L.A. County D.A. claims four in five cases in $4-billion sex abuse payout may be fraudulent
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Los Angeles County’s district attorney says he believes four in five claims in the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S.history may be fake — a claim that dwarfs previous assumptions over the scale of fraud within the $4 billion payout.Dist.
Atty.Nathan Hochman has asked the judge overseeing the bulk of the sex abuse cases to pause payments for six months while he continues his sprawling criminal investigation into the plaintiffs, lawyers, and therapists behind the claims.Distributing the money now, he argues, will hamper his investigation “by complicating witness cooperation [and] obscuring financial trails.” California The State Bar of California charged three attorneys at Downtown LA Law Group, a firm involved in L.A.
County’s $4-billion sex abuse settlement, for allegedly signing up clients in states where they were not licensed to practice.The county agreed in April 2025 to pay $4 billion to settle more than 11,000 claims of sexual abuse arising from county-run juvenile halls, foster homes and a notorious children’s shelter.The claims, many of which dated back decades, came after California changed the statute of limitations to give victims who were sexually abused as children a new window to sue.Seven months after the payout was announced, the DA’s office opened a probe, spurred by claims that some plaintiffs made up stories of abuse and were never in county custody.
Times investigations found nine people who said they were paid small amounts of cash by recruiters to sue the county for sex abuse in juvenile halls.Four of them said they fabricated the claims.Hochman’s pause, if granted, would only apply to the abuse cases stemming from juvenile halls, which make up the bulk of the lawsuits, and not the cases arising from foster care or the children’s shelter.
Lawyers in the case are expected to go in front of Superior Court Judge Lawrence Riff Monday for...