CHICAGO — Another 107 people filed complaints Tuesday against the state for allegedly allowing rampant sexual abuse in Illinois juvenile detention facilities, joining 800 other alleged victims who have filed a slew of lawsuits in the last 14 months.

Charles Graves, one of the alleged victims, said he was 13 when he was assaulted by three security guards in the Illinois juvenile correctional system.

“I thought that the officers in the facility were there to keep me safe and protect us,” Graves said at a news conference held at a Loop law firm Wednesday. “For years, I had nightmares … officers told me no one would believe me because I was an inmate.”

The Tribune doesn’t name victims of sexual assault without their consent but the alleged victims who spoke at the news conference said it was important to share their stories.

Now 39 and living in Kewanee, Graves said he still carries the trauma of the assaults. He doesn’t like to be touched, he said, and struggles to open up to other people. He recently visited his nephew at a juvenile facility and spotted a female guard who had abused him 26 years ago — she still held the position that had enabled her to allegedly abuse him.

“She didn’t remember me, but I remembered her,” Graves said.

In May 2024, 95 people formerly held in Illinois juvenile facilities filed a lawsuit alleging continued abuse by employees at various locations. Another hundred people filed a complaint the following month and nearly 300 joined them in September. The 907 complaints filed in the last 14 months allege abuse from as long ago as 1996 to as recently as 2023.

As the number of alleged victims willing to speak out climbed toward 1,000, their attorneys on Wednesday once again called for Gov. JB Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul to take accountability on the state’s behalf and push for reform in juvenile facilities.

“These were not rare cases,” said Kristen Feden, a lawyer at Anapol Weiss. “This was systemic.”

The complaints have been filed in the Cook County Circuit Court and the Illinois Court of Claims. They allege abuse at various youth centers across the state and the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center in Chicago.

At the time of the alleged assaults, the alleged victims ranged in age from 9 to 17. More than 500 said they had been abused between 2000 and 2009, and 86% are male.

“We were children,” Michael Moss, 31, an alleged victim who lives in Chicago, said at the news conference.

Fifteen complaints filed Tuesday accused current Eldorado Mayor Rocky James of sexual abuse. James worked at the Illinois Youth Center in Harrisburg for 29 years,according to Feden. He was the juvenile justice supervisor for several years as well as the union steward for facility supervisors, according to a 2011 op-ed he wrote in the Harrisburg Register.

At a youth center in Harrisburg, James allegedly sexually assaulted and coerced minors for at least 12 years, Feden said. One of his alleged victims reported that James allegedly handcuffed him to his bed before sexually assaulting him repeatedly.

One described forced oral sex and another accused James of forced masturbation, according to Feden. She also said James promised candy, cigarettes and, in one instance, early release in exchange for silence.

When reached by phone Wednesday, James denied the accusations.

“There’s no truth to it at all,” James said. “Ex-convicts are … just trying to get money. They’re just trying to ruin my life, is all they’re trying to do.”

Attorney Jerry Block of Levy Konigsberg LLP, one of the lawyers representing the alleged victims, said he wasn’t surprised James would deny the accusations. He found James’ use of the term “ex-convicts” very telling.

“It’s that type of attitude that leads to this type of abuse,” Block said. “How about a lesson to Rocky James and the juvenile justice system? Juvenile offenders are not convicts. They’re children that need the rehabilitation support and education of the juvenile system.”

Block also said there is “no amount of money that can fully make these survivors whole,” but that financial compensation is the only thing the civil justice system has to offer. If the state has to pay out a lot of money to survivors, Block said, officials will be forced to pay attention to their stories.

Kate-Lynn, who gave only her first name, said guards at a youth center in Warrenville abused her when she lived there between ages 14 and 15. She spent a year in solitary confinement, deprived of education and only allowed out of her cell for minutes a day, she said Wednesday.

Through tears, Kate-Lynn recalled how at least five staff members came to her cell and stripped off all her clothes. A 300-pound man sat on top of her naked body and assaulted her, she said.

“I was left bruised, naked, handcuffed, shackled and unable to move,” Kate-Lynn, 26, said. She now lives in Topeka and struggles with PTSD and an anxiety disorder from her time in juvenile detention.

On June 9, the attorney general’s office filed a motion to dismiss 430 cases of alleged abuse.

Assistant Attorney General Jacqueline Williams wrote on behalf of the state, arguing that all cases must be dismissed because they were not submitted within two years of the alleged victims turning 18.

Block called the state’s argument an “outrageous legal maneuver.” He and his colleagues said victims of childhood sexual abuse can bring a case against any party, including the state, at any time, regardless of other laws with different requirements, based on state law.

Williams did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Moss stood in front of other alleged victims at Wednesday’s news conference and lifted his face to reporters.

“My purpose today is to remind my fellow survivors that what we have gone through does not define us,” he said.

Moss said he suffers from PTSD and anxiety as a result of abuse in a juvenile facility. He has a hard time discussing his experiences in juvenile detention but believes that he and other victims need to speak up to see change. They were told as children that nobody would listen. Now, Moss is demanding to be heard.

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