PORTLAND, Ore. – Three individuals who were formerly detained at the Oregon Youth Authority’s (OYA) MacLaren and Oak Creek Youth Correctional Facilities have come forward to file separate lawsuits against OYA staff members who perpetrated or allowed sexual abuse, harassment, and civil rights violations against these youth while they were in custody at these facilities. The three youth join three others, represented by Portland-based law firm Levi Merrithew Horst (LMH) and Seattle-based firm Schroeter Goldmark & Bender (SGB), who earlier this year brought similar claims against OYA staff for sex abuse and misconduct.

According to the three new civil suits filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, the youth, who ranged in age from 15 to 21 when the abuse occurred, were each groomed and coerced into sexual relations with OYA staff. Some of the defendants named in the complaints, including Travis Craft and Cherie MacDougall, served as “group life coordinators.” Group life coordinators are expected and encouraged to build strong rapport with the youth they supervise, so as to provide a safe, positive, and supportive environment for youth to engage in OYA’s rehabilitation process.

The plaintiffs are proceeding under their initials, including “A.G.,” who was placed at the Oak Creek Youth Correctional Facility when she was 17. According to the suit, when A.G. was 20 years old in 2021, OYA staff member Travis Craft began working on A.G.’s living unit, and immediately began grooming her by engaging her in inappropriate sexual conversations. Over the course of four months, Craft coerced A.G. into a sexual relationship, escalating from kissing to forced sexual contact, which took place repeatedly.

A.G.’s civil case comes on the heels of the State of Oregon-Linn County filing a secret indictment against Craft on July 11, 2024, and Craft’s arrest on September 12, 2024. Craft is facing seven criminal charges for abusing A.G., including felony charges for custodial sexual misconduct in the first degree (State of Oregon v. Travis Kekoa Craft, Case No. 24CR35409).

Craft is the second OYA staff member this year to be criminally charged for sexually abusing youth in the custody of the OYA. Less than a year ago, the Marion County District Attorney’s Office charged Emily Echtenkamp, a former Qualified Mental Health Professional at the OYA, with sexually abusing OYA youth (State of Oregon v. Emily Echtenkamp, Case No. 23CR58946).

Another plaintiff, “D.H.,” was 17 years old when he was placed at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility to serve a sentence that would be determined by his progress in OYA treatment. In 2022, when D.H. was 21 years old, OYA staff member Cherie MacDougall was assigned to D.H.’s living unit as a group life coordinator. According to the suit, over the course of four months, MacDougall groomed D.H. by earning his trust with gifts, including contraband such as marijuana dab pens and cell phones, and then coerced him into sexual acts that took place on at least 20 occasions. MacDougall threatened D.H. with serious consequences if he told anyone about the abuse, risking the timeline of his release date if he spoke up.

A third plaintiff, “O.G.,” was also placed at MacLaren in the Haystack Unit, which is designated for youth with substance abuse issues and where defendant MacDougall served as a group life coordinator. The suit describes how, when O.G. was just 15, MacDougall began grooming him for a sexual relationship by plying him with contraband drugs – knowing that O.G. needed to demonstrate sobriety to earn parole. As O.G. became reliant upon MacDougall for contraband, she began to force herself upon him sexually. Further, because MacDougall continued to supply him with drugs, O.G.’s incarceration at MacLaren was repeatedly extended.

In January 2023, MacDougall was moved from Haystack to a different unit at MacLaren. Once O.G. was no longer subjected to MacDougall’s sexual advances and the substances she was smuggling to him, he made swift and significant progress in his substance abuse treatment. As a result, he was paroled from MacLaren in May 2023.

The three new lawsuits each outline that it was widely known at MacLaren and Oak Creek that multiple staff members groomed and sexually assaulted youth. OYA Director Joseph O’Leary, Oak Creek Superintendent Mike Riggan, MacLaren Superintendent Dan Berger, and Haystack Unit Manager Marcus Williams are named as additional defendants for their collective failure to stop the abuse.

“Given the vulnerability of youth housed at the OYA and the documented history of youth being sexually abused, these supervisors should have recognized staff behavior as grooming. However, they not only failed to do so, but they also turned a blind eye by not investigating reports of abuse, not properly training staff, and not properly implementing policies that would protect youth from sexual abuse by staff,” said Norah Van Dusen, attorney at Levi Merrithew Horst.

Van Dusen went on to say, “Our investigation and filed cases against the OYA have uncovered abuses of power in many forms. It’s our mission to fight for those who have been victimized by a system meant to protect them. We aim to hold the OYA accountable for their failures so that going forward, these youth can focus on rehabilitation without being subject to exploitation and harm.”

Sexual victimization in juvenile detention centers has risen significantly in recent years, according to Special Reports published by the U.S. Department of Justice. Juvenile justice administrators reported 2,467 allegations of sexual victimization in 2018; an 89% increase from the 2013 report. Over half of all allegations reported in juvenile facilities were perpetrated by staff. And in 2020, the National Survey of Youth in Custody found that Oak Creek had sexual abuse rates of more than twice the national average.

“Often, detained youth don’t immediately realize they’ve been exploited and harmed because of the systemic culture at the OYA that allows abuse to thrive,” said SGB attorney Becky Roe. “By filing these cases on behalf of our clients, we aim to protect the rights and dignity of incarcerated youth and prevent further abuse and exploitation by the OYA staff.”

The firms are seeking both witnesses to and survivors of abuse who spent time at the MacLaren, Oak Creek, Rogue Valley, Camp Tillamook, Camp Florence, Camp Riverhead or Eastern Oregon OYA Facilities. If you or someone you know was formerly or is currently an incarcerated youth whose rights may have been violated by OYA staff, please reach out for a confidential consultation, free of charge, by visiting www.oyajustice.com.