Colin Prince, an attorney with Connelly Law Offices who is representing the plaintiffs, said that the allegations constitute “the worst thing I’ve seen” in his legal career.
A recently-filed lawsuit claims that at least 15 children incarcerated in a Washington state juvenile detention center were groomed and sexually abused by guards.
According to The Spokesman-Review, the allegations, centering on the Spokane Juvenile Detention Center, span more than three decades, between the 1980s and at least 2010.
“For three decades, Defendant Spokane County employed multiple serial sex predators and granted them nearly unfettered power over children and adolescents helplessly locked in cells at the Juvenile Detention Center,” the lawsuit alleges. “Two guards in particular, William Lamb and Rafael Gray, exploited the power granted to them by Defendant Spokane County to groom and sexually abuse generations of kids – crimes ranging from the 1980s to at least 2010.”
Lamb and Gray, notes the Spokesman, have since died.
Colin Prince, an attorney with Connelly Law Offices who is representing the plaintiffs, said that the allegations constitute “the worst thing I’ve seen” in his legal career.
“For this to go on this long and this consistently is like – this is some of the most egregious sexual abuse,” Prince said.
“William Lamb appears to be, based on the allegations, one of the most prolific sex predators in Washington history,” Prince said.
One of Lamb’s alleged victims was groomed at the detention center before being raped by Lamb at his home. He tried to coerce the girl into having alcohol; when that failed, he sexually assaulted her, later “introducing” her to sex trafficking and sending her on a “decades-long spiral of addiction and anguish.”
Another girl, then aged 16, said that Lamb exposed himself to her and ordered her to touch his genitals. She refused, noting that other people were nearby. In response, Lamb reportedly said, “It doesn’t matter; I run this place.”
Later, Lamb threatened to keep the teenager in her cell all day unless and until she complied.
At some point, Lamb entered the girl’s cell, forced her against a wall, and raped her. He continued to abuse her until she was released from custody.
Other former detainees at Spokane described the conduct of another guard, Rafael Grey, as overtly “flamboyant,” saying that he regularly flirted with teenager girls and engaged in “brazen misconduct.”
Spokane County, the lawsuit says, failed to take “even minimal precautions” when supervising its guards and protecting the well-being of young detainees.
Sources
Lawsuit alleges decades of child sexual abuse at Spokane County Juvenile Detention Center
Survivors of abuse at Washington state juvenile facilities seek justice
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