The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is reviewing cases against two Probation Department employees accused of sexually abusing minors in their custody, the first sign of possible criminal ramifications for current and recently employed staff named in the deluge of sex abuse lawsuits against the county.
On Dec. 21, the Probation Department presented the district attorney’s office with cases against two staff members — Thomas Jackson and Altovise Abner — to consider for prosecution, according to a spokesperson for the office.
Both Jackson and Abner had previously been placed on leave, along with 21 other staff members, while the Probation Department and an outside law firm investigated allegations of sexual misconduct. Jackson resigned in September after 33 years with the department.
His resignation came after at least 20 women accused Jackson of sexually abusing them while they were minors confined at a Santa Clarita juvenile camp in the late 1990s through the mid-2000s. In a separate lawsuit, Abner, a supervisor with the department, was accused of groping a 17-year-old at a juvenile camp in Lancaster around 2006.
Tom Yu, who represents Jackson, said he was confident his client would not be charged due to “insufficient evidence.” Abner did not respond to a call or text message, but previously declined to comment on the allegations. The department said it does not comment on personnel matters or pending litigation.
The lawsuits are a small fraction of the hundreds of claims filed against the county alleging unchecked sexual abuse in the agency’s camps and halls. Since the state Legislature passed a law in 2019 providing victims of childhood sexual abuse a new window for filing lawsuits, the county has been sued by about 3,800 plaintiffs — roughly 1,500 of them alleging sexual abuse by Probation Department staff. County officials estimated this spring that it could cost as much as $3 billion to resolve the lawsuits.
Attorney Courtney Thom, whose firm has roughly 150 clients suing the county, said the district attorney’s office’s review of the case against Jackson represented the “first rumblings of accountability” for a man accused by at least 19 of her clients of molesting and raping them while they were under his watch.
The women said Jackson threatened them with solitary confinement and revoked phone privileges if they reported the abuse, according to the lawsuits.
“This is the first I’m hearing that the county is waking up,” said Thom, with Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, a law firm known for handling high-profile sex abuse cases.
But, she said, it’s an awakening long overdue. Many of her clients told her they had reported the sexual abuse as far back as the late 1990s. The complaints all stagnated.
That criminal repercussions might come for some probation staff decades later, she said, could be credited in large part to the change in state law — and the hundreds of men and women it allowed to name their abuser in court filings.
“The delay is unjustified,” Thom said. “Only now by the sheer virtue of the number of people who have been brave enough to come forward publicly is the pressure being placed on law enforcement to investigate.”