BALTIMORE– More than three dozen people allege in two lawsuits filed Tuesday that they were sexually abused as children at a residential program for youth in Maryland that was closed in 2017 after similar allegations.
In the separate lawsuits, attorneys detailed decades of alleged child abuse by staff members at the Good Shepherd Services behavioral health treatment center, which billed itself as a therapeutic, supportive environment for Maryland’s most vulnerable youth.
The program was founded in 1864 by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic religious order focused on helping women and girls. It started in a facility in Baltimore before moving to its most recent campus just outside the city.
Tuesday’s lawsuits add to a growing pile of lawsuits since Maryland lawmakers abolished the statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases last year.
Many of the accusers – almost all of them women – reported receiving injections of sedatives that made it harder for them to resist the abuse. Others said their abusers, including nuns and priests who worked at the center, had bribed them with food and gifts or threatened them with violence and loss of privileges.
The claims were filed against the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services and the Department of Human Services, agencies that contracted with Good Shepherd and referred children there for treatment. The lawsuits also named the Department of Health, which was charged with overseeing residential facilities. The religious order of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd was not a suspect in either lawsuit.
None of the government agencies immediately responded to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Many of the children referred to Good Shepherd were in foster care or involved in the state’s juvenile justice system.
“The state of Maryland sent the most vulnerable children in its care to this facility and then failed to protect them,” said Jerome Block, an attorney representing 13 plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits filed Tuesday.
Good Shepherd was closed in 2017 after government agencies decided to withdraw children from the program, which was cited last year for failing to properly supervise after one patient reported being sexually abused and others showed signs of overdose after being prescribed drugs that had been stolen from a medical cart. , according to The Baltimore Sun.
Since the state law changed in October, a flurry of lawsuits alleging abuse of incarcerated youth has emerged. Lawmakers approved the change with the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal in mind after a scathing investigative report exposed the extent of the problem within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. But in recent months, the state’s juvenile justice system has unexpectedly found itself in the spotlight.
Although attorneys said they plan to file more complaints under the new law, their cases could be delayed by a widely anticipated constitutional challenge currently working its way through the courts.
A Prince George’s County Circuit judge ruled last week that the law was constitutional in response to an objection filed by the Archdiocese of Washington, which includes parts of Maryland, but the decision is expected to be appealed. The underlying case accuses the archdiocese of failing to protect three plaintiffs as children from sexual abuse by clergy.