MISSOURI YOUTH RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT AND JUVENILE DETENTION CENTER SEXUAL ABUSE LAWSUITS

Fighting for Survivors Sexually Abused in MO Youth Residential Treatment and Juvenile Detention Centers

Missouri youth residential treatment and juvenile detention centers allegedly failed to protect youth from sexual abuse by staff across multiple facilities statewide. 

Levy Konigsberg is investigating claims that children in Missouri youth facilities were sexually abused while in custody or residential care. 

Missouri’s youth residential treatment and juvenile detention centers, operated by both the state’s Department of Youth Services and private companies, have faced years of scrutiny over failures to protect youth from sexual abuse. Multiple facilities across the state have been linked to alleged incidents of staff-on-resident sexual abuse, resident-on-resident assault, chronic understaffing, and supervisory failures that allegedly enabled abusers to victimize youth and keep survivors silent. In June 2024, a U.S. Senate Finance Committee report detailed systemic abuse at residential treatment facilities operated by major healthcare companies, including those operating in Missouri.

If you or a loved one was harmed, contact us today.

History of Sexual Abuse in Missouri Youth Residential Treatment and Juvenile Detention Centers

Missouri’s history of sexual abuse in youth residential treatment and juvenile detention centers has been documented by sweeping investigations, civil lawsuits, and high-profile allegations.

These records have revealed alarming conditions within many of the youth residential treatment and juvenile detention centers operated by the Missouri Department of Youth Services (DYS) or by private companies, including complaints and cases of sexual abuse that date back decades.

They also show how youth residential treatment and juvenile detention center operators failed to uphold obligations for protecting youth in their charge, often due to supervisory failures, negligent hiring and retention practices, insufficient staffing, and inexcusable failures to properly investigate complaints. These failures led to toxic staff cultures that enabled abusers to victimize youth and keep survivors silent.

In June 2024, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee released a sweeping report detailing abuse at residential treatment facilities operated by major healthcare companies, including Universal Health Services and Acadia Healthcare, both of which operate or operated such facilities in Missouri. The report revealed systemic sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, unsafe conditions, inhumane confinement practices, and neglect throughout these facilities.

Examples of alleged abuse, and of conditions likely to lead to abuse, include the following:

Change Academy at Lake of the Ozarks (CALO) 

• In June 2026, it was reported that fifteen former youth residents had filed lawsuits against Change Academy at Lake of the Ozarks (CALO) in Missouri, alleging physical, emotional, and sexual abuse dating back to 2014.

The lawsuits alleged that staff threw youths to the ground, denied them medical treatment, and withheld food. Staff allegedly knew of physical and sexual assaults but failed to take appropriate action. 

Missouri’s Department of Social Services documented five findings of physical abuse and five findings of sexual abuse involving the facility over a 20-year period.

Camden County sheriff’s records spanning 2014 to 2024 showed more than 400 calls, including reports of runaways, assaults, and at least eight reports of youth-on-youth sexual abuse. Multiple families alleged the facility failed to notify them or properly report the incidents to authorities. Records also showed that in 2021, a student alleged she was sexually assaulted on campus by a male employee.

CBS News reported that at least four former CALO employees were convicted of crimes committed while working at the facility, including sexually assaulting residents and possessing child pornography. 

• In May 2026, an Associated Press investigation revealed that Illinois agencies alone had spent more than $35 million over the past decade sending children to CALO, despite the state never having visited the facility. 

In a May 2024 inspection, Illinois officials were allegedly denied access to staff and records and witnessed an employee training that lacked any clear therapeutic basis.

The investigation also reported that in 2020, a young boy was allegedly racially bullied and sexually assaulted by another resident. In 2022, Missouri’s Department of Social Services ordered CALO to turn over five missing incident files, pointing to its failure to properly report incidents. In 2024, two mothers alleged their underage daughters were sexually assaulted by another resident, and that the facility failed to report the abuse to authorities or notify them.

Lakeland Behavioral Health System

• In May 2025, two lawsuits were filed against Lakeland Behavioral Health and Acadia Healthcare Company which included 31 plaintiffs alleging they suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of employees while they were minor patients at Lakeland Behavioral Health. In one complaint, nearly 20 pages detail past investigations and allegations of sexual abuse, neglect and other issues within the Acadia Healthcare Corporation, which owns Lakelahd Behavioral Health, and at the Lakeland facility in Springfield. Some of the plaintiffs allege abuse by Lessie Butler and Mark McMannamy, who were recently criminally charged for sexually abusing Lakeland patients.

• In March 2024, Lessie Malek Butler, a former Lakeland Behavioral Health employee, was charged with sexually assaulting three teenage patients. Court documents reveal charges of statutory rape, sodomy, and child molestation. The victims, who were patients in 2022 and 2023, alleged Butler touched them inappropriately and attempted or had sexual intercourse with them multiple times. A witness allegedly described Butler’s behavior as “flirtatious” and reported unusual interactions, including spending excessive time in each victim’s room. Butler reportedly admitted to close relationships and private interactions with the victims, including contact after patient discharge.

• In January 2024, Mark McMannamy, a former employee of Lakeland Behavioral Health, was arrested and booked into Greene County jail for sexual abuse. He was charged with two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor for allegedly asking for and receiving nude photos from a 15-year-old patient. McMannamy reportedly offered the girl a vape pen in exchange for the photos. Security footage reportedly showed him and the teen together before she took the photos in a facility bathroom.  According to the victim’s statement to police, McMannamy attempted to persuade her to engage in a sexual encounter with him in a closet, but she refused. McMannamy reportedly admitted knowing her age and that patients at the facility often had past sexual trauma and behavioral issues.

Great Circle (now known as KVC Missouri)

• In May 2026, another lawsuit was filed alleging sexual abuse of a minor at the former Great Circle residential treatment center in Webster Groves, Missouri. The lawsuit alleged the facility allowed a culture of sexual abuse.

• In February 2025, a woman filed a lawsuit alleging she was sexually abused by male staff members while living at the Great Circle facility located in Webster Groves as a youth. The lawsuit alleges the abusers’ acts included assault, battery, child molestation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and that Great Circle knowingly was negligent in preventing the abuse and failing to stop it.

• In December 2022, Tamika Marie Rodriguez, a Great Circle employee, was charged with having sexual contact with a Great Circle student in Phelps County. According to court records, Rodriguez forced a hug on the victim, inserted her hand into the victim’s pants and grabbed the victim’s genital area in a cottage doorway on a Great Circle campus in St. James. The victim reported the assault to a detective in mid-October, leading to Rodriguez’s surrender. Rodriguez was charged with one count of sexual contact with a student.

• In March 2021, former Great Circle employees Andrew Wright, Dwayne Jennings, Amara Jorden, and Wayne Roberts were charged for allegedly physically abusing youth residents with autism at the Webster Groves facility.  Police reportedly stated that two of the employees were seen abusing the children on video.

• In February 2021, Great Circle closed its Webster Groves facility after an FBI raid and the arrest of three employees for suspected child abuse. The organization did not provide a specific reason for the shutdown. 

• In 2019, Great Circle CEO Vincent D. Hillyer was charged with more than a dozen felonies related to endangering the welfare of a child and abuse of a health care recipient. Several children reportedly went without medical care after severe injuries because Hillyer repeatedly instructed staff members not to call 911, according to court documents.  Hillyer was later acquitted of the felony charges, but found guilty of misdemeanor assault.

• In May 2017, former Great Circle staff member Joshua Adam Reid was charged with allegedly sexually abusing a 16-year-old female resident of the Great Circle – Tom Butterfield campus.

St. Louis County Juvenile Detention Center

• In October 2023, District 6 Councilman Ernie Trakas implored the Missouri Attorney General to investigate the St. Louis County Juvenile Detention Center, which is operated by the state’s DYS, after receiving numerous complaints of abuse, violence, and dangerous conditions within the facility. In his letter, Trakas called attention to complaints of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse and unsanitary conditions caused by youth being restricted to their rooms for long periods without access to bathrooms. He also noted how the management created a toxic work environment that led to inadequate staffing and unacceptable supervisory failures. He requested that the AG’s office dig further into the scope of misconduct among the facility’s operators and staff.

• In September 2023, an investigation into staffing issues and misconduct at the St. Louis County Juvenile Detention Center planned by the St. Louis County Council was temporarily delayed over confidentiality concerns involving the records of youth inmates. The investigation was intended to focus on the growing number of complaints from youth and families regarding a lack of staffing at the facility, which has contributed to problems involving health and safety violations, restricted visitation, and concerns over abuse and the handling of complaints.

Hogan Street Regional Youth Center

• In June 2023, an investigation into Missouri DYS staffing shortages published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch detailed how a lack of staff and high turnover rates of upper management during the pandemic created a host of problems at the Hogan Street Regional Youth Center in Old North St. Louis, one of the state’s three high-security youth detention facilities. This includes repeated incidents of abuse, a steady flow of tablets, gaming systems, cellphones, vapes, and other contraband brought in by staff, numerous escapes (including 8 successful and attempted escapes between January 2020 and November 2022), and the death of a teen inmate with opioids in his system who died after falling out a third-story window. As one former Hogan Street youth specialist interviewed by the Post-Dispatch described, Hogan Street was a “failure.”

• In January 2010, Hogan Street was listed in the DOJ’s Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities report as one of the country’s worst facilities. The DOJ report found that 4 of the 32 inmates (a rate higher than the national average) housed at Hogan Street at the time of the survey reported being sexually victimized while in custody, mostly involving staff members. 

Watkins Mill Park Camp

• In January 2010, a DOJ report found that over 3% of youth inmates housed at the Watkins Mill Park Camp in Lawson, Missouri reported that they were victims of nonconsensual sex abuse, including those committed by staff. The DOJ report is one of the leading resources for gauging inmate-reported rates of sexual misconduct committed by both youth and staff within U.S. juvenile detention facilities. However, it recognizes that sexual victimization is often underreported, especially in facilities where survivors fear retaliation from abusers in positions of authority.

Hillsboro Treatment Center

• In June 2023, a journalistic investigation conducted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch chronicled how long-standing staffing shortages continued to plague the Hillsboro Treatment Center in Jefferson County, which opened in 1999. According to a former youth specialist at the treatment center, the severe staffing shortage and constant churn of counselors resulted in rampant violence, abuse, and riots, and contributed to a toxic staff culture that made youth specialists less empathetic and more prone to misconduct.

CenterPointe Hospital

• In March 2025, a lawsuit was filed alleging that a patient at CenterPointe Hospital in Columbia was sexually assaulted by another patient in 2024. The plaintiff claimed that CenterPointe and its parent company, Acadia Healthcare, were negligent and failed to protect her from being sexually assaulted while in their care. According to the lawsuit, the assaulting patient had prior sexual misconduct issues before assaulting the plaintiff.

We’re Investigating Sex Abuse Claims Involving All Missouri Youth Residential Treatment And Juvenile Detention Centers

Levy Konigsberg is known nationally for representing survivors of childhood sexual abuse in the fight for justice and has extensive experience handling claims against city, county, and state-operated jails, youth residential treatment, and juvenile detention centers across the country.

Now, we’re helping survivors from all current and former youth residential treatment and juvenile detention centers, where staff-on-resident sexual abuse may have occurred. Some of these facilities include:

• Babler Lodge in Wildwood (closed)
• Booneville Training School (closed)
• CenterPointe Hospital
• Change Academy at Lake of the Ozarks (CALO)
• Chillicothe Training School (closed)
• Great Circle
• Heartland Behavioral Health Services
• Hillsboro Treatment Center in Jefferson County
• Hogan Street Regional Youth Center
• Lakeland Behavioral Health System
• McCallum Place Eating Disorder Center
• Montgomery City Youth Center (closed)
• Perimeter Behavioral of Missouri (formerly Piney Ridge Center)
• Riverbend Treatment Center in St. Joseph
• Southeast Behavioral Hospital
• Spanish Lake Cottage and Discovery Hall (closed)
• St. Louis County Juvenile Detention Center
• W.E. Sears Youth Center in Poplar Bluff
• Watkins Mill Park Camp in Lawson

If you were sexually abused at these or any other youth residential treatment and juvenile detention center operating in Missouri, you may have grounds to pursue civil legal action and financial recovery of your damages. Our team at Levy Konigsberg can review the merits of your potential claim during a free and confidential consultation.

Do I Have a Case?

You may have grounds to file a civil legal action if:

• You were sexually abused by a guard, counselor, nurse, or other youth residential treatment or juvenile detention center staff member.
• The abuse occurred at any youth residential treatment or juvenile detention facility.

Levy Konigsberg represents survivors in civil lawsuits that aim to hold youth residential treatment facilities,  juvenile detention centers, private healthcare companies, and other facility operators accountable for their failures to stop abusive staff members and protect young residents.

As civil claims, these cases are separate from any criminal proceedings that may arise from abuse and focus instead on holding institutions liable for damages. This means you may still have a claim even if:

• Your abuser is no longer alive.
• Your abuser was never charged with or convicted of a crime.

Recoverable Damages in Sexual Abuse Claims

In addition to providing accountability and a sense of justice, civil sex abuse lawsuits allow survivors to recover financial compensation for their damages, which may include:

• Past medical and mental health expenses
• Future mental health expenses, including therapy, medications, etc.
• Pain and suffering
• Emotional anguish and psychological harm
• Lost income
• Other economic and non-economic damages

Missouri Sexual Abuse Attorneys

In Missouri, survivors of childhood sexual abuse have a limited amount of time to pursue civil lawsuits and damages. This statute of limitations varies depending on whether lawsuits are brought against abusers or institutions.

The statute of limitations for claims brought against abusers is:

• Within 10 years from the date a survivor turns 21; or
• Within three years from the date a survivor discovers injuries caused by their childhood sexual abuse (i.e. depression, addiction, incarceration, etc.).

Survivors have even less time to file claims against institutions that failed to protect them from abuse. Filing claims against responsible entities is nearly always preferable because institutional defendants have the financial means and insurance to fairly compensate victims.

In claims brought against entities, survivors must bring their suits:

• Before the age of 26; or
• Within three years from the date they discover the connection between their abuse and resulting damages.

However, as in other states, Missouri has seen growing momentum to change the statute of limitations in civil sexual abuse cases. That’s because research resoundingly agrees that survivors of sexual abuse often take decades to process their abuse and its impact on their lives. According to Child USA, a nonprofit think tank, the average age that victims report childhood sexual abuse is 52.

Recognizing the challenges survivors face in processing abuse, and how short statutes of limitations function as a barrier to justice more often than not, Missouri lawmakers have proposed a measure to give survivors greater opportunities to seek justice.

If passed, the pending law would:

• Extend the civil statute of limitations for child victims to age 55.
• Create a temporary two-year window for child sexual abuse survivors to file claims over abuse that occurred at any time in the past.

Levy Konigsberg is actively investigating allegations of sexual abuse at Missouri youth residential treatment facilities and juvenile detention centers.

We are committed to protecting the most vulnerable members of our society and seeking justice for survivors of sexual abuse in juvenile detention centers and youth residential treatment facilities. Our experienced team is dedicated to providing legal representation and support to survivors, and we are actively investigating allegations of abuse. We are working tirelessly to ensure that survivors have access to justice and that future generations of young people are safe from harm within these institutions.