Sex-abuse suit against juvenile center settled
Deal made for Ramsey County man who is an ex-resident of S.D. facility
Published: Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities
Author: Mark Brunswick; Staff Writer
Date: April 6, 2000
A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit involving five Minnesota teenagers and a youth from Fargo, N.D., who said they were molested by a former employee of a juvenile- treatment center in Chamberlain, S.D.
Five of the teens settled their cases last week.
Attorneys reached a deal for the last plaintiff Monday night. A federal court trial had been scheduled to start Tuesday.
Terms of the settlement have not been disclosed. All the plaintiffs are former residents of the Chamberlain Academy. Five of the six were sent there by Ramsey County.
In a 1998 federal suit, they accused the center of negligence in hiring, supervising and retaining counselor James Johnson. The youths said he made advances that escalated into sodomy and oral sex. Johnson now works at a meat-processing plant in Iowa.
“It’s a sad case,” said Steven Johnson, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. “When a troubled youth is sent to a facility for treatment to help him. . . one does not expect them to become abused.”
The Chamberlain center is owned by Youth Services International (YSI), a for-profit company that operates 38 facilities nationwide.
It is home to boys and girls between ages 13 and 19, most with long juvenile-corrections histories.
The allegations against James Johnson first surfaced in 1996. He was indicted in July 1997 on two counts of abuse of or cruelty to a minor. In a 1998 plea bargain, he pleaded no contest to one count of simple assault and was fined $700, sentenced to six months in jail with all but 60 days suspended and placed on probation for two years.
Greg McEwen, a St. Paul attorney who also represented the former residents, explained the remaining plaintiffs decision to settle before the trial:
“Number one, the offer was for more money than my client had ever seen in his life. Number two, he would have been very uncomfortable talking about what happened to him to strangers.”
YSI did not acknowledge any wrongdoing. But McEwen said the settlement should send a message.
“I hope that it sends a message to YSI and to others in the privatized corrections industry that they need to take better precautions in who they hire and how they train them,” McEwen said.
Representatives for the company could not be reached.
Copyright 2000 - Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities