranked 206 on the bestsellers list.

Really?

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have been in the ground for what, a couple of thousand years? Nobody can tell you whether any of them knew a Magi from a Musketeer, not to mention that the Roman Empire they worked under was a failed administration. And their book is selling better than mine by a mile?

That should be on the list of fake miracles, right up there with the loaves and fishes.

A dispute with a neighbor over a property line ? “The boundaries are rigged.”

(A dispute with a neighbor over a property line ? “The boundaries are rigged.”)

My book is a great book. It’s already listed up there with the all-time classics, and it got starred reviews everywhere. At Barnes & Noble, they keep it in the Beautiful Books section. When I was on a book tour, I had the biggest crowds ever. Way bigger than Hemingway. People are still talking about it.

So to cut to the chase, I gave my sales rank a Triple F rating.

Fake.

False.

Fony.

And I fired my book agent.

I checked out some of the books ranked higher than mine — other than the “holy” Bible — and it didn’t take long to figure out what’s going on.

First of all, a lot of the people allegedly “buying” books don’t exist. Somewhere between 30% and 40% of the people who go onto the review section and claim they love Stephen King books are actually dead.

And then you have a lot of people coming into this country illegally, ghastly people, and they are voting in elections and they are voting on books, too, because they’re being put up to it, and being well-compensated, I might add.

Little-known fact:

The vote-counting machines and the book-counting machines are made by the same company.

You know what they should call that company?

RIGGED!

Not to be obsessive, but I’ve heard it said that Stephen King doesn’t care for me much, and that’s fine. Water off a duck’s back. My dog has more talent than that guy. All he does is write stories about killers and horrible, sick people.

He should write a book about my neighbor, if he likes deranged people so much. Most neighbors love me; they’re kissing my you-know-what. But then there’s this guy, whom I’m having investigated. I went out to the curb to throw the bathroom scale away, and what do I see? That jackalope is putting his trash can on my property. I’m the one who’s encroaching, he tells me, and I should go to the county offices and check the property records.

Well, it just so happens that I already checked the records, and they’re inaccurate. It figures, because that last county administration was the worst in history. A bunch of corrupt, evil people. Who should have been impeached. They hired incompetents as surveyors, so don’t stand on the street and tell me where I can and can’t put my trash can, because the boundaries are rigged and I’m having them rewritten.

My lawyers are on it, and we will win this case on Day One, guaranteed, with time left over for a round of golf.

Note to self:

On the way home, pick up a bathroom scale.

[email protected]

SACRAMENTO — Seven months into President Trump’s second term, California has filed 37 lawsuits against his administration and spent about $5 million doing it.

Before you go off on a government-spending rant, let me drop this figure on you: For each dollar the state has spent in litigation with Trump, it has recouped $33,600 in funds that the federal government has tried to take away from the Golden State, according to Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.

That, as he put it during a Monday news conference, is “bringing the receipts.”

These aren’t dollars Californians were wishing for or begging for from the federal government — these are funds that have already been legally allotted to the state but which the Trump administration is attempting to stop for reasons petty, ideological or both. They pay for teacher training, immunizations, tracking infectious diseases, keeping roads safe, disaster recovery and on and on. And they are predominantly your tax dollars, being withheld from your state.

“What we’re demanding is that we get the funding that’s already been legally approved and appropriated,” Bonta said.

But as much as it’s about paying for the basics that keep California going, it’s also about protecting an inclusive and equitable way of living that defines the ethos of our state. Don’t tread on us! Californians get to spend our money how we see fit.

“When you add it all up, you see the totality of what’s at stake: the California dream,” Bonta said. “The idea that every Californian, no matter how they look, where they live or how much money they have, can send their kid to school, go to the doctor when they’re sick and put food on the table and a roof over their heads.”

Or as Gov. Gavin Newsom put it, it’s litigation not for the sake of suing, but to “defend, to stand tall, to hold the line in terms of our values, the things we hold dear.”

It’s serious times, folks. Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t stand for LGBTQ+ rights, for immigrants’ rights, for women’s rights, for due process or even public schools. But so far, the courts have held, for the most part, to their responsibility to be a check on this unbalanced administration.

Of course, lawyers win cases, sometimes regardless of facts. I want to give a shout out to our state Department of Justice. Bonta may be the state’s top lawyer, but there is a whole army of legal folks behind these lawsuits.

The $5 million spent so far has been entirely in-house, Bonta said. This cash isn’t going to expensive outside counsel, but, as my colleague Kevin Rector points out, money that is funding the smart, talented attorneys and staff who work for taxpayers.

More than a few of them were around during Trump’s first term, when the state was involved in more than 120 lawsuits against his administration. Many of those suits were about process — the haphazard, rules-be-damned way Trump seeks to implement his policies.

Our California lawyers learned then that courts do in fact uphold law, and simply pointing out that rules have to be followed was often enough to stop Trump. While we now have a seasoned legal team that understands the weaknesses in what Trump is doing, the sort-of-funny part is that he’s still doing it. Few lessons learned, which is good for California.

So far, these lawsuits by California have ensured that about $168 billion that Trump would have cut off instead continued to flow to California. Bonta said that in the 19 cases that have made it in front of a judge so far, he’s succeeded in 17, including winning 13 court orders directly blocking Trump’s “illegal actions.”

He’s also secured wins outside of court, including when the U.S. Department of Education recently backed down after freezing school funding weeks before school is set to start. That funding, under threat of a lawsuit, has been restored.

Bonta said that while the state is fighting every lawsuit with rigor, two are personal to him and “remain sort of the most important in terms of what they represent.”

They happen to be the first two suits the state filed, shortly after Trump took office. The first was about birthright citizenship, and Trump’s bid to end it. It’s a case Bonta says is “very meaningful” to him.

Bonta was born in the Philippines and immigrated to the United States when he was 2 months old, living in a trailer in the Central Valley town of La Paz, the home of the United Farm Workers. His parents left their country to avoid martial law as the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos gained power, and worked with civil rights leaders including Cesar Chavez once they settled here.

So it makes sense that an executive order that would leave about 24,500 babies born each year in California without U.S. citizenship hits hard with Bonta.

Bonta, along with attorneys general of several other states, filed that lawsuit the day after Trump took office, in response to an executive order he signed on Inauguration Day. So far, multiple courts have expressed deep skepticism of that order, and the idea that the Constitution and prior Supreme Court rulings should be ignored in favor of Trump’s position.

The second case that Bonta takes personally is a multistate pushback on Trump’s sweeping halt of federal funding. That case put at risk about $3 trillion nationwide, including that $168 billion in California, about a third of the state budget.

Coming up next is a challenge to the deployment of Marines and National Guard troops in Los Angeles. The Trump administration has been quietly removing those soldiers in recent days, perhaps in preparation for asking the court to drop that case, which seems like a loser for them. No troops, no case. We’ll see how it goes in a few days.

“The Marines and the National Guardspeople arrived to quiet streets in L.A.,” Bonta said. “The president has been incredibly, in my view, disrespectful to these patriots. He’s treated them as political pawns.”

The $5 million the state has spent so far on legal fights with Trump is part of $25 million the Legislature set aside earlier this year during a special session. Bonta said that even that will likely not be enough to keep the challenges flowing for the next three and a half years.

Newsom, for his part, is all in and promised that Bonta “will not be in need of resources to do his job.” (And yes, I know it raises his profile for a 2028 presidential run.)

As much as it seems ridiculous that we are setting aside this huge chunk of change for legal fees at a moment when we are facing a budget crisis, the cost of letting Trump run roughshod over our state is much higher. This is money well spent.

Because it’s not just our federal funding at stake, it’s the California dream.

United Talent Agency and MediaLink founder Michael Kassan agreed to drop their lawsuits against each other, after battling over problems related to a 2021 acquisition.

“UTA and Michael Kassan have agreed to amicably end their dispute. The parties are not at liberty to comment further,” representatives for UTA and Kassan said in a joint statement on Thursday.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

UTA in 2021 agreed to buy Kassan’s strategic advisory firm MediaLink in a $125-million deal. The Beverly Hills-based talent agency had hoped the acquisition would help expand its branding business.

But problems arose, with both sides accusing each other of breaching a contract. UTA alleged that Kassan’s spending was out of control and accused him of “wasting millions of UTA’s dollars on his lavish personal lifestyle.”

Kassan said that UTA was well aware of his spending habits and that his firm has continued to be profitable during its tenure within UTA. He alleged that UTA did not follow the terms of the deal, such as a promise that UTA‘s marketing group would report to him. Kassan’s attorney alleged that while UTA was benefiting from MediaLink by getting free media consulting and introductions, MediaLink was not benefiting from the relationship.

UTA, in legal filings and public statements, denied Kassan’s allegations.

In 2024, Kassan filed a defamation lawsuit against UTA’s legal counsel that a judge later dismissed.

Kassan launched L.A. consulting firm 3C Ventures in 2024.

BOSTON — President Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship for the children of people who are in the U.S. illegally will remain blocked as an order from one judge went into effect Friday and another seemed inclined to follow suit.

U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante in New Hampshire had paused his own decision to allow for the Trump administration to appeal, but with no appeal filed in the last week his order went into effect.

“The judge’s order protects every single child whose citizenship was called into question by this illegal executive order,” said Cody Wofsy, the ACLU attorney representing children who would be affected by Trump’s restrictions. “The government has not appealed and has not sought emergency relief so this injunction is now in effect everywhere in the country.”

The Trump administration could still appeal or even ask that LaPlante’s order be narrowed, but the effort to end birthright citizenship for children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally or temporarily can’t take effect for now.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment.

Meanwhile, a judge in Boston heard arguments from more than a dozen states who say Trump’s birthright citizenship order is blatantly unconstitutional and threatens millions of dollars for essential services. The issue is expected to move quickly back to the nation’s highest court.

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin was asked to consider either keeping in place the nationwide injunction he granted earlier or consider a request from the government either to narrow the scope of that order or stay it altogether. Sorokin, located in Boston, did not immediately rule but seemed to be receptive to arguments from states to keep the injunction in place.

Lawyers for the government had argued Sorokin should narrow the reach of his earlier ruling granting a preliminary injunction, arguing it should be “tailored to the States’ purported financial injuries.”

Much of the hearing was focused on what a narrower ruling would look like. The plaintiffs raised concerns that some alternatives floated by the Trump administration — such as giving children in states affected by the birthright citizenship order Social Security numbers, but not citizenship — would be costly and unworkable.

They said such a system would burden these states with having to set up new administrative systems, sow confusion among the parents whose children are affected and possibly turn these states into magnets for families from other states looking to access the benefits.

Government lawyers didn’t seem tied to any one alternative, but told Sorokin the scope of his injunction should be limited. When pressed on how they would do that, a lawyer for the government, Eric Hamilton, would only commit to complying with whatever order was issued.

“If the court modifies the preliminary injunction or stays the preliminary injunction, it should be at most tailored to injuries plaintiffs are alleging, which are primary financial,” Hamilton said.

Sorokin pushed back, at one point using an analogy of someone who sued a neighbor over loud music. The defendant offers to build a wall to limit the noise but Sorokin wondered how they could ensure it met the zoning code and was something the defendant could afford.

“What you are telling me is we will do it but, in response to my question, you have no answer how you will do it,” Sorokin said.

LaPlante issued the ruling last week prohibiting Trump’s executive order from taking effect nationwide in a new class-action lawsuit, and a Maryland-based judge said this week that she would do the same if an appeals court signed off.

The justices ruled last month that lower courts generally can’t issue nationwide injunctions, but it didn’t rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states. The Supreme Court did not decide whether the underlying citizenship order is constitutional.

At the heart of the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. That decision found that Scott, an enslaved man, wasn’t a citizen despite having lived in a state where slavery was outlawed.

The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.

Casey writes for the Associated Press.