Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott are putting their married days behind them. The estranged pair settled their divorce Monday, two years after going their separate ways.
The “Beverly Hills, 90210” star and McDermott have entered a “written agreement regarding their property and their marriage,” according to a declaration filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Details about that agreement, including custody and visitation, were not disclosed but court documents confirm the parents of five consider their divorce as an “uncontested” matter.
Court documents reveal that Spelling, 52, checked boxes requesting child support and spousal support “should be ordered” pending the judge’s approval. She also requested her legal fees to be covered.
Spelling and Canadian actor McDermott, 58, separated in June 2023 after 17 years of marriage. The TV star, born Victoria D. Spelling, filed her petition for divorce in March 2024, citing irreconcilable differences. The exes married in May 2006 and share children Liam, Stella, Hattie, Finn and Beau, who range in age from 8 to 18. When she filed her petition, Spelling requested sole physical custody of the children and joint legal custody and visitation rights for McDermott.
The “True Tori” star got candid about her decision to file for divorce during an episode of her “misSPELLING” podcast, telling listeners she was cautious about her split with McDermott taking an acrimonious turn and reflecting on how their relationship went the distance, despite outside skepticism early on. Before tying the knot, Spelling and McDermott were previously married to actor Charlie Shanian and actor-singer Mary Jo Eustace, respectively.
“And we got together and people were like, ‘Oh, I give it six months,’ and we always say, ‘Oh, we made it 18 years.’ It shouldn’t have made it 18 years and I think he would say the same thing,” she said last year. “If he and I had a real heart-to-heart, it would’ve been over a lot sooner.”
During the podcast episode, she spoke about their rocky relationship, recalling “red flags” and moving on with the marriage despite them.
McDermott had also spoken candidly about his marriage to Spelling months after news of their separation broke.
“All Tori’s ever done to this day is want me to be happy and healthy and I inflicted a lot of damage and pain on that woman,” he told the Daily Mail in November 2023. “It’s going to be living the rest of my life making amends because I took something that was really beautiful and I just tore it down year after year, day after day.”
Amid their divorce, the former spouses seemingly remained friendly. Spelling told People last year she and McDermott are “good friends” and that he remains “one of my biggest supporters.” Earlier this year, she honored McDermott with a Father’s Day post.
“Happy Father’s Day to my baby daddy and rad co- parent,” she captioned a pair of family photos.
Times editorial library director Cary Schneider and former staff writer Nardine Saad contributed to this report.
Oct. 23 (UPI) — The University of Virginia has entered into an agreement with the Justice Department to resolve federal investigations, amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on left-leaning ideology at institutions of higher learning.
Both the University of Virginia and the Justice Department confirmed on Wednesday that an agreement had been reached. Federal prosecutors said their probes of the school’s admissions policies and civil rights concerns will be paused.
Under the terms of the deal, the University of Virginia agrees to implement Guidance for Recipients of Federal Funding Regarding Unlawful Discrimination, which the Trump administration released in late July, tying federal funding with its interpretation of civil rights laws that restrict diversity, equity and inclusion policies and programs.
The school also agrees to provide federal prosecutors with relevant information and data on a quarterly basis through 2028, though it will pay no monetary penalty.
“Importantly, it preserves the academic freedom of our faculty, students and staff,” University of Virginia interim President Paul Mahoney said in a letter Wednesday addressed to the school’s community.
“We will be treated no less favorably than any other university in terms of federal research grants and funding. The agreement does not involve external monitoring. Instead, the University will update the Department of Justice quarterly on its efforts to ensure compliance with federal law.”
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has used his executive powers to target dozens of universities, in particular so-called elite institutions, with executive orders, lawsuits, reallocations of resources and threats over a range of allegations, from anti-Semitism to the adoption of DEI policies.
Critics have accused Trump of coercing the schools under threat to adopt his far-right policies.
The University of Virginia is one of the seven schools since Oct. 1 that rejected signing Trump’s 10-part Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. The Trump administration invited nine schools to sign the compact and receive priority access to federal funds in exchange for adopting government-mandated reforms, including a pledge to prohibit transgender women from using women’s changing rooms.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., accused the University of Virginia of relenting to “Trump’s bullying.”
“It’s not just wrong — it’s counterproductive, feeds the beast and just encourages more mafia-like blackmail from this lawless administration,” he said on X.
Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Va., said it was a “surrender” by the University of Virginia.
“And represents a huge expansion of federal power that Republicans have would have never tolerated in the past — we have the right to run our universities,” he said on X.
After 12 years on the Los Angeles City Council, Curren Price will be term-limited out of the legislative body this coming year.
The candidate he hopes will replace him comes from his staff, his deputy chief of staff, Jose Ugarte, who has been referred to in the past as Price’s “right-hand man.”
But with many months to go before ballots are cast, Ugarte is already in hot water with the city’s Ethics Commission.
According to documents released by the commission, Ugarte has agreed to pay a $17,500 fine for repeatedly failing to disclose outside income he made from his lobbying and consulting firm while also working as a council staffer.
A commission investigation found that Ugarte failed to report outside income from his consulting firm, Ugarte & Associates, for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to the documents.
The Ugarte proposed settlement is set to go before the Ethics Commission on Wednesday.
“This was an unintentional clerical reporting error on my part. As soon as I was made aware, I took full responsibility and corrected them,” Ugarte said in a statement emailed to The Times. “I take disclosure seriously. Moving forward, I have implemented steps to ensure nothing is missed.”
Ugarte said his work with Ugarte & Associates never overlapped with his time in Price’s office. He started working for Price in 2013, but left the office in 2019. He returned in 2021. Ugarte & Associates was formed in 2018 and still conducts business. He co-owns the company with his sister.
The settlement comes as Ugarte’s boss faces his own ethics quandary.
Price was indicted two years ago on 10 counts of grand theft by embezzlement after his wife’s consulting firm received payments of more than $150,000 between 2019 and 2021 from developers before Price voted to approve projects.
Prosecutors also said Price failed to list his wife’s income on his ethics disclosure forms.
Prosecutors have since filed additional charges against Price saying his wife, Del Richardson, was paid hundreds of thousands by the city housing authority while Price voted in favor of millions in grants to the agency. He also wrote a motion to give $30 million to the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority from 2020 to 2021, a time frame in which Richardson was paid more than $200,000 by the agency.
Price said he supports Ugarte despite the ethics violation.
“This matter dates back to 2021, when he was not employed by the city, and is clerical in nature,” Price said in a statement texted to The Times. “I wholeheartedly support Jose Ugarte, alongside an unprecedented coalition of elected officials, labor groups, and community leaders who stand behind his character, leadership and proven record of results.”
Ugarte is one of the leading candidates running to represent Council District 9, which covers South Los Angeles. He raised $211,206 in the first reporting cycle of the election, far outpacing his rivals.
One of Ugarte’s opponents, Estuardo Mazariegos, called the Ethics Commission findings “very disturbing.”
The Ethics Commission also alleged that Ugarte’s documents about outside income, known as Form 700s, failed to report clients who gave $10,000 or more to Ugarte & Associates.
Those clients were mostly independent expenditures for local candidates.
His firm was paid $128,050 to help with the reelection campaign of Congressman Jimmy Gomez (D-California). It was also paid $222,000 by Elect California to help with the reelection campaign of Mitch O’Farrell among other clients.
“This proposed settlement raises more questions than it answers: Are these the only payments Ugarte hid? Why was he concealing them from the public? And above all, how did these massive payments in outside interests affect Jose Ugarte’s work as a city employee?” Mazariegos said in a statement to The Times.
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.
It felt like the kind of thing that must happen in Hollywood all the time: a hundred bucks to be a movie extra.
Austin Beagle, 31, and Nevada Barker, 30, said they were trying to sign up for food stamps this spring when someone offered them a background role outside a county social services office in Long Beach. They thought the gig seemed intriguing, albeit a bit unusual.
The offer came not from a casting director, but a man hawking free cellphones. The filming location was, oddly enough, a law firm in downtown Los Angeles.
Like many DTLA clients, Austin Beagle and Nevada Barker signed a retainer agreement that entitles the firm to 45% of their payout.
(Joe Garcia / For The Times)
Maybe this was how actors were recruited here, they figured. The couple had recently moved from the remote ranching town of Stinnett in the Texas panhandle, and the recruiter seemed to appreciate their Southern drawl. They hopped on a bus, excited to make $200 between them.
“They said we’d be extras,” said Beagle, who was unemployed at the time. “But when we got to the office, that’s not what it was at all.”
The couple said they arrived at the lobby of Downtown LA Law Group. A Times investigation published earlier this month found seven plaintiffs represented by the firm who claimed they received cash from recruiters to sue the county over sex abuse, which could violate state law. Two said they had never been abused and were told to manufacture their claims.
Downtown LA Law Group has denied any involvement with the recruiters who allegedly paid plaintiffs. The firm said in a statement it would never “encourage or tolerate anyone lying about being abused” and has been conducting additional screening to remove “false or exaggerated claims” from its caseload.
Four days after The Times’ investigation was published, the firm asked for a lawsuit on behalf of Carlshawn Stovall, one of the men who said he fabricated claims, to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be refiled.
The firm requested a second case spurred by Juan Fajardo, who said he made up a claim using the name of a family member, to be dismissed with prejudice on Sept. 9 after Fajardo says he told lawyers he wanted to drop the lawsuit.
Now, with Beagle and Barker, two more have come forward to allege they were told to invent the stories that led to their lawsuits.
Austin Beagle and Nevada Barker said they’d been in Southern California only a few months when they were flagged down outside a social services office where they were hoping to enroll in food stamps. The couple have since moved back to Stinnett, Texas.
(Joe Garcia / For The Times)
The couple said that when they arrived at DTLA’s offices in April, a man came down to the lobby with a clipboard and gave them a piece of paper to memorize before going upstairs. They assumed this was the role they’d be playing — with room to go off script.
“They told us to say that we were sexually abused and harassed by the guards in … Las P? I can’t think of the institution’s name,” said Beagle, who added he was told to say the incidents occurred around 2005.
“The worse it was the better,” he recalled being told.
On April 29, Downtown LA Law Group filed a lawsuit against the county on behalf of 63 plaintiffs, including Beagle and Barker, who claimed they were abused at Los Padrinos, L.A. County’s juvenile hall in Downey. The couple are now part of the $4-billion settlement.
Allegations of potential fraud and pay-to-sue tactics have rocked both L.A. County government and powerhouse law firms, which are scrambling to figure out how to salvage the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history.
Perhaps no group has been shaken more than sex abuse victims themselves, who fear allegations of false claims could derail what they hoped would be a life-changing settlement.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” said Jimmy Vigil, 45, who sued the county in December 2022 for alleged sexual abuse by a probation officer at a detention camp in Lancaster.
Vigil said he was repeatedly molested as a 14-year-old and forced to masturbate in front of other teens while the guard watched.
“It makes me feel disgusted,” said Vigil, now a mental health case manager in Ventura County. “You have absolutely no clue what I went through. You have no clue how hard I have strived in life to make it to where I am at today.”
Jimmy Vigil, now a mental health case worker in Ventura, said he was repeatedly molested as a teenager and forced to masturbate in front of other teens.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Barker and Beagle said that after memorizing the card with the basics of their story, they were taken upstairs to a room at DTLA’s office where about 20 people were waiting. Everyone seemed confused, they said.
They “were asking us ‘Hey, did y’all promise to get paid? And we said ‘Yeah, somebody told us that we’d get paid $100 if we come in,” Beagle said. “Everybody was just concerned about getting paid whatever they were promised.”
DTLA said in a statement it has “never directed, nor do we have any knowledge that anyone was ever paid, hired, or brought to the DTLA office, or was asked to memorize a script of any kind under the guise of filmmaking,”
“We are not filmmakers,” the firm said. “No one authorized on behalf of the firm has ever promised or implied movie extra work as a means of retaining clients.”
Beagle and Barker said they were called in together to a glass cubicle where a woman spent 15-20 minutes asking them questions about their story of abuse. Barker said she struggled to come up with details because “it was all made-up stuff.”
Beagle said he thought maybe the staffers in the law firm were also acting, pretending not to know this was “a fake thing.”
“Like, they were testing us all out to see if we knew how to act — just play the part,” Beagle said. “Like, this was a trial thing.”
The couple said they were befuddled at the interaction but figured they’d done enough to get their money; the receptionist told them to come back in a few hours to collect.
The firm said, in some circumstances, it provides “interest free loans to clients once they have retained our services.”
Beagle and Barker said they frittered away two hours at Pershing Square a few blocks away until around 4 p.m. It was only when they came back to the firm, they said, that it became clear there was no movie.
A man named Kevin paid them $100 each, and told them they were part of a massive settlement involving juvenile halls they’d never heard about until that afternoon. The man told them they could get $100 for each additional person they referred to go through the same process, Beagle said.
“We walked out thinking I don’t know how legit this is and we might even get f— in trouble for it,” Beagle said.
Like most sexual abuse lawsuits, the suit was filed using only plaintiffs’ initials. The Times reviewed paperwork that DTLA provided to Beagle and Barker, which they signed in order to become clients on April 21 and to opt into the L.A. County settlement on May 29.
Under the settlement, each plaintiff could be eligible for anywhere from $100,000 to $3 million. Retainer agreements for Beagle and Barker reviewed by The Times show DTLA would get 45% of their payout.
Beagle and Barker said they aren’t banking on getting any money from L.A. County. After all, they said, they grew up in Texas, more than a thousand miles away from the abuse-plagued facilities.
“We need it, but it’s not ours. It’s like finding a wallet,” Barker said. “Return it.”
A Times investigation published earlier this month found plaintiffs represented by Downtown LA Law Group who claimed they received cash from recruiters to sue L.A. County over sex abuse. Four now say they were told to make up the claims.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Among some survivors, there is a palpable fear that the fraud allegations will steamroll the settlement, overshadowing the fact that many county-run facilities were home to unchecked abuse and torpedoing their chance of receiving a life-changing sum.
The Times interviewed eight victims for this article represented by Slater Slater Schulman, ACTS LAW Firm, McNicholas & McNicholas, and Becker Law Group. Many said they were aghast at learning the worst years of their life may have become fodder for quick cash.
“It felt like a kick in the gut,” said Trinidad Pena, 52. “For somebody just to lie about it was just sickening.”
On Sept. 18, Pena said, she was eating a pancake breakfast at a homeless services center in Long Beach when she learned she had something in common with a woman sitting on the picnic bench next to her.
Both had filed lawsuits against L.A. County alleging sexual abuse at county-run facilities. Both of them were part of the county’s $4-billion settlement. But she was the only one, she believed, who had actually been abused.
The woman told her she’d been paid $20 to sue by a woman who hung around on the sidewalk outside the community center clutching a clipboard, she said.
The Times could not reach the recruiters allegedly responsible for paying plaintiffs for comment.
Trinidad Pena, who sued in 2022 over sex abuse, said she was jarred to find herself at breakfast with a woman who told her she’d been paid to sue the county.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Pena sued L.A. County in December 2022 over an alleged rape when she was 12 by a staff member at MacLaren Children’s Center, a shuttered youth shelter now infamous for predatory staff. No amount of cash is going to erase the scars from that, she says. But it would help.
Last month, Pena traded in her New Orleans shotgun apartment for the streets of Southern California, where she was raised. The move was, she said, a Hail Mary attempt to get medical treatment through the state’s public benefits for a cyst sprouting behind her right eye that made her vision wobble and her head crackle with pain.
She is currently living on $1,206 a month in and out of her van with a failing shunt in her head, which doctors implanted to treat her cyst. She eats mostly the nonperishable Trader Joe’s snacks she brought from Louisiana.
A six- or seven-figure settlement could help save her life, Pena said.
“I’m going to have myself a hell of a Charlie Sheen party and take a nosedive off a balcony at the Chateau Marmont if I do not get some sort of relief,” said Pena, who says she grew up in foster care near the legendary West Hollywood hotel.
Part of what has made the false claims so infuriating, victims say, is that L.A. County youth detention facilities were indeed home to horrific abuse decades ago.
Kizzie Jones, 47, said she’s on antidepressants as a result of a female probation officer who allegedly molested her twice a week and groomed her with bags of chips and bottles of conditioner.
Robert Williams, 41, says he has no friends — a near-total isolation he said traces back to repeated sexual assaults in the shower he suffered as a teen.
Mario Paz, 39, said a guard molested him under the guise of soothing his genitals with milk after he was pepper sprayed while naked. The abuse, he says, has left him traumatized to the point that he is unable to change his children’s Pampers.
All three of them filed lawsuits against the county alleging sexual abuse by county probation officers.
Mario Paz, 39, said his time at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall left him traumatized and damaged the relationship he has with his own children.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“For someone to capitalize on something that they never endured or never experienced, I think it’s a travesty,” said Cornelious Thompson, a 51-year-old community health worker, who sued the county in December 2022.
When he was around 13 at Los Padrinos, Thompson says he was put on psychiatric medication that knocked him out. He woke up in his unit sore with his pants hanging by his knees, bleeding. It took him years to tell anyone.
He said he recently lost his job with a contractor for the county’s health department due to budget cuts. The county had to slash spending, in part, to pay for the $4-billion settlement.
It was “bittersweet,” he says, losing his job because the county was finally paying for what he said he endured as a teenager.
Only now, a new fear has crept in as two more people say they made up claims: Will he still be believed?
Fesia Davenport, L.A. County’s chief executive officer, received a $2 million settlement this summer due to professional fallout from Measure G, a voter-approved ballot measure that will soon make her job obsolete, according to a letter she wrote to the county’s top lawyer.
Davenport wrote in the July 8 letter, which was released through a public record request Tuesday, that she had been seeking $2 million for “reputational harm, embarrassment, and physical, emotional and mental distress caused by the Measure G.”
“Measure G is an unprecedented event, and has had, and will continue to have, an unprecedented impact on my professional reputation, health, career, income, and retirement,” Davenport wrote to County Counsel Dawyn Harrison. “My hope is that after setting aside the amount of my ask, that there can be a true focus on what the real issues are here – measure G has irrevocably changed my life, my professional career, economic outlook, and plans for the future.”
The existence of the $2 million settlement, finalized in mid-August, was first reported Tuesday by the LAist. It was unclear what the settlement was for.
Davenport began a medical leave last week. She told staff she expects to be back early next year.
Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn first announced Measure G in July 2024, branding it as a long overdue overhaul to the county’s sluggish bureaucracy. Under the charter amendment, which voters approved this November, the number of supervisors increased to nine and the county chief executive, who manages the county government and oversees its budget, will be now be elected by voters instead of appointed by the board starting in 2028.
In August 2024, a few weeks after the announcement, Davenport wrote a letter to Horvath saying the measure had impugned her “professional reputation” and would end her career at least two years earlier than she expected, according to another letter released through a public records request.
“This has been a tough six weeks for me,” Davenport wrote in her letter. “It has created uncomfortable, awkward interactions between me and my CEO team (they are concerned), me and other departments heads (they are apologetic), and even County outsiders (they think I am being fired).”
“Days of Our Lives” actor Arianne Zucker has reached a settlement with the producers of the show after her 2024 lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and discrimination on the set of the soap opera.
Notice of the settlement was filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. No further details about the settlement were included. Zucker’s attorney could not be immediately reached for comment.
Zucker had starred on “Days of Our Lives” since 1998, playing the character Nicole Walker. In her February 2024 lawsuit, she alleged that now-former executive producer Albert Alarr subjected her and other employees to “severe and pervasive harassment and discrimination, including sexual harassment, based upon their female gender.”
Zucker claimed that Alarr would grab and hug her, “purposely pushing her breasts onto his chest” while moaning sexually, according to the lawsuit. She also alleged that he would make “sexually charged comments” to her.
“Our client continues to deny the allegations set forth in the complaint,” Alarr’s attorney, Robert Barta, said in a statement. “However, in order to bring the litigation to the end, he has agreed to settle. This decision was made solely to end the dispute and move forward.”
Zucker’s lawsuit also named Corday Productions, which oversees the show, and its owner, Ken Corday, as defendants in the lawsuit, alleging retaliation. Zucker alleged that her pay was decreased and her travel stipend revoked after she voiced concerns. In June 2023, she said her character was written off the show after 20 years.
Several months later, Corday Productions offered to renew Zucker’s contract but allegedly did not negotiate with her representatives for higher pay, the lawsuit said.
Attorneys for Corday and Corday Productions did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Corday Productions previously told The Times in a statement that Zucker’s claims “are without merit” and that she was offered a pay increase upon an offer to renew her contract. The company said at the time that complaints about Alarr’s on-set behavior were “promptly investigated” and the company “fully cooperated with the impartial investigation and subsequently terminated Mr. Alarr.”
“Days of Our Lives” aired on Comcast-owned NBC from Nov. 8, 1965, to Sept. 9, 2022, before moving to the Comcast streaming platform Peacock in 2022.
At its core, a civil suit is about money. Nobody pleads guilty. Nobody goes to prison. Somebody either pays somebody else or doesn’t.
That’s why roughly 95% of civil suits nationwide reach a settlement ahead of or during trial, legal experts say. Pretrial discovery is usually comprehensive and mediation can produce agreements. Trials are costly, and plaintiffs and defendants alike overwhelmingly prefer to eliminate the risk of an all-or-nothing jury verdict by agreeing on a compromise dollar figure.
That’s also why the case brought by the family of deceased Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs against the Angels has surprised some legal experts. A recent one-day settlement conference between lawyers went nowhere, and both sides are focused on a trial, which begins Monday in Orange County Superior Court with opening statements and witness testimony.
Skaggs was found dead in his hotel room in Southlake, Texas, on July 1, 2019, before the Angels were scheduled to start a series against the Texas Rangers. The Tarrant County medical examiner conducted an autopsy and found that in addition to the opioids, Skaggs had a blood-alcohol level of 0.12. The autopsy determined he died from asphyxia after aspirating his own vomit, and that his death was accidental.
Prosecutors alleged Kay sold opioids to Skaggs and at least five other professional baseball players from 2017 to 2019. Several players testified during the trial about obtaining illicit oxycodone pills from Kay.
The Skaggs family filed their lawsuit in June 2021, alleging the Angels knew, or should have known, that Kay was supplying drugs to Skaggs and other players. Testimony established that Kay was also a longtime user of oxycodone and that the Angels knew it.
The Angels responded by saying that a former federal prosecutor the team hired to conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances that led to Skaggs’ death determined no team executives were aware or informed of any employee providing opioids to any player.
“The lawsuits are entirely without merit and the allegations are baseless and irresponsible,” the Angels said in a statement shortly after the lawsuit was filed. “The Angels organization strongly disagrees with the claims made by the Skaggs family and we will vigorously defend these lawsuits in court.”
The team has not budged from that position even after years of discovery that included more than 50 depositions, a pretrial ruling by the judge that Kay’s conviction cannot be questioned during the civil trial and Judge H. Shaina Colover denying the Angels’ motion for summary judgment by saying, “There is evidence that … Angels baseball had knowledge that Kay was distributing drugs to players and failed to take measures to get him to stop.”
The settlement conference held between lawyers for the Angels and the plaintiffs — which include Skaggs’ widow Carli, mother Debra Hetman and father Darrell Skaggs — merely underscored that the two sides see the case very differently, according to people close to the negotiations not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
Settlement conferences are confidential and the California Evidence Code protects statements and conduct during conferences from being used to prove liability. However, legal experts said it is clear the two sides remain far apart in assessing the value of the case.
“They definitely could have been talking settlement all along,” said Edson K. McClellan, an Irvine lawyer who specializes in high-stakes civil and employment litigation. “I would be surprised if they haven’t engaged in some settlement negotiations.”
Damages sought by the Skaggs family include his projected future earnings and compensation for the pain and anguish the family suffered.
Lawyers for the Skaggs family originally said they were seeking $210 million, although that number has risen during four years of pretrial litigation. A claim by Angels lawyer Todd Theodora in a hearing this summer that the plaintiffs were asking for $1 billion was shot down last week by a person in the Skaggs camp who said “we are not asking anywhere remotely close to that. My god, the whole world would turn upside down.”
Skaggs had unquestionable earning potential. The left-handed former first-round draft pick was only 27 and an established member of the Angels starting rotation when he died. He was making $3.7 million in 2019 and likely would have made at least $5 million in his final year of arbitration before becoming a free agent after the 2020 season.
Although Skaggs posted average statistics — his earned-run average was over 4.00 in each of his seven seasons and his career won-loss record was 28-38 — free-agent contracts for starters under 30 range from three to six years for $15,000 to $25,000 a year. And he could have merited another contract in his mid-30s.
Assuming he remained healthy — Skaggs missed the 2015 season because of Tommy John surgery and had other injuries during his career — experts said a reasonable prediction of future earnings could exceed $100 million. However, his established history of drug use could dampen the projections.
“Speculative projections, making the assumption that he played another 10 years, push an award into nine figures, but honestly, looking at the level of drug abuse, jurors could have doubts,” said Lauren Johnson-Norris, an Orange County-based defense lawyer.
Pain, suffering and mental anguish damages could add to an award either by jury verdict or settlement. Legal experts expect Skaggs’ lawyers — who include nationally renowned Rusty Hardin and Shawn Holley — to point out that losing a husband or a son that your life centered around is worth an award.
Opening statements this week should illustrate why the two sides aren’t close to a settlement.
Skaggs’ lawyers will say the Angels are responsible for his death because they knew Kay was a habitual drug user that procured opioids for players, pointing to evidence that Angels team physician Craig Milhouse prescribed Kay with hydrocodone 15 times from 2009 to 2012.
Also likely to be mentioned will be Angels star Mike Trout who, according to the deposition of former Angels clubhouse attendant Kris Constanti, offered to pay for Kay’s drug rehabilitation in 2018.
The Angels will counter by telling the jury that prosecutors in Kay’s criminal trial concluded he was not acting as an employee when he gave Skaggs the fentanyl-laced oxycodone. Kay was charged and convicted, not the team.
Skaggs and Kay, the Angels will contend, were two men engaging in criminal misconduct on their own time and they concealed it from the team. The Angels lawyers will tell the jury that taking opioids prescribed by a physician during recovery from surgery is vastly different than Skaggs chopping up and snorting counterfeit pills that were not prescribed for him.
Witness testimony will begin after the opening statements, and current and former Angels executives Tim Mead, Tom Taylor and John Carpino are expected to be the first called.
And as the lawyers make their best arguments and witnesses provide testimony in a trial expected to take more than two months, both sides will be silently evaluating whether pursuing a settlement is in their best interest.
An agreement could be reached at any time, abruptly ending court proceedings.
“Sometimes what triggers a settlement is a court ruling or a witness performing well or poorly,” McClellan said. “As the trial unfolds and evidence is actually coming in, risk is brought into focus and makes plaintiffs and defendants evaluate their case in a more clear light.”
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Rebecca Ellis with an assist from Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.
Los Angeles County’s Board of Supervisors met for hours in closed session with attorneys Tuesday to ponder a legal quandary about as thorny as they come.
What do you do with a $4-billion sex abuse settlement when some plaintiffs say they were paid to sue?
On one hand, the supervisors emphasized, they want victims to get the compensation they’re owed for abuse they suffered at the hands of county employees. That’s why they green-lighted the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history this April.
But the allegations of paid plaintiffs, surfaced by The Times last week, have also raised concerns about potential misconduct. The supervisors stated the obvious Tuesday: They do not want taxpayer money set aside for victims going to people who were never in county facilities.
“The entire process angers and sickens me,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who first called for the investigation into the payout, at the meeting Tuesday. “We must ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.”
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A Times investigation last week found seven people who said they were paid by recruiters to sue L.A. County for sex abuse. Two of them said they were explicitly told to fabricate claims. All the people who said they were paid had lawsuits filed by Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA, which has about 2,700 clients in the settlement.
DTLA has denied paying anyone to file a lawsuit and said no representative of the firm had been authorized to make payments. The Times could not reach any of the representatives who allegedly made the payments for comment.
“We have always worked hard to present only meritorious claims and have systems in place to help weed out false or exaggerated allegations,” the firm said in a statement.
The allegations dropped a bomb on the nearly finalized legal settlement, leaving county attorneys and plaintiffs lawyers scrambling to figure out the best path forward.
Some have called for the county to get out of the settlement half a year after announcing it. Technically, it can. The settlement agreement, reviewed by The Times, has a clause that allows the county to pull out unless all but 120 of the plaintiffs agree to the terms — a number attorneys could almost certainly surpass with more than 11,000 plaintiffs.
But the county does not appear to be relishing the thought of blowing up a settlement that took months of negotiations, countless hours in a courtroom and one can only guess how much in billable attorney hours. Many of these cases, attorneys for the county warn, could cost tens of millions in a trial. Clearing them all at once for $4 billion could, believe it or not, end up sounding like a bargain.
No decision was made Tuesday after hours in closed session. The only news out of it was the announcement that Fesia Davenport, the chief executive, would be going on medical leave for the next few months. She will be temporarily replaced by Joe Nicchitta, the office’s second-in-command.
Davenport emphasized the reasons for her absence were personal and had nothing to do with the settlement after rumors immediately swirled connecting the two.
“I am deeply disappointed that I have to address baseless allegations that my leave is somehow related to the County’s AB 218 settlement — which it is not,” she said in a statement. “I am on medical leave and expect to return to work in early 2026.”
Next Tuesday, the supervisors plan to meet again in closed session to grapple with the settlement, according to the board agenda.
In the aftermath of the investigation, some county watchdogs have called for the government to better screen the claims it’s poised to pay out.
“There was a lack of the basics,” said Eric Preven, a local government observer, who said he’s worried about the effect of unvetted lawsuits on the government. “What have we done?”
“We’re glad the supervisors are finally doing their jobs, but what took them so long?” said the Daily News editorial board.
County counsel says they’re working on it. They’ve demanded “evidentiary statements” for each victim and search for whatever documentation exists, the office said in a statement.
“But the simple truth is this: Los Angeles County is facing more than 11,000 claims, most of which are decades old, where evidence is scarce or nonexistent,” the statement read. “Survivors and taxpayers deserve a process with integrity, not one that rewards coercion, shortcuts, or abuse of the system.”
Some victims say they’re concerned the allegations of paid plaintiffs will taint the settlement and delay justice for legitimate survivors.
Tanina Evans, 47, said she spent her childhood bouncing around county-run juvenile halls and group homes. She sued the county after she said she was sexually abused multiple times, including once at Eastlake Juvenile Hall, where she says she was forced to give a staff member oral sex in the shower. When she refused, she said, the staff member had the teenagers she was incarcerated with beat her up.
She said she worries experiences like hers will now be looked at with new skepticism.
“People are so quick to justify not penalizing anyone. Are they looking for a loophole?” Evans said. “And it’s like, no, you guys know it’s real.”
State of play
— PALISADES ARREST AND FALLOUT: Federal prosecutors filed charges Wednesday in the Palisades fire, accusing Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, of starting the initial fire on New Year’s Day that rekindled to become the devastating blaze days later. This latest revelation is fueling debate over whether the city of L.A. or the state of California can be found civilly liable for its role in the fire, our colleague Jenny Jarvie reports.
—NEW FINDINGS: With the federal investigation tied up, Mayor Karen Bass’ office released a long-awaited after-action report finding that firefighters were hampered by an ineffective process for recalling them back to work, as well as poor communication, inexperienced leadership and a lack of resources.
—2022 NEVER ENDS, SCREENTIME EDITION: Speaking at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference Wednesday, Bass characterized her former mayoral opponent and frequent critic Rick Caruso as “sad and bitter.” Earlier in the day, Caruso had put out a statement in response to the charges filed against Rinderknecht that called the Palisades fire “a failure of government on an epic level, starting with Mayor Bass.” During a separate appearance at the Screentime conference, Caruso shot back at Bass, saying anger was an appropriate response to the contents of the report. Caruso still hasn’t said whether he plans to run for mayor or governor next year, or sit out the 2026 election.
—BUT THEY WEREN’T JUST FIGHTING! A day later, Bass called on the City Council to adopt an ordinance that would help establish a one-time exemption to Measure ULA, the city’s so-called “mansion tax,” for Palisades fire-affected properties, to speed up sales and spur rebuilding and rehabilitation of the area. Bass’ office said her letter to the council followed a meeting with Caruso, who had “proposed ideas to help address this issue.”
—FAREWELL, FORKISH: LAPD public information director Jennifer Forkish resigned Thursday at the request of Chief Jim McDonnell, amid accusations from the region’s top federal prosecutor that her office was leaking information. But Forkish vehemently denied the “baseless allegation” that she had leaked anything.
—GARBAGE MONEY: City Council voted Tuesday to finalize a dramatic fee increase for residential trash collection, after giving the fee hike preliminary approval back in April. This is the first time the fees have been raised in 17 years and the city was heavily subsidizing the program, at the cost of roughly $500,000 a day.
—PAYOUT IN SPOTLIGHT: The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to launch an investigation into possible misconduct by “legal representatives” involved in sex abuse litigation. The county auditor’s office also will set up a hotline dedicated to tips from the public related to the lawsuits.
— MUSICAL CHAIRS: Former FBI agent Erroll Southers plans to step down from the L.A. Police Commission, my colleague Libor Jany reported Friday. Southers has been a member of the panel since 2023, when Bass picked him to serve out the term of a departing commissioner. His appointment to a full five-year term was supposed to come before the City Council a few weeks ago, but instead the council continued the matter — setting off a bizarre bureaucratic chain of events that led to Southers essentially being confirmed by default due to city rules and the council’s inaction (too complicated to fully summarize here, but Libor explained it all in his story at the time).
QUICK HITS
Where is Inside Safe? Bass’ initiative addressed an encampment on Lincoln Boulevard in Westchester, in partnership with Councilmember Traci Park’s office.
On the docket next week: The board will vote on a state of emergency over recent federal immigration actions to provide the supervisors with more power to assist those affected by the flood of deportations. And, over in City Hall, the council’s public safety committee will consider the mayor’s appointment of Jeffrey Skobin to the police commission on Wednesday.
Stay in touch
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
A judge temporarily blocked California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s attempt to take over Los Angeles County’s beleaguered juvenile halls on Friday, finding that despite evidence of a “systemic failure” to improve poor conditions, Bonta had not met the legal grounds necessary to strip away local control.
After years of scandals — including frequent drug overdoses and incidents of staff violence against youths — Bonta filed a motion in July to place the county’s juvenile halls in “receivership,” meaning a court-appointed monitor would manage the facilities, set their budgets and oversee the hiring and firing of staff. An ongoing staffing crisis previously led a state oversight body to deem two of L.A. County’s halls unfit to house children.
L.A. County entered into a settlement with the California Department of Justice in 2021 to mandate improvements, but oversight bodies and a Times investigation earlier this year found the Probation Department was falling far short of fixing many issues, as required by the agreement.
On Friday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter A. Hernandez chastised Bonta for failing to clearly lay out tasks for the Probation Department to abide by in the 2021 settlement. Hernandez said the attorney general’s office’s filings failed to show that a state takeover would lead to “a transformation of the juvenile halls.”
The steps the Probation Department needs to take to meet the terms of the settlement have been articulated in court filings and reports published by the L.A. County Office of the Inspector General for several years. Hernandez was only assigned to oversee the settlement in recent months and spent much of Friday’s hearing complaining about a lack of “clarity” in the case.
Hernandez wrote that Bonta’s motion had set off alarm bells about the Probation Department’s management of the halls.
“Going forward, the court expects all parties to have an ‘all-hands’ mentality,” the judge wrote in a tentative ruling earlier this week, which he adopted Friday morning.
Hernandez said he would not rule out the possibility of a receivership in the future, but wanted more direct testimony from parties, including Probation Department Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa and the court-appointed monitor over the settlement, Michael Dempsey. A hearing was set for Oct. 24.
The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The Department remains fully committed to making the necessary changes to bring our juvenile institutions to where they need to be,” Vicky Waters, the Probation Department’s chief spokesperson, said in a statement. “However, to achieve that goal, we must have both the authority and support to remove barriers that hinder progress rather than perpetuate no-win situations.”
The California attorney general’s office began investigating L.A. County’s juvenile halls in 2018 and found probation officers were using pepper spray excessively, failing to provide proper educational and therapeutic programming and detaining youths in solitary confinement for far too long.
Bonta said in July that the county has failed to improve “75%” of what they were mandated to change in the 2021 settlement.
A 2022 Times investigation revealed a massive staffing shortage was leading to significant injuries for both youths and probation officers. By May of 2023, the California Board of State and Community Corrections ordered Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar shuttered due to unsafe conditions. That same month, an 18-year-old died of an overdose while in custody.
The county soon reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, but the facility quickly became the site of a riot, an escape attempt and more drug overdoses. Last year, the California attorney general’s office won indictments against 30 officers who either orchestrated or allowed youths to engage in “gladiator fights.” That investigation was sparked by video of officers allowing eight youths to pummel another teen inside Los Padrinos, which has also been deemed unfit to house youths by a state commission.
In court Friday, Laura Fair, an attorney from the attorney general’s office, said that while she understood Hernandez’s position, she expressed concern that teens are still in danger while in the Probation Department’s custody.
“The youth in the halls continue to be in grave danger and continue to suffer irreparable harm every day,” she said.
She declined to comment further outside the courtroom. Waters, the Probation Department’s spokesperson, said she was unaware of the situation Fair was describing but would look into it.
Despite the litany of fiascoes over the last few years, probation leaders still argued in court filings that Bonta had gone too far.
“The County remains open to exploring any path that will lead to better outcomes. But it strongly opposes the DOJ’s ill-conceived proposal, which will only harm the youth in the County’s care by sowing chaos and inconsistency,” county lawyers wrote in an opposition motion submitted last month. “The DOJ’s request is almost literally without precedent. No state judge in California history has ever placed a correctional institution into receivership.”
Under the leadership of Viera Rosa, who took office in 2023, the Probation Department has made improvements to its efforts to keep drugs out of the hall, rectify staffing issues and hold its own officers accountable for misconduct, the county argued.
The department has placed “airport-grade” body scanners and drug-sniffing dogs at the entrances to both Nidorf and Los Padrinos in order to stymie the influx of narcotics into the halls, according to Robert Dugdale, an attorney representing the county.
Dugdale also touted the department’s hiring of Robert Arcos, a former high-ranking member of the Los Angeles Police Department and L.A. County district attorney’s office, to oversee security in the facilities.
The motion claimed it was the Probation Department that first uncovered the evidence that led to the gladiator fight prosecutions. Bonta said in March that his office launched its investigation after it reviewed leaked footage of one of the incidents.
