Survivors of sex abuse at Illinois juvenile detention facilities hope for justice

CHICAGO (AP) — Michael Moss said he felt shame and guilt for years after he was sexually abused as a teenager by guards at a troubled Chicago juvenile detention center.

Moss, now 30, spoke publicly Tuesday about his traumatic experiences as one of hundreds of survivors who’ve filed lawsuits recounting disturbing allegations of systemic sex abuse in youth detention facilities in Illinois.

“I wouldn’t wish my situation on anybody,” he said during a news conference with about half a dozen other survivors surrounding him. “I hope that justice is granted for the pain and suffering we all went through as kids.”

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they consent to being identified or decide to tell their stories publicly, as Moss and others who've filed lawsuits have. Most plaintiffs in the lawsuits are identified by initials.

Overall, 667 people have alleged they were sexually abused as children at youth facilities in Illinois through lawsuits filed since May. The complaints are part of a wave of similar lawsuits against juvenile detention in states including Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, New Hampshire, California and New York.

The most recent Illinois complaints, filed Monday, detail alleged abuse from 1996 to 2021, including rape, forced oral sex and beatings by corrections officers, nurses, kitchen staff, chaplains and others. The complaints, from the accounts of 272 people, cover state-run youth juvenile detention facilities and a county-run Chicago center.

Moss said he was 17 when he was detained at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center for “a few mistakes.” He said he was soon being physically beaten and sexually abused by staff. According to his lawsuit filed Monday, two guards began to isolate him in a bathroom and his cell and forced him into sex acts on multiple occasions. One guard threatened to send him into solitary confinement if he didn’t comply.

“These abuses are horrific in nature,” said attorney Todd Mathews, whose firm has helped bring the Illinois cases. “This has to stop. It has to stop. It has to be dealt with.”

But prosecuting such cases has been difficult.

Few cases nationwide have gone to trial or resulted in settlements; arrests have been infrequent.

Attorneys said local prosecutors have enough details to start building cases and blasted state leaders in Illinois, which has stood out nationally for the sheer volume of sex abuse cases cases.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, whose office has investigated church sex abuse cases, have declined to comment, citing pending litigation. Officials with the Illinois Department of Corrections and Department of Juvenile Justice, the state agencies named in several complaints, have declined comment as have Cook County officials.

The allegations from all the lawsuits are hauntingly similar.

Many plaintiffs said their abusers threatened them with beatings, transfers to harsher facilities and longer sentences if they reported the abuse. Others were given rewards like cigarettes and food if they kept quiet. Most abusers are identified only as the survivors remembered them, including by physical descriptions, first names or nicknames.

Moss hopes to learn more through the lawsuit, including the full names of the guards he said abused him. He said even with the time that’s passed and having a family of his own, it’s still difficult for him to talk about it.

“We just hope that it doesn’t keep going on,” he said.

Attorney Todd Mathews speaks during a press conference regarding a lawsuit alleging that more than 200 men and women were sexually abused as children while in custody at juvenile detention centers in Illinois, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

Attorney Jerome Block speaks during a press conference regarding a lawsuit alleging that more than 200 men and women were sexually abused as children while in custody at juvenile detention centers in Illinois, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

Attorney Todd Mathews speaks during a press conference regarding a lawsuit alleging that more than 200 men and women were sexually abused as children while in custody at juvenile detention centers in Illinois, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

Attorney Jerome Block speaks during a press conference regarding a lawsuit alleging that more than 200 men and women were sexually abused as children while in custody at juvenile detention centers in Illinois, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

Michael Moss, 37, a victim, speaks during a press conference regarding a lawsuit alleging that more than 200 men and women were sexually abused as children while in custody at juvenile detention centers in Illinois, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks edged further into record heights on Wall Street after shaking off a bumpy start to the day. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.2%, adding to its own record. The Nasdaq composite gained 0.6%. Treasury yields sank in the bond market following an update on U.S. consumer confidence that was surprisingly weak. Prices for oil, copper and other commodities rallied following a slew of moves by China’s central bank to prop up the world’s second-largest economy. Chinese stocks closed sharply higher.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting around their records Tuesday after Chinese stocks soared following a slew of moves by the Chinese central bank to prop up the world’s second-largest economy.

The S&P 500 was 0.1% higher in late trading and on track to set an all-time high for the 41st time this year. The movements were tentative, and the index wavered up and down following a surprisingly weak report released in the morning on confidence among U.S. consumers.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was edging down by 6 points, or less than 0.1%, from its own record set the day before. The Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher, with an hour remaining in trading.

Financial markets have been mostly ebullient after the Federal Reserve made a drastic turn last week in how it sets interest rates. It’s now lowering rates to make things easier for the U.S. economy after keeping them high for years in hopes of extinguishing high inflation.

One of the risks still hanging over the market is the struggling Chinese economy and how much its flagging growth may affect the rest of the world. After earlier delivering some modest and piecemeal moves, the chief of China’s central bank on Tuesday announced a broad set of changes to bolster its economy, including a reduction in the amount of reserves banks are required to keep.

Analysts called the coordinated moves encouraging, and they helped stocks soar in China. Indexes jumped 4.2% in Shanghai and 4.1% in Hong Kong. But questions still remain about how much they will boost the economy, which has been struggling since Chinese authorities cracked down on excessive borrowing by property developers.

Prices climbed for crude oil and other commodities that a healthy Chinese economy would devour. Copper was up nearly 4%.

Another risk hanging over Wall Street is the slowing U.S. job market. Now that inflation has eased substantially from its peak two summers ago, the main worry occupying investors is that a slowdown in hiring by U.S. companies may worsen.

Moves to interest rates can take a notoriously long time to make their way fully through the economy, and the Federal Reserve kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high for more than a year before last week. It did cut by an unusually large amount in hopes of providing relief to the job market and economy.

A report released Tuesday showed U.S. households are feeling more worried about the job market. Their overall confidence level sank in September, according to the Conference Board, instead of rising like economists expected. That’s a big deal because spending by U.S. consumers is the heart of the U.S. economy.

AutoZone’s stock fell 0.9% after the seller of auto replacement parts and accessories said a key measure of its sales performance among its U.S. stores barely grew during the latest quarter. It was part of an underwhelming report where its profit and revenue both fell short of analysts’ expectations.

AutoZone said it’s continuing to see customers at its U.S. stores delay purchases of non-essentials.

Another company that depends on the appetite of U.S. shoppers for non-essentials, Thor Industries, rose 6.9% following a mixed profit report. The maker of recreational vehicles reported better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but it also gave a forecast for its upcoming fiscal year that sees the RV market continuing to be challenged.

“The talk of a softer market is beginning to sound like a broken record, but we remained focused on managing through it with increasing efficiency,” CEO Bob Martin said.

One of Wall Street’s bigger winners was Smartsheet, which helps companies manage projects and automate workflows. It rose 6.4% after Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners agreed to buy it in an all-cash deal valued at $8.4 billion.

In the bond market, Treasury yields slipped after the weaker-than-expected report on consumer confidence erased earlier gains. The 10-year yield fell to 3.73%, from 3.75% late Monday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed’s upcoming moves, fell to 3.55% from 3.59% late Monday.

Yields sank as traders upped their forecasts for how much the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by at its next meeting in November. They’re now betting on a 58% probability of another bigger-than-usual cut of half a percentage point. That’s up from a 53% probability the day before, according to data from CME Group.

Wall Street loves lower interest rates because they can give the economy a boost by making it less expensive to borrow money to buy a car, house or things on credit cards. They also tend to give a boost to prices for all kinds of investments.

Nvidia's jump of 4.3% was the strongest force lifting the S&P 500 index Tuesday. The chip company's stock had sunk 27% during the summer on worries that its price had shot too high in the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. But lower rates dampen that criticism by a bit, and Nvidia has been rallying back since early August. .

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia. France’s CAC 40 jumped 1.3%, South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.1% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.6%.

AP Business Writers Elaine Kurtenbach and Matt Ott contributed.

The New York Stock Exchange is shown on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

The flag of Argentina flies on the front of the New York Stock Exchange where Argentine President Javier Milei will ring the opening bell on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

People walk in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

The Tokyo Stock Exchange building is seen Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

The Tokyo Stock Exchange building is seen Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing New York Dow, Japan's Nikkei indexes and U.S. dollar/Japanese yen exchange rate at a securities firm Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks near an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person looks at an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)