Lawsuit: New Jersey Department of Children and Families

“Six years ago, New Jersey legislators expanded the statute of limitations for survivors of sexual assault, responding to a wave of victims looking for justice years or even decades after abuse at the hands of predatory clergy, Boy Scout leaders, and others entrusted to care for children.

But the state has found itself increasingly held to account for sexual abuse people have suffered in the government’s custody, from foster care to state-run homes.

Officials paid more than $23 million to settle over a dozen of these complaints last year. They were among 332 payouts, totaling almost $178 million, that the state made in 2024 to resolve legal claims involving state employees, agencies, and property, according to records the New Jersey Monitor obtained under the Open Public Records Act.

Two of the largest payments in 2024 — $12 million and $6.8 million — went to women for sexual abuse they endured in foster placements, one dating back to 1987 and the other to 1963. The women said they reported the abuse while still in the care of their molesters, but child welfare workers did little to investigate and just moved them to other foster homes where they encountered new abusers.

Spokespeople from the state Department of Children and Families did not respond to a request for comment.

Several men received settlements for sexual abuse they endured while in state-run homes decades ago.

One said four male employees and two male residents at the New Lisbon Developmental Center, a state-run home in Burlington County for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, sexually assaulted him starting in 1950, when he was 8 years old, until he aged out of the system at 18. He received a $3.5 million payout. Another man who alleged he was abused at New Lisbon, where he was placed in 1987 at age 8, received $99,000 to settle his lawsuit.

Abuse also occurred at the now-shuttered Arthur Brisbane Child Treatment Center in Monmouth County, according to a man who said he was 13 in 1983 when an employee there began molesting him. That employee, Thomas Grisard, was later convicted, and the state paid the victim $750,000 last year to resolve his lawsuit.”

Lawsuits cost New Jersey $178M in 2024, as abuse claims rise
[New Jersey Monitor 06/05/25 by DANA DIFILIPPO]

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