Residential Treatment Facility Settles Violent Child-On-Child Rape Claim for $4 Million
As a resident of Tampa Bay Academy (the Academy), a young boy (“TB”) was repeatedly and violently raped, sodomized and sexually abused by other residents who were minors with known histories of sexual and physical aggression, especially against younger, more vulnerable children. TB was a small child who was developmentally disabled, deaf and had an IQ below 60. Academy officials knew that TB and vulnerable children like him were being left alone with dangerous sexual predators; some were even caught in the act of rape.
Despite this knowledge, the Academy failed to report or document any such incidents of sexual abuse. Florida officials learned of the abuse and the Department of Children and Families put Academy on official notice of abuse reports and insufficient responses, yet nothing changed.
Child sex abuse lawyers for TB sued the Academy for failing to protect him and failing to perform its duty under state statutes to ensure his dignity and failure to ensure that the humane care of residents of the Academy was of paramount importance and their highest priority.
The assaults resulted in TB needing numerous acute psychiatric hospitalizations due to paranoia, hallucinations and increasing aggressive episodes. His medical needs have also increased significantly, particularly those relating to his C-Tube and other gastrointestinal issues.
Academy officials tried to claim ignorance of systemic abuse, repeated reports by and from state officials, the testimony of another minor child who was raped while there, his treating psychiatrist, and even the admission of the primary aggressor in the assaults. This case was successfully concluded after our investigator obtained the statement of the perpetrator, who explicitly described how he was able to evade staff of the facility who were watching a football playoff game instead of protecting the children. The evidence presented by Howard Talenfeld and his team of child sex abuse lawyers ultimately resulted in the Academy and its insurers to settling the case for $4 million.