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L.A. County is bringing on a retired judge to tackle a $4-billion question: How can officials ensure that real victims are compensated from the biggest sex abuse payout in U.S. history — and not people who made up their claims?

The county has tapped Daniel Buckley, a former presiding judge of the county’s Superior Court, to vet cases brought by Downtown LA Law Group after The Times found nine people represented by the firm who said they were paid to sue the county by recruiters. Four of the plaintiffs said they were told to fabricate the claims.

Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA, has denied paying any of its roughly 2,700 clients, but agreed to cover the cost of Buckley to examine their cases in the $4-billion sex abuse settlement.

In a letter sent to clients Monday, Andrew Morrow, the lead attorney in the firm’s sex abuse cases, noted there are “additional safeguards” and “vetting protocols” underway following recent reports of paid clients, but did not specifically mention the new judge.

“While we categorically deny this ever occurred, we take these matters seriously and welcome the implementation of additional review procedures to ensure false claims do not move forward in the process,” wrote Morrow, the chairman of the firm’s mass torts department.

On Oct. 17, Dawyn Harrison, the top attorney for the county, requested an investigation from the State Bar based on The Times’ reporting, saying she believed some of the settlement would flow to “the pockets of the plaintiffs’ bar” rather than victims.

“The actions described in the article, if true, are despicable and run afoul of ethical duties of attorneys and criminal law in California,” Harrison wrote in a letter to Erika Doherty, the bar’s interim executive director. “I request the State Bar investigate all of the potential fraudulent and illegal activities described in this letter.”

DTLA declined to comment last week. The firm has previously said it works “hard to present only meritorious claims and have systems in place to help weed out false or exaggerated allegations.”

The bulk of the claims will be reviewed by retired Superior Court Judge Louis Meisinger, who will decide awards between $100,000 and $3 million.

The amount will depend on the severity of the abuse, the impact on the victim’s life and the amount of evidence provided, according to the allocation protocol. The money will be paid out over five years unless the victim opts to get a one-time check for $150,000.

If the judges find cases they believe are fraudulent, the county can either resolve them through a $50,000 payment or get them removed from the settlement. The county saves money in that case, but runs the risk of the plaintiff continuing to litigate and landing a larger payout from a jury trial.

It’s unusual — but not unheard of — for a neutral arbiter to be appointed to investigate cases from a specific firm in a massive settlement.

Retired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Barbara Houser, who is overseeing the $2.4-billion trust for victims of the Boy Scouts of Americas sex abuse cases, said last month that she had asked for an “independent third party” to vet the claims brought by Slater Slater Schulman after finding a pattern of “irregularities” and “procedural and factual problems” among its plaintiffs.

Slater Slater Schulman, headquartered in New York City, represents roughly 14,000 victims in the Boy Scouts case. It also represents roughly 3,700 people in the L.A. County settlement — the most of any firm, by far.

On Oct. 14, Lawrence Friedman, a former Department of Justice attorney who headed up the federal watchdog office for the bankruptcy system, spearheaded a blistering motion asking Houser to reduce Slater’s attorneys fees, which he estimated were at least $20 million. Friedman is seeking to push them out of the case, alleging the firm had “run amok” and “dangled the prospect of lottery sized payouts” in front of clients without vetting them.

“The SLATER law firm has little if any quality controls in place to validate the information in the 14,600 claims other than validating that they were real people who had filed the claim,” the motion stated. “…What SLATER has effectively created is simply a ‘Claims Machine’ designed to spit out huge wads of cash for itself!”

Clifford Robert, an outside attorney who is representing Slater Slater Schulman in its issues with the Boy Scouts cases, said the firm’s priority “has been and always will be securing justice on behalf of sexual abuse victims.”

Friedman, who has been outspoken about misconduct by mass tort attorneys in bankruptcy cases, said he now represents dozens of former Slater plaintiffs. The ex-clients alleged the firm waited more than a year before informing them their cases were undergoing additional vetting and their payments would be delayed. The firm told them this September about the outside investigation, which began in June 2024, according to an email attached to the Oct. 14 motion.

“We now agree that there are procedural and factual problems in some of our claim submissions to the Trust,” the three partners of Slater Slater Schulman wrote in a joint email to clients on Sept. 9. “Because of the problematic claims, we have agreed that all of our claim submissions to the Trust be vetted by an independent third party.”

Both judges who will vet the L.A. County sex abuse payouts work for Signature Resolution, a firm that specializes in resolving legal disputes outside the courtroom with a heavyweight roster of former judges and lawyers. Litigation management company BrownGreer will be the settlement administration arm, responsible for making sure the checks go out, liens are settled and the judges have the records they need from the 11,000 plaintiffs.

An additional 414 sex abuse claims that led to a separate $828-million settlement announced Oct. 17 will be reviewed by a different judge with the money distributed over the course of three years. That settlement, which involves claims from three firms that opted to litigate separately from the rest, is expected to receive final approval from the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

The county will give the first tranche of money to the fund administered by BrownGreer in January, though it’s unclear when that money will trickle down to victims. The additional fraud review could slow the process as the judges will need to decide what all 11,000 of the claims are worth before any of the money goes out.

“They should have had their duck in the rows at the beginning,” said Tammy Rogers, 56, who sued over sex abuse at a county-run shelter for children in 2022.

Rogers said she has seen her bank account depleted recently following a shoulder surgery and her daughter’s funeral. She said she’s grown skeptical the settlement money will come her way anytime soon after reading the recent coverage of plaintiffs who say they were paid to sue.

“They should have known people were going to come out of the woodwork and do stuff like this,” she said. “They should have taken this time in the beginning, not in the end.”

Tammy Rogers, one of the plaintiffs who sued L.A. County over alleged abuse at MacLaren Hall, says she’s worried the extra vetting may delay payments to victims.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

The number of claims has fluctuated in recent months as some of the firms have dismissed cases from plaintiffs who died, lost interest in their lawsuit, or stopped responding. Since the Times initial investigation ran on Oct. 2, DTLA has asked for the dismissal of at least 14 plaintiffs, according to a Times analysis of court records.

On Oct. 17, the firm asked a judge to dismiss three people in a 63-plaintiff lawsuit filed April 29 who told The Times they’d been paid to sue the county for sex abuse.

Quantavia Smith, whose case DTLA asked to be dismissed without prejudice, previously told The Times a recruiter paid her to join the litigation, but said she had a legitimate sex abuse claim against the county. She said the recruiter drove her to the office of a downtown law firm and then gave her $200.

The firm also asked to dismiss the cases of Nevada Barker and Austin Beagle with prejudice, meaning the cases can’t be refilled. The Times reported this month that the Texan couple were told to make up allegations of abuse at a county-run juvenile hall and provided a script by someone inside the firm’s downtown office. Both said they left the firm with $100.

The Times could not reach the alleged recruiter for comment.

Austin Beagle and Nevada Barker say they were unwittingly ushered into a fraudulent lawsuit against L.A. County filed by Downtown LA Law Group.

(Joe Garcia/For The Times)

On the morning the story published Oct. 16, Beagle and Barker each received an automated email from Vinesign, a legal e-signature site, telling them Downtown LA Law was requesting their signature on a document.

“I wish to affirm my claim that I was sexually abused in a Los Angeles County juvenile facility, and I was never paid to bring this claim forward,” stated the DTLA declaration, which they were asked to sign under the penalty of perjury.

Both said they did not want to sign as it was not true — and the opposite of what had just been published that morning in The Times. Beagle said the firm called twice that morning to discuss.

“We told them just dismiss it,” said Beagle. “We ain’t talking about it.”

Times assistant data and graphics editor Sean Greene contributed to this report.

It felt like the kind of thing that must happen in Hollywood all the time: a hundred bucks to be a movie extra.

Austin Beagle, 31, and Nevada Barker, 30, said they were trying to sign up for food stamps this spring when someone offered them a background role outside a county social services office in Long Beach. They thought the gig seemed intriguing, albeit a bit unusual.

The offer came not from a casting director, but a man hawking free cellphones. The filming location was, oddly enough, a law firm in downtown Los Angeles.

Like many DTLA clients, Austin Beagle and Nevada Barker signed a retainer agreement that entitles the firm to 45% of their payout.

(Joe Garcia / For The Times)

Maybe this was how actors were recruited here, they figured. The couple had recently moved from the remote ranching town of Stinnett in the Texas panhandle, and the recruiter seemed to appreciate their Southern drawl. They hopped on a bus, excited to make $200 between them.

“They said we’d be extras,” said Beagle, who was unemployed at the time. “But when we got to the office, that’s not what it was at all.”

The couple said they arrived at the lobby of Downtown LA Law Group. A Times investigation published earlier this month found seven plaintiffs represented by the firm who claimed they received cash from recruiters to sue the county over sex abuse, which could violate state law. Two said they had never been abused and were told to manufacture their claims.

Downtown LA Law Group has denied any involvement with the recruiters who allegedly paid plaintiffs. The firm said in a statement it would never “encourage or tolerate anyone lying about being abused” and has been conducting additional screening to remove “false or exaggerated claims” from its caseload.

Four days after The Times’ investigation was published, the firm asked for a lawsuit on behalf of Carlshawn Stovall, one of the men who said he fabricated claims, to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be refiled.

The firm requested a second case spurred by Juan Fajardo, who said he made up a claim using the name of a family member, to be dismissed with prejudice on Sept. 9 after Fajardo says he told lawyers he wanted to drop the lawsuit.

Now, with Beagle and Barker, two more have come forward to allege they were told to invent the stories that led to their lawsuits.

Austin Beagle and Nevada Barker said they’d been in Southern California only a few months when they were flagged down outside a social services office where they were hoping to enroll in food stamps. The couple have since moved back to Stinnett, Texas.

(Joe Garcia / For The Times)

The couple said that when they arrived at DTLA’s offices in April, a man came down to the lobby with a clipboard and gave them a piece of paper to memorize before going upstairs. They assumed this was the role they’d be playing — with room to go off script.

“They told us to say that we were sexually abused and harassed by the guards in … Las P? I can’t think of the institution’s name,” said Beagle, who added he was told to say the incidents occurred around 2005.

“The worse it was the better,” he recalled being told.

On April 29, Downtown LA Law Group filed a lawsuit against the county on behalf of 63 plaintiffs, including Beagle and Barker, who claimed they were abused at Los Padrinos, L.A. County’s juvenile hall in Downey. The couple are now part of the $4-billion settlement.

Allegations of potential fraud and pay-to-sue tactics have rocked both L.A. County government and powerhouse law firms, which are scrambling to figure out how to salvage the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history.

Perhaps no group has been shaken more than sex abuse victims themselves, who fear allegations of false claims could derail what they hoped would be a life-changing settlement.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” said Jimmy Vigil, 45, who sued the county in December 2022 for alleged sexual abuse by a probation officer at a detention camp in Lancaster.

Vigil said he was repeatedly molested as a 14-year-old and forced to masturbate in front of other teens while the guard watched.

“It makes me feel disgusted,” said Vigil, now a mental health case manager in Ventura County. “You have absolutely no clue what I went through. You have no clue how hard I have strived in life to make it to where I am at today.”

Jimmy Vigil, now a mental health case worker in Ventura, said he was repeatedly molested as a teenager and forced to masturbate in front of other teens.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Barker and Beagle said that after memorizing the card with the basics of their story, they were taken upstairs to a room at DTLA’s office where about 20 people were waiting. Everyone seemed confused, they said.

They “were asking us ‘Hey, did y’all promise to get paid? And we said ‘Yeah, somebody told us that we’d get paid $100 if we come in,” Beagle said. “Everybody was just concerned about getting paid whatever they were promised.”

DTLA said in a statement it has “never directed, nor do we have any knowledge that anyone was ever paid, hired, or brought to the DTLA office, or was asked to memorize a script of any kind under the guise of filmmaking,”

“We are not filmmakers,” the firm said. “No one authorized on behalf of the firm has ever promised or implied movie extra work as a means of retaining clients.”

Beagle and Barker said they were called in together to a glass cubicle where a woman spent 15-20 minutes asking them questions about their story of abuse. Barker said she struggled to come up with details because “it was all made-up stuff.”

Beagle said he thought maybe the staffers in the law firm were also acting, pretending not to know this was “a fake thing.”

“Like, they were testing us all out to see if we knew how to act — just play the part,” Beagle said. “Like, this was a trial thing.”

The couple said they were befuddled at the interaction but figured they’d done enough to get their money; the receptionist told them to come back in a few hours to collect.

The firm said, in some circumstances, it provides “interest free loans to clients once they have retained our services.”

Beagle and Barker said they frittered away two hours at Pershing Square a few blocks away until around 4 p.m. It was only when they came back to the firm, they said, that it became clear there was no movie.

A man named Kevin paid them $100 each, and told them they were part of a massive settlement involving juvenile halls they’d never heard about until that afternoon. The man told them they could get $100 for each additional person they referred to go through the same process, Beagle said.

“We walked out thinking I don’t know how legit this is and we might even get f— in trouble for it,” Beagle said.

Like most sexual abuse lawsuits, the suit was filed using only plaintiffs’ initials. The Times reviewed paperwork that DTLA provided to Beagle and Barker, which they signed in order to become clients on April 21 and to opt into the L.A. County settlement on May 29.

Under the settlement, each plaintiff could be eligible for anywhere from $100,000 to $3 million. Retainer agreements for Beagle and Barker reviewed by The Times show DTLA would get 45% of their payout.

Beagle and Barker said they aren’t banking on getting any money from L.A. County. After all, they said, they grew up in Texas, more than a thousand miles away from the abuse-plagued facilities.

“We need it, but it’s not ours. It’s like finding a wallet,” Barker said. “Return it.”

A Times investigation published earlier this month found plaintiffs represented by Downtown LA Law Group who claimed they received cash from recruiters to sue L.A. County over sex abuse. Four now say they were told to make up the claims.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Among some survivors, there is a palpable fear that the fraud allegations will steamroll the settlement, overshadowing the fact that many county-run facilities were home to unchecked abuse and torpedoing their chance of receiving a life-changing sum.

The Times interviewed eight victims for this article represented by Slater Slater Schulman, ACTS LAW Firm, McNicholas & McNicholas, and Becker Law Group. Many said they were aghast at learning the worst years of their life may have become fodder for quick cash.

“It felt like a kick in the gut,” said Trinidad Pena, 52. “For somebody just to lie about it was just sickening.”

On Sept. 18, Pena said, she was eating a pancake breakfast at a homeless services center in Long Beach when she learned she had something in common with a woman sitting on the picnic bench next to her.

Both had filed lawsuits against L.A. County alleging sexual abuse at county-run facilities. Both of them were part of the county’s $4-billion settlement. But she was the only one, she believed, who had actually been abused.

The woman told her she’d been paid $20 to sue by a woman who hung around on the sidewalk outside the community center clutching a clipboard, she said.

The Times could not reach the recruiters allegedly responsible for paying plaintiffs for comment.

Trinidad Pena, who sued in 2022 over sex abuse, said she was jarred to find herself at breakfast with a woman who told her she’d been paid to sue the county.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Pena sued L.A. County in December 2022 over an alleged rape when she was 12 by a staff member at MacLaren Children’s Center, a shuttered youth shelter now infamous for predatory staff. No amount of cash is going to erase the scars from that, she says. But it would help.

Last month, Pena traded in her New Orleans shotgun apartment for the streets of Southern California, where she was raised. The move was, she said, a Hail Mary attempt to get medical treatment through the state’s public benefits for a cyst sprouting behind her right eye that made her vision wobble and her head crackle with pain.

She is currently living on $1,206 a month in and out of her van with a failing shunt in her head, which doctors implanted to treat her cyst. She eats mostly the nonperishable Trader Joe’s snacks she brought from Louisiana.

A six- or seven-figure settlement could help save her life, Pena said.

“I’m going to have myself a hell of a Charlie Sheen party and take a nosedive off a balcony at the Chateau Marmont if I do not get some sort of relief,” said Pena, who says she grew up in foster care near the legendary West Hollywood hotel.

Part of what has made the false claims so infuriating, victims say, is that L.A. County youth detention facilities were indeed home to horrific abuse decades ago.

Kizzie Jones, 47, said she’s on antidepressants as a result of a female probation officer who allegedly molested her twice a week and groomed her with bags of chips and bottles of conditioner.

Robert Williams, 41, says he has no friends — a near-total isolation he said traces back to repeated sexual assaults in the shower he suffered as a teen.

Mario Paz, 39, said a guard molested him under the guise of soothing his genitals with milk after he was pepper sprayed while naked. The abuse, he says, has left him traumatized to the point that he is unable to change his children’s Pampers.

All three of them filed lawsuits against the county alleging sexual abuse by county probation officers.

Mario Paz, 39, said his time at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall left him traumatized and damaged the relationship he has with his own children.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

“For someone to capitalize on something that they never endured or never experienced, I think it’s a travesty,” said Cornelious Thompson, a 51-year-old community health worker, who sued the county in December 2022.

When he was around 13 at Los Padrinos, Thompson says he was put on psychiatric medication that knocked him out. He woke up in his unit sore with his pants hanging by his knees, bleeding. It took him years to tell anyone.

He said he recently lost his job with a contractor for the county’s health department due to budget cuts. The county had to slash spending, in part, to pay for the $4-billion settlement.

It was “bittersweet,” he says, losing his job because the county was finally paying for what he said he endured as a teenager.

Only now, a new fear has crept in as two more people say they made up claims: Will he still be believed?

At its core, a civil suit is about money. Nobody pleads guilty. Nobody goes to prison. Somebody either pays somebody else or doesn’t.

That’s why roughly 95% of civil suits nationwide reach a settlement ahead of or during trial, legal experts say. Pretrial discovery is usually comprehensive and mediation can produce agreements. Trials are costly, and plaintiffs and defendants alike overwhelmingly prefer to eliminate the risk of an all-or-nothing jury verdict by agreeing on a compromise dollar figure.

That’s also why the case brought by the family of deceased Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs against the Angels has surprised some legal experts. A recent one-day settlement conference between lawyers went nowhere, and both sides are focused on a trial, which begins Monday in Orange County Superior Court with opening statements and witness testimony.

Skaggs was found dead in his hotel room in Southlake, Texas, on July 1, 2019, before the Angels were scheduled to start a series against the Texas Rangers. The Tarrant County medical examiner conducted an autopsy and found that in addition to the opioids, Skaggs had a blood-alcohol level of 0.12. The autopsy determined he died from asphyxia after aspirating his own vomit, and that his death was accidental.

Former Angels communications director Eric Kay was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison Tuesday after being convicted of providing the counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl that led to the Skaggs’ overdose.

Prosecutors alleged Kay sold opioids to Skaggs and at least five other professional baseball players from 2017 to 2019. Several players testified during the trial about obtaining illicit oxycodone pills from Kay.

The Skaggs family filed their lawsuit in June 2021, alleging the Angels knew, or should have known, that Kay was supplying drugs to Skaggs and other players. Testimony established that Kay was also a longtime user of oxycodone and that the Angels knew it.

The Angels responded by saying that a former federal prosecutor the team hired to conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances that led to Skaggs’ death determined no team executives were aware or informed of any employee providing opioids to any player.

“The lawsuits are entirely without merit and the allegations are baseless and irresponsible,” the Angels said in a statement shortly after the lawsuit was filed. “The Angels organization strongly disagrees with the claims made by the Skaggs family and we will vigorously defend these lawsuits in court.”

The team has not budged from that position even after years of discovery that included more than 50 depositions, a pretrial ruling by the judge that Kay’s conviction cannot be questioned during the civil trial and Judge H. Shaina Colover denying the Angels’ motion for summary judgment by saying, “There is evidence that … Angels baseball had knowledge that Kay was distributing drugs to players and failed to take measures to get him to stop.”

The settlement conference held between lawyers for the Angels and the plaintiffs — which include Skaggs’ widow Carli, mother Debra Hetman and father Darrell Skaggs — merely underscored that the two sides see the case very differently, according to people close to the negotiations not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Settlement conferences are confidential and the California Evidence Code protects statements and conduct during conferences from being used to prove liability. However, legal experts said it is clear the two sides remain far apart in assessing the value of the case.

“They definitely could have been talking settlement all along,” said Edson K. McClellan, an Irvine lawyer who specializes in high-stakes civil and employment litigation. “I would be surprised if they haven’t engaged in some settlement negotiations.”

Damages sought by the Skaggs family include his projected future earnings and compensation for the pain and anguish the family suffered.

Lawyers for the Skaggs family originally said they were seeking $210 million, although that number has risen during four years of pretrial litigation. A claim by Angels lawyer Todd Theodora in a hearing this summer that the plaintiffs were asking for $1 billion was shot down last week by a person in the Skaggs camp who said “we are not asking anywhere remotely close to that. My god, the whole world would turn upside down.”

Skaggs had unquestionable earning potential. The left-handed former first-round draft pick was only 27 and an established member of the Angels starting rotation when he died. He was making $3.7 million in 2019 and likely would have made at least $5 million in his final year of arbitration before becoming a free agent after the 2020 season.

Although Skaggs posted average statistics — his earned-run average was over 4.00 in each of his seven seasons and his career won-loss record was 28-38 — free-agent contracts for starters under 30 range from three to six years for $15,000 to $25,000 a year. And he could have merited another contract in his mid-30s.

Assuming he remained healthy — Skaggs missed the 2015 season because of Tommy John surgery and had other injuries during his career — experts said a reasonable prediction of future earnings could exceed $100 million. However, his established history of drug use could dampen the projections.

“Speculative projections, making the assumption that he played another 10 years, push an award into nine figures, but honestly, looking at the level of drug abuse, jurors could have doubts,” said Lauren Johnson-Norris, an Orange County-based defense lawyer.

Pain, suffering and mental anguish damages could add to an award either by jury verdict or settlement. Legal experts expect Skaggs’ lawyers — who include nationally renowned Rusty Hardin and Shawn Holley — to point out that losing a husband or a son that your life centered around is worth an award.

Opening statements this week should illustrate why the two sides aren’t close to a settlement.

Skaggs’ lawyers will say the Angels are responsible for his death because they knew Kay was a habitual drug user that procured opioids for players, pointing to evidence that Angels team physician Craig Milhouse prescribed Kay with hydrocodone 15 times from 2009 to 2012.

Also likely to be mentioned will be Angels star Mike Trout who, according to the deposition of former Angels clubhouse attendant Kris Constanti, offered to pay for Kay’s drug rehabilitation in 2018.

The Angels will counter by telling the jury that prosecutors in Kay’s criminal trial concluded he was not acting as an employee when he gave Skaggs the fentanyl-laced oxycodone. Kay was charged and convicted, not the team.

Skaggs and Kay, the Angels will contend, were two men engaging in criminal misconduct on their own time and they concealed it from the team. The Angels lawyers will tell the jury that taking opioids prescribed by a physician during recovery from surgery is vastly different than Skaggs chopping up and snorting counterfeit pills that were not prescribed for him.

Witness testimony will begin after the opening statements, and current and former Angels executives Tim Mead, Tom Taylor and John Carpino are expected to be the first called.

And as the lawyers make their best arguments and witnesses provide testimony in a trial expected to take more than two months, both sides will be silently evaluating whether pursuing a settlement is in their best interest.

An agreement could be reached at any time, abruptly ending court proceedings.

“Sometimes what triggers a settlement is a court ruling or a witness performing well or poorly,” McClellan said. “As the trial unfolds and evidence is actually coming in, risk is brought into focus and makes plaintiffs and defendants evaluate their case in a more clear light.”

Los Angeles County launched an investigation Tuesday to determine whether a record $4-billion sex abuse settlement approved this year may be tainted.

County supervisors unanimously approved a motion to have county lawyers investigate possible misconduct by “legal representatives” involved in the recent flood of sex abuse litigation against L.A. County. The county auditor’s office also will set up a hotline dedicated to tips from the public related to the lawsuits, according to the motion.

“It is appalling and sickening that anyone would exploit a system meant to bring justice to victims of childhood sexual abuse,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who first called for the investigation. “We must ensure that nothing like this ever happens again and that every penny that we are allocating to victims goes directly to the survivors.”

Barger said she was “incredibly disturbed and quite frankly disgusted” by a Times investigation published last week that found seven plaintiffs in the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history who claimed they were paid by recruiters to sue the county. Two people said they were told to make up claims of abuse. The plaintiffs who spoke with The Times said the recruiters paid them outside a social services office in South Los Angeles.

All of the people who said they were paid by the recruiters were represented by Downtown L.A. Law Group, or DTLA, a personal injury firm with more than 2,700 plaintiffs in the settlement. DTLA has denied any involvement with the recruiters. The Times could not reach the recruiters for comment.

“We do not pay our clients to file lawsuits, and we strongly oppose such actions,” the firm previously said in a statement. “We want justice for real victims.”

The county agreed to a $4-billion settlement in the spring to resolve thousands of lawsuits by people who said they were sexually abused inside the county’s foster homes and juvenile halls as children. The lawsuits were spurred by a 2020 law that changed the statute of limitations and gave victims a new window to sue.

To pay for the settlement, most county departments had to slash their budgets. Supervisor Holly Mitchell called it a “painful irony” that many of the people who were paid to sue were there to get help from the South L.A. social services office in her district — part of a department which now faces cuts.

“We are not an ATM machine,” Supervisor Hilda Solis said. “We are the safety net.”

The Times found many of the attorneys involved in the case will receive 40% of their client’s settlement. Barger said she was shocked to learn that meant more than $1 billion in taxpayer money could go to law firms.

“I seriously doubt any of those attorneys understand the depth of what they have done,” Barger said. “It is going to have an impact on the county’s ability to function.”

The motion passed Tuesday directs county lawyers to enlist law enforcement “as necessary” and consider referring the allegations in The Times’ reporting to the State Bar.

California lawmakers, labor leaders and a powerful attorney trade group also have called for the bar to investigate.

The State Bar has declined to comment on whether it will launch an investigation, but said California law generally prohibits making payments to solicit or procure clients, a practice known as capping.

A majority of the supervisors expressed anger Tuesday at the 2020 change, saying the law was poorly crafted and left the county hemorrhaging billions. Many counties and school districts have similarly decried the change to the statute of limitations, which they say forced them to fight decades-old cases without records. Governments are required to throw out older records related to minors for privacy reasons, leaving lawyers often unable to prove whether a person suing them was at the facility where the abuse allegedly occurred.

The law change was championed by former lawmaker Lorena Gonzalez, now the president of the California Federation of Labor Unions. Barger repeatedly called the law, commonly referred to as AB 218, the “Gonzalez bill.”

“I’m calling it what it is,” said Barger, noting that school districts across the state now find themselves in similarly dire financial straits. “Maybe it is time for us all to get together and figure out how we clean up the mess that the Gonzalez bill put into play.”

Gonzalez says she believes plaintiffs attorneys have taken advantage of her legislation and is looking for someone in Sacramento to pass a new bill that will make it easier for jurisdictions to defend themselves. She emphasized that her priority was protecting real victims and said her bill didn’t change the burden of proof.

“What, are they just pissed because they can’t do due diligence?” she said. “They’re deflecting their whole responsibility in this. I’ve been clear there should be changes made. They should be clear that maybe they didn’t live up to their own burden of proof.”

Over the last week, some county unions and state legislators have questioned whether county lawyers did enough to screen the abuse claims before agreeing to pay out billions. The supervisors planned to meet with county lawyers in closed session Tuesday afternoon to discuss, in part, how the claims had been vetted.

“Did we do depositions? Did we do due diligence? “ Supervisor Janice Hahn said. “That was the first thing that came to my mind is what responsibility did we have to actually vet each and every one of the cases?”

The supervisors emphasized that they believed there were many legitimate claims in the settlement, and they wanted those victims to get compensated for the abuse they suffered at the hands of county employees.

Many victims have told The Times that they suffered egregious abuse decades ago at the hands of probation staff, who they said would molest them and threaten them with solitary confinement if they told higher-ups. MacLaren Children’s Center, a now-shuttered county-run shelter in El Monte, was also rife with predatory staff, according to interviews with half a dozen victims.

“It must truly reach those who are harmed,” Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said. “These funds must go to survivors — not individuals or entities who are looking to profit from someone else’s suffering.”

Every day, some of L.A.’s poorest residents line up outside the county benefits office in South Central, weaving their way through a swarm of salesmen hawking deals that feel too good to be true.

Would you like $15 for a quick blood pressure exam? A free phone? Perhaps, $2 for a COVID swab?

How about cash to sign up to sue L.A. County for sexual abuse at juvenile halls?

Over the last year, a Times investigation found a practice of paying for plaintiffs among a nebulous network of vendors, who usher people desperate for cash toward a law firm that could profit significantly from their business.

The Times spent two weeks outside the county social services office in South Central Los Angeles, where a constant flow of people applied for food stamps and cash aid, and spoke with seven people who said they were paid there within the last year to sue the county for sex abuse.

Most said they were abused inside the county’s juvenile halls, but had not planned to sue until they were flagged down on the sidewalk and offered cash. Two people said they were told to fabricate stories of abuse.

All the claims involving alleged payments were filed by Downtown LA Law Group, a pivotal player in the county’s recent $4-billion settlement for sex abuse inside its juvenile halls and foster homes — the largest such payout in U.S. history. Of the roughly 11,000 plaintiffs in the settlement, The Times found that nearly one-fourth were represented by the firm.

Marlon Bland, 31, said he got $200 — half in cash outside the county’s social services office and the other half when he went to meet with lawyers from Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA. The receptionist there handed him a $100 check, he said. DTLA sued the county on his behalf Aug. 23, 2024.

Kevin Richardson, 59, whose suit was filed by DTLA on Oct. 15, said he got $50 outside the social services office.

Quantavia Smith, 38, whose suit was filed by DTLA on April 29, said a vendor drove her to the office of a downtown law firm and then gave her $200.

The Times could not reach the vendors for the story, and DTLA attorneys declined to be interviewed. The law firm strongly denied paying people to sue and said no representative of the firm had been authorized to make payments.

“We do not pay our clients to file lawsuits, and we strongly oppose such actions,” the law firm said. “If we ever became aware that anyone associated with us, in any capacity, did such a thing — we would end our relationship with them immediately. We want justice for real victims.”

California law bans a practice known as capping, in which non-attorneys directly solicit or procure clients to sign up for lawsuits with a law firm.

DTLA did not answer questions about how the people who said they were paid to sue ended up with the law firm.

The firm’s statement said all their cases go through an intense review process “that tests for truthfulness and has many checks and balances.”

“As a result of this stringent quality control, we have rejected clients whose cases did not meet our criteria,” the firm said. “We are confident that the claims we have filed are valid and will withstand judicial scrutiny.”

For the last year, a mystery has vexed veteran sex abuse attorneys: How did a law firm best known for representing victims of auto accidents attract so many sex abuse plaintiffs in less than two years?

According to a Times analysis of court records, DTLA has amassed more than 2,700 people to sue L.A. County, more than nearly any other law firm involved in the settlement. The firm will get nearly half the payout for each client, per retainer agreements viewed by The Times.

Two legal experts warned, speaking generally, that offering people cash to sue, particularly those who are financially on the brink, could invite fraud into the historic sex abuse settlement.

“Of course, it makes the chance of fraudulent claims more likely,” said Richard Zitrin, a legal ethics professor at UC Law SF.

Some plaintiffs say they were explicitly told to make up claims.

“They tell you what to say,” said Carlshawn Stovall, 43, who said he was given about $20 by a vendor outside the benefits office to sue. “You’re supposed to make it up.”

Stovall said he gave the vendor his cellphone number and was told a lawyer would call him soon and ask him a few questions: What facility were you in? What year? How were you abused?

The vendor handed him a postcard-sized “script” of how to respond, he said. He didn’t need to worry about getting fact-checked, the vendor told him, as the county had no records of who was in its facilities decades ago. It seemed “a good way to get some quick money,” he said.

By the time the call came, he said, he’d lost the script, so he ad-libbed that probation officers watched him masturbate in the shower. The call, he said, lasted less than ten minutes and he never heard from them again.

On Nov. 7, DTLA filed a lawsuit on his behalf alleging he was “sexually harassed and abused” by staff in Central Juvenile Hall. Stovall said he was never in juvenile hall — much less abused there.

“I was a good kid,” he said, laughing.

Juan Fajardo said he used to sell phones next to the lawsuit vendors. He said he would watch a man pull up outside the social services office in a Tesla most Fridays and hand the recruiters cash, which they would dole out the following week to potential plaintiffs. The recruiters told him they were paid per person they signed up, he said.

“‘Just make up a story, say you got touched, here’s $50,’” Fajardo recalled the recruiters who set up shop next to him saying. “They’ll give it to you and then say, ‘Hey you never know, you might even get a lawsuit.’”

One recruiter also sold phones, he recounted. When someone wanted to get a phone, he said, he’d watch the recruiter first take a call on the new phone and make up a story of abuse under the customer’s name. The recruiter would then hand the customer their new phone and pocket the $50 for himself, Fajardo said.

After a few months of watching, Fajardo said, he decided to make up a story, too. He didn’t want to give his real name, so he gave the recruiter the name of a family member and a fake birthday. He said he took $50 and later got a call from a law firm. Ten minutes after the call, he said, he was told his case had been accepted.

DTLA filed the lawsuit under the family’s member name on Aug. 28, 2024. Fajardo said he doesn’t feel right trying to collect the money.

“I said something like, ‘They videotaped us while we’re in the showers, touching us while they pat us down,’” he recounted. “That’s what everyone was saying. I was like, ‘I’ll just use that instead of trying to make up a whole different lie.’”

Most plaintiffs The Times spoke with only knew the first names of the vendors, which some referred to as “recruiters” for the law firm, and said they hadn’t seen them for a few months.

They would usually hang around the people offering free phones right next to the entrance to the county building, according to some who said they were paid.

“It’s been three different people that I’ve seen. They come randomly, maybe once or twice a month,” said Oscar Garcia, who sells cigarettes on the sidewalk. “They promise them $50 to sign.”

Like most sexual abuse cases, all of DTLA’s lawsuits that are part of the massive settlement were filed using only the victim’s initials — JOHN DOE A.R., JANE DOE M.P. The Times confirmed the seven people who said they were paid had lawsuits filed by DTLA through sources with access to plaintiffs’ real names and case numbers.

After The Times reached out to DTLA for comment, the firm called two people The Times had spoken with on the record into its office on Sept. 11 and told them to stop speaking with the reporter.

One man, whom The Times is not naming as he later asked to not be included in the story, called The Times the morning of Sept. 11 and said the firm had ordered him a ride from the broken down car he was living out of in South Central to the firm’s office. He said an attorney had warned him that The Times was doing a “smear article” and didn’t want plaintiffs like him receiving any money from the settlement.

Mitchell Langberg, a defamation lawyer retained by the firm, sent The Times a sworn declaration from the man later that day, accusing the reporter of pretending to be a representative of DTLA to lure him into speaking freely.

The man had saved the reporter’s number in his phone as belonging to the “LA TIMES,” had his picture taken by a Times photographer, sent emails to the reporter’s L.A. Times email account and texted asking when the story would run in the paper.

Shortly afterward, some of the DTLA clients interviewed for this story received a text from the firm, they said, warning them against speaking with reporters:

“If you have been contacted, please notify our office immediately,” the text read.

The litigation floodgates opened in 2020 after California passed a law allowing survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue the perpetrator even though the statute of limitations had passed on their cases.

Since then, law firms have hunted aggressively for lucrative cases, flooding social media with ads and quietly tapping third parties to find former occupants of county-run juvenile halls and foster homes. The effort has met little resistance from L.A. County officials, who say they threw out relevant records long ago.

This spring, the county agreed to pay $4 billion to settle thousands of sex abuse claims dating back to the 1950s without taking depositions or knowing the names of thousands of plaintiffs. Rather, the vetting had been done almost entirely by attorneys who stand to walk away with more than a billion dollars in fees.

It is a lopsided system that, some attorneys concede, risks squandering taxpayer money meant for victims who suffered egregious abuse as children in the county’s custody.

“The whole thing just stinks,” said John Manly, a longtime sex abuse lawyer who served as a lead attorney in the settlements against USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar and USC gynecologist George Tyndall. “It looks to me like a third of these cases are total bull—, and [the county] is paying for no reason.”

As a state lawmaker, Lorena Gonzalez pushed for AB 218, which gave victims a new window to sue over childhood sexual abuse. Gonzalez, now the president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, said she believes plaintiff lawyers have taken advantage of the law change.

(K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Manly’s law firm, Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, is one of three prominent law firms that sued the county under the law change, but did not join the settlement.

DTLA was started by two cousins, Daniel Azizi and Farid Yaghoubtil, and their childhood friend Salar Hendizadeh, the partners told commercial real estate company CoStar after expanding in 2023 to a new Banksy-adorned office building downtown. Attorneys focus on the typical cases for most personal injury firms — dog bites, falls and auto accidents.

The firm became the scourge of ride app companies such as Uber, which sued DTLA and another law firm in federal court in July. The ride app giant alleged that the firms had filed a flurry of “fraudulent claims” and colluded with an Encino-based doctor to inflate the cost of plaintiffs’ medical expenses. The lawsuit is ongoing. In an Instagram post, DTLA called it a “calculated attempt by a billion-dollar corporation” to suppress legitimate claims.

In an interview in June before The Times learned of the alleged vendor payments, attorney Andrew Morrow, the lead attorney in nearly all the firm’s sex abuse cases against the county, said DTLA’s success was due to the reputation he had cultivated as “the therapy guy … out in the streets of downtown LA.” Clients called him, he said, because they knew the firm would connect them with a therapist.

“And I said, Well, let me ask you this, do you have a lawsuit? Were you a victim?” Morrow said of the calls. “We were filling a void in the marketplace.”

Some of the DTLA clients The Times interviewed said they spoke with a therapist provided by the firm. Four said they never heard from the firm after the day they signed up for a lawsuit.

Morrow said sexual abuse cases were “a little bit of a new frontier” for him. He had previously specialized in real estate, entertainment and insurance litigation at a firm he founded before switching to DTLA in 2023, according to his old bio.

He is now one of the region’s most prolific filers of sexual abuse cases. His cases, he said, are vetted for fraud through mental health professionals.

“I’m sure there are firms that still have cases like that,” he said. “We don’t because, like I said, ours go to therapy, and our doctors identify that stuff.”

For thousands of sex abuse victims, the law worked as intended.

With the passage of AB 218 in 2020, survivors had until they were 40 rather than 26 to sue their abuser, giving them a chance to get financial compensation for horrors they were far too young to grapple with — much less sue over — as children. Stories of abuse that had been hidden for decades surfaced, as did the names of prolific abusers, some of whom were still working with minors.

But it also put a massive target on the budgets of government entities, which had long ago thrown out records that could be used for a defense. Former state lawmaker Lorena Gonzalez, who spearheaded the law, says she’s been disturbed by how it’s panned out.

“It’s clear that the State Bar and attorneys themselves cannot hold themselves accountable,” said Gonzalez, now the president of the California Federation of Labor Unions. “What they’re doing, I think, to the cities and counties is deplorable.”

Following the law change, firms began amassing thousands of clients to sue the county through social media campaigns promising payouts and privacy.

“You’re going to be a Jane Doe or a John Doe,” Morrow told potential clients in a video posted to the firm’s TikTok page last year. “No one’s ever going to know your name.”

The cases are lucrative for attorneys, many of whom will receive 40% of their clients’ payouts, according to retainer agreements viewed by The Times. That includes New York City-based Slater Slater Schulman, which has roughly 3,700 clients; Boca-Raton-based Herman Law, with about 800 clients; and Los Angeles-based Becker Law Group and McNicholas & McNicholas, for which The Times found a combined 1,100 plaintiffs. Todd Becker, with Becker Law Group, said their fee differs from plaintiff to plaintiff.

DTLA has the highest contingency fee The Times found, requiring 45% of any payout. DTLA said its fee structure is “entirely standard within the industry.” These fees typically range from 33% to 40%, according to the American Bar Assn.

With most retainers on the higher end of the range, some attorneys involved in the settlement estimate $1.5 billion in taxpayer money could easily flow to lawyers — close to what the county Fire Department spends in a year.

As the county prepares to start dispensing money in January, some firms say they’ve started to find a few flaws in their caseload.

Becker Law Group said in a July court filing that four of the firm’s clients recently told the firm they weren’t abused. Patrick McNicholas, who co-counsels cases with the firm, said the lawsuits were weeded out as part of the firm’s vetting process.

Slater Slater Schulman, which has filed more cases than any other law firm, stated in a September filing that client John Doe J.S. “should not have been included.” The firm previously said in a lawsuit that he had been sexually assaulted at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey beginning in 2006 when he was 13.

Slater Slater Schulman has found similar problems in its avalanche of sex abuse cases against the Boy Scouts of America. On Sept. 9, retired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Barbara Houser, who is overseeing the $2.4-billion victim settlement trust, singled out Slater Slater Schulman for a pattern of “irregularities” and “procedural and factual problems” among its plaintiffs. The firm previously said it represented roughly 14,000 victims.

The firm was asked to pay for an “independent third party” to investigate its cases for fraud before going through the trust’s standard vetting process. Clifford Robert, an outside attorney representing the firm in its issues with the Boy Scout cases, said Slater Slater Schulman is “working tirelessly” to address the issues and that justice for survivors is its top priority.

Tammy Rogers, 56, hired the Slater firm in 2022 to sue after a staff member at MacLaren Children’s Center, a county-run children’s facility now infamous for abuse, allegedly molested her when she was about 9. She said she’s grown unnerved by the financial incentive lawyers like hers have in amassing unwieldy numbers of clients.

“You can’t get ahold of them,” she said of her firm, which has filed cases on behalf of hundreds of new plaintiffs since the settlement was finalized. “I called them repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly.”

Tammy Rogers, 56, said a staff member at MacLaren Children’s Center sexually abused her when she was 9, an incident that sent her spiraling toward drugs and tortured relationships with men. She sued the county in 2022.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

County and plaintiff lawyers nailed down the $4-billion figure on Oct. 30. Since then, thousands more plaintiffs have been added.

“[Firms think] ‘there’s a fund out there, and I’m going to do everything in my power to get as much as I can,’” said one attorney suing the county over sex abuse, who declined to be named, fearing professional repercussions.

It’s a fund, critics say, with few safeguards for fake claims.

The cases will be reviewed by retired Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Louis Meisinger, who mediated similar settlements for the victims of the 2023 Maui wildfires and the 2017 Las Vegas concert mass shooting. Any plaintiff who wants to skip that vetting process can take $150,000 in a lump sum at the start of next year.

Meisinger will distribute the remaining money after reviewing fact sheets from the victims. If Meisinger believes a case is fraudulent, the county can either give the plaintiff $50,000 to resolve it or get it booted from the settlement, meaning it would work its own way through the court system, according to an allocation protocol reviewed by The Times.

Otherwise, the minimum amount a client can get is $100,000, according to the protocol. The most is $3 million, far less than some victims who suffered egregious abuse feel they deserve.

“I spent two years being tortured by some grown ass men. I mean, I even gave them names,” said a man who was granted anonymity to discuss his case. “It seems like, once again, I’m being taken advantage of.”

He said he had hoped to use the money to buy 60 acres of land for a group home that would give orphaned children the joy he says was snuffed out of him before he hit puberty. At age 10, he said, he was raped and forced to perform oral sex on a man at MacLaren Children’s Center. At age 43, he said, he can’t smell Pine-Sol without flashbacks to the supply closet favored by his abusers as a site for their assaults.

Trinidad Pena, 52, said she desperately needs the settlement money to pay for medical care, overdue bills and therapy. At age 12, she said, she was impregnated by a staff member at MacLaren Children’s Center — an assault that has haunted her since the 1980s.

“What kind of rights did I have as a 12-year-old to sign away another human being?” asked Pena, who recalls seeing the baby for seven minutes before the girl was given to a family in Laguna Hills through a closed adoption. “The lawyers are being made millionaires, but we are just going to be able to pay our back taxes.”

The county was never interested in a fight.

Once the deluge of lawsuits started, county lawyers had just one goal: to make the cases go away without the county going bankrupt.

They did not want to risk a trial. Early in negotiations, county lawyers understood they were looking at a number of cases of brutal rape and molestation that could easily make a disgusted jury award the type of budget-busting $135-million verdict that got handed to the Moreno Valley Unified School District in 2023 for the sexual abuse of two students by a middle school teacher. The district hired him despite a past arrest for molesting his foster son, according to the lawsuit.

Attorney John Manly said he believes the county did not do enough vetting of the cases. Manly’s law firm, Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, is one of three prominent law firms that sued the county under the law change, but did not join the $4-billion settlement.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

If there were even 30 cases that appalled the jury as much as that one, the county would risk paying far more than $4 billion. Better, the county lawyers reasoned, to come up with a total sum that wouldn’t drain coffers of the government, which is responsible for the social safety net for the poorest residents, and let someone else divvy it up among the thousands of victims. With a $45-billion budget, they could make $4 billion work if most county agencies trimmed their spending.

Andy Baum, the county’s outside attorney leading the defense effort, told a judge in a June hearing that he viewed it as an “inventory settlement.” There were simply too many cases, the county felt, to fight individually. And so lawyers conducted only basic vetting of the claims — most of which were filed in court with a pseudonym, an unnamed abuser, and a sentence or two about the abuse. They took no depositions, according to multiple lawyers involved in the settlement.

“We have thousands of cases, and we don’t even have the most fundamental information,” Baum said at the hearing.

The county also allowed many cases to become part of the settlement without the paperwork the law requires. Under state law, cases in which the victim is older than 40 must be filed with a certificate from a therapist, who can attest that there is a “reasonable basis” to believe the plaintiff was sexually abused.

DTLA, which specialized in these cases, filed many of its older lawsuits without the certificate, considered by the Legislature as a critical way to prevent fraudulent claims. The county lawyers never protested, explaining in the June court hearing that they wanted to make sure DTLA’s cases were quickly ushered into the nearly finalized settlement.

“We had a gun to our head,” Baum told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Riff, who’s overseeing the juvenile hall abuse cases, when pressed by the judge on why he waived the rule.

DTLA said nearly all of its certificates have since been filed, but did not provide numbers on how many remain outstanding.

The paltry defense launched by the county has some rethinking the law that started the deluge.

Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) tried to push through a bill this session intended as a lifeline to entities drowning in sex abuse lawsuits by limiting the window victims would have to sue. He pulled it last month after outcry from victim advocacy groups that said it trampled on the rights of survivors.

Maryland went further after being flooded with sex abuse claims for juvenile facilities following a similar state law change in 2023. This spring, the state capped sex abuse cases against government entities at $400,000 and limited attorneys’ fees to 25% for cases resolved in court.

That’s not happening in California.

“It’s just, in my view, not politically viable,” Laird said.

Some lawmakers who try to change the law have faced brutal pushback by law firms, including Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, which has run ads branding such bills as “predator” protection.

“I don’t see the appetite,” he said.

For L.A. County, the pace of cases remains relentless.

Since the announcement of the $4-billion settlement, James Harris Law, a Seattle-based firm that specializes in mass torts, has been aggressively recruiting clients through social media ads that tell “abused juvies” they can qualify in 30 seconds for up to $1 million.

After The Times entered a reporter’s cellphone number in one of the firm’s ads on Instagram, a representative from the firm’s intake department called more than 38 times.

Harris said his firm runs a “straightforward public awareness campaign” and didn’t believe his ads contained dollar amounts. The sums were removed from the ads after The Times contacted Harris.

The marketing proved fruitful. This summer, months after the county announced the settlement, Baum said, James Harris called him to discuss his brimming inventory: 2,500 new cases.

Baum said the newcomer acknowledged he was “late to the party.”

Sean Greene and Gabrielle LaMarr LeMee contributed to this report.

HONOLULU — Lawyers for a Hawaii real estate investor and broker who sued Shohei Ohtani and his agent denied any improper use of the Dodgers star’s likeness for a development project and alleged the agent was trying to deflect blame for cost overruns at the player’s home.

Ohtani and Nez Balelo of CAA Baseball were sued Aug. 8 in Hawaii Circuit Court for the First Circuit by developer Kevin J. Hayes Sr., real estate broker Tomoko Matsumoto, West Point Investment Corp. and Hapuna Estates Property Owners. They accused Ohtani and Balelo of “abuse of power” that allegedly resulted in tortious interference and unjust enrichment impacting a $240 million luxury housing development on the Big Island’s coveted Hapuna Coast.

Hayes and Matsumoto had been dropped from the development deal by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, the joint venture’s majority owner.

The amended complaint filed Tuesday added Creative Artists Agency and CAA Sports as defendants.

“Balelo and CAA sought to deflect blame by scapegoating Hayes for the cost overruns on Otani’s home — overruns caused entirely by defendants’ own decisions,” the complaint said.

“The allegations as we clarified them make very clear that there was never a breach of the endorsement agreement, the video that was posted on the website promoting specifically this project was sent to Balelo and CAA and another adviser to Ohtani, Mark Daulton, and they were aware of it and never objected to it,” said Josh Schiller, a lawyer for Hayes and the suing entities.

In a motion to dismiss filed Sept. 14, attorneys for Ohtani and Balelo said “plaintiffs exploited Ohtani’s name and photograph to drum up traffic to a website that marketed plaintiffs’ own side project development.”

“This is a desperate attempt to avoid dismissal of a frivolous complaint and, as we previously said, to distract from plaintiffs’ myriad of failures and their blatant misappropriation of Shohei Ohtani’s rights,” Laura Smolowe, a lawyer for Ohtani and Balelo, said in a statement. “Nez Balelo has always prioritized Mr. Ohtani’s best interests, including protecting his name, image, and likeness from unauthorized use.”

Lawyers for Hayes and the plaintiffs claimed they kept Balelo and CAA informed.

“Before the website went live, Hayes submitted a link to the entire site — including its promotional aspects — by email to Balelo and Terry Prince, the director of legal and business Affairs at CAA Sports LLC,” the amended complaint said. “It remained online with no material changes for 14 months before Balelo suddenly objected and threatened litigation — weaponizing the issue in order to create pretext for yet another set of demands and concessions.”

“The sudden demand that Kingsbarn terminate plaintiffs was instead a retaliatory measure against Hayes for resisting the constant and improper demands of Balelo and (Ohtani),” the complaint added. “Defendants further calculated that, with plaintiffs removed, they could more easily extract financial concessions from the project and enrich themselves at plaintiffs’ expense.”

BOSTON — The Trump administration violated the Constitution when it targeted non-U.S. citizens for deportation solely for supporting Palestinians and criticizing Israel, a federal judged said Tuesday in a scathing ruling directly and sharply criticizing President Trump and his policies as serious threats to free speech.

U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston agreed with several university associations that the policy they described as ideological deportation violates the 1st Amendment as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, a law governing how federal agencies develop and issue regulations. Young also found the policy was “arbitrary or capricious because it reverses prior policy without reasoned explanation.”

“This case — perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court — squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in [the] United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally ‘yes, they do,’” Young, a nominee of Republican President Reagan, wrote.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Plaintiffs in the case welcomed the ruling.

“The Trump administration’s attempt to deport students for their political views is an assault on the Constitution and a betrayal of American values,” said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Assn. of University Professors union. “This trial exposed their true aim: to intimidate and silence anyone who dares oppose them. If we fail to fight back, Trump’s thought police won’t stop at pro-Palestinian voices—they will come for anyone who speaks out.”

The ruling came after a trial during which lawyers for the associations presented witnesses who testified that the Trump administration had launched a coordinated effort to target students and scholars who had criticized Israel or showed sympathy for Palestinians.

“Not since the McCarthy era have immigrants been the target of such intense repression for lawful political speech,” Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, told the court. “The policy creates a cloud of fear over university communities, and it is at war with the First Amendment.”

The student detentions, primarily on the East Coast, had caused widespread concern at California universities, which host the largest international student population in the nation and were home to major pro-Palestinian encampments in 2024. At UCLA, faculty earlier this year set up a 24-hour hotline for students who feared being potentially detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — although there were no high-profile targeted removals of international student activists.

In separate actions this year, the government also temporarily revoked visas and immigration statuses for students across the UC system and at other U.S. campuses based on minor violations such as traffic tickets. Revocations were reversed nationwide after a federal suit was filed.

In the Boston case, lawyers for the Trump administration put up witnesses who testified there was no ideological deportation policy as the plaintiffs contended.

“There is no policy to revoke visas on the basis of protected speech,” Victoria Santora told the court. “The evidence presented at this trial will show that plaintiffs are challenging nothing more than government enforcement of immigration laws.”

John Armstrong, the senior bureau official in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, testified that visa revocations were based on long-standing immigration law. Armstrong acknowledged he played a role in the visa revocation of several high-profile activists, including Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, and was shown memos endorsing their removal.

Armstrong also insisted that visa revocations were not based on protected speech and rejected accusations that there was a policy of targeting someone for their ideology.

One witness testified that the campaign targeted more than 5,000 pro-Palestinian protesters. Out of the 5,000 names reviewed, investigators wrote reports on about 200 who had potentially violated U.S. law, Peter Hatch of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit testified. Until this year, Hatch said, he could not recall a student protester being referred for a visa revocation.

Among the report subjects was Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Khalil, who was released last month after 104 days in federal immigration detention. Khalil has become a symbol of Trump’s clampdown on the protests.

Another was Tufts University student Ozturk, who was released in May from six weeks in detention after being arrested on a suburban Boston street. She said she was illegally detained after an op-ed she co-wrote last year criticizing her school’s response to the war in Gaza.

Casey writes for the Associated Press. Times staff writer Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report.

A federal jury on Thursday found hip-hop producer Metro Boomin not liable in his civil sexual assault case, after nearly a year of litigation. He is feeling more than relieved.

“I’m grateful and thankful to God that I can finally put all of this nonsense behind me,” the Grammy-nominated “Like That” musician said in a statement shared on Instagram after the verdict.

The jury sided with the 32-year-old artist, whose real name is Leland Tyler Wayne, after a brief trial that began Tuesday. He was cleared in all four actionable claims brought by Vanessa LeMaistre, who first raised her allegations in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles in October 2024.

LeMaistre said in her initial lawsuit that she and Wayne struck up a connection in spring of 2016 amid their mutual grief: The musician had broken up with a longtime girlfriend and LeMaistre had lost a 9-month-old son “as a result of a rare and fatal disease,” according to court documents. LeMaistre alleged the assault occurred that September after he invited her to a recording studio to watch him work.

LeMaistre described the alleged incident as the “second worst thing that ever happened to her,” other than the death of her child. She also accused Wayne of impregnating her through rape and said she underwent an abortion.

The producer’s legal team quickly denied the allegations last October and dismissed the complaint as a “pure shakedown.” Attorney Lawrence C. Hinkle II echoed those sentiments Thursday in a statement shared after the verdict.

“We are extremely grateful for the jury’s careful consideration of the evidence and for reaching the correct decision,” Hinkle said. “The allegations against Mr. Wayne were frivolous and unequivocally false. Mr. Wayne has endured serious and damaging accusations, and today’s verdict confirms what he has always said — the plaintiff’s claims against him are completely fabricated.”

After Thursday’s verdict, LeMaistre attorney Michael J. Willemin said that although “the legal system is often stacked against survivors, our client showed unwavering fortitude throughout this trial.”

Willemin added: “We are disappointed in the outcome but are proud to represent Ms. LeMaistre and believe that the verdict will ultimately be overturned on appeal.”

Though the case — which was moved from L.A. County Superior Court to California Central District Court in December — ended in victory for Metro Boomin, he said in his statement it also resulted in a “a long list of losses.” He lamented the money and time “wasted” in the litigation process and said there had been an “incalculable amount of money and opportunities that did not make it to me or my team during this time.”

The Missouri-born artist also spoke about the case’s toll on his personal life, writing that “the trauma my family and I have endured during this dark period can never be forgiven.” He detailed adopting his youngest siblings and expressed concern over their possible online exposure to the case.

“I’m disappointed in not only the plaintiff but the janky lawyers who made the made the conscious decision to take on this suit, even though it was evident long ago that these claims had no legs or merit and would not end up going anywhere,” he said, later expressing gratitude for his own legal team.

Metro Boomin rose to prominence in the mid-2010s, working with rap stars including Young Thug, Future and Nicki Minaj. Over the years, he has also racked up collaborations with Drake, Kanye “Ye” West, Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Lil Wayne. Most recently, he reunited with Young Thug as a producer for Thug’s new album, “UY Scuti,” the rapper’s first since his release from Georgia’s Fulton County Jail last October.

With the case behind him for now, Metro Boomin concluded his statement by sending “peace and love to the actual victims out there as well as the innocent and accused.”

The Los Angeles Film School is at the center of a whistleblower lawsuit from two former executives who allege the institution unlawfully collected government funds in an elaborate accreditation scheme.

Dave Phillips and Ben Chaib, the school’s former VP of career development and VP of admissions, respectively, allege in a federal lawsuit that the L.A. Film School violated federal employment requirements and accrediting standards. The lawsuit also names LAFS’ Florida counterpart Full Sail University, its main owner James Heavener and two other business partners as defendants.

The lawsuit, originally filed in L.A. federal court in June 2024, was recently unsealed after the Department of Justice opted to not investigate.

Representatives of LAFS could not be immediately reached for comment but have previously denied the claims.

In statement to Variety last week the school’s attorneys said that Phillips and Chaib are attempting “to resuscitate time-barred and erroneous allegations, which were already thoroughly investigated and settled by the Department of Education.”

For a university to be accredited and receive federal funding, the accreditation criteria state that a school must successfully instruct 70% of its students to land and hold jobs for which they are trained. The plaintiffs argue that graduates from the film school are unable to receive entry-level positions, citing an internal report which shows that most graduates earn $5,000 or less in their field of study. Only 20% of students were able to find work, the suit alleges.

LAFS receives over $85 million a year in federal financial assistance, including about $60 million in federal student loans, and more than $19 million in veterans’ financial aid funds. The Winter Park, Fla.-located Full Sail University, which teaches curriculum in entertainment-adjacent fields, also gets over $377 million per year in federal financial assistance, according to the complaint.

“For at least the last ten years, nearly all federal funds bestowed upon and taken in resulted from fraud with the institution using taxpayer funds to finance and facilitate multiple, temporary employment positions for LAFS graduates,” the lawsuit states.

Seeking to continue collecting government funds, the university is alleged to have spent nearly $1 million (between 2010 and 2017) to provide temporary employment from nonprofits and paid-off vendors. These jobs would usually last two days; LAFS would determine who would be hired, their schedule and wage. Students were led to believe these opportunities were “in-house production opportunities” and “post-graduate apprenticeships,” but instead, they were schemes planned and paid for by the school to remain an accredited university, according to the lawsuit.

Federal law prohibits higher education from “provid[ing] any commission, bonus, or other incentive payment based directly or indirectly on success in securing enrollments.” When LAFS was audited in 2017, the plaintiffs further allege that the school misled the Department of Education auditors, denied the existence of the incentive compensation system and failed to disclose their connection to vendors.

Beyond collecting these federal funds, the former executives argue that the school misled students and potential enrollees by overstating the availability of jobs and making untrue or misleading statements related to employment.

LAFS was created in 1999 and is located on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. It offers a variety of bachelor’s and associate degrees in areas including film, film production and animation, with tuition ranging between $40,000 and $80,000.

Both plaintiffs, Phillips and Chaib, worked at the film school for 12 years and were members of the senior executive team. Phillips’ contract was not renewed in 2022.

The Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges recently renewed the school’s accreditation in 2023 for a five-year period.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to let it enforce a passport policy for transgender and nonbinary people that requires male or female sex designations based on birth certificates.

The Justice Department appealed a lower-court order allowing people use the gender or “X” identification marker that lines up with their gender identity.

It’s the latest in a series of emergency appeals from the Trump administration, many of which have resulted in victories amid litigation, including on banning transgender people from the military.

The government argues it can’t be required to use sex designations it considers inaccurate on official documents. The plaintiffs, meanwhile, say the policy violates the rights of transgender and nonbinary Americans.

The State Department changed its passport rules after Trump handed down an executive order in January declaring the United States would “recognize two sexes, male and female,” based on what it called “an individual’s immutable biological classification.”

Transgender actor Hunter Schafer, for example, said in February that her new passport had been issued with a male gender marker, even though she submitted the application with the female gender marker she has used for years on her driver’s license and passport.

A judge blocked the Trump administration policy in June after a lawsuit from nonbinary and transgender people, some of whom said they were afraid to submit applications. An appeals court left the judge’s order in place.

The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to put the order on hold while the lawsuit plays out.

“The Constitution does not prohibit the government from defining sex in terms of an individual’s biological classification,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote.

He pointed to the high court’s recent ruling upholding a ban on transition-related health care for transgender minors. The courts conservative majority found that law doesn’t discriminate on the basis of sex, and Sauer argued that finding also supports the Trump administration’s decision to change passport rules issued in 2021.

An attorney for the plaintiffs, on the other hand, said the passport rules are discriminatory.

“This administration has taken escalating steps to limit transgender people’s health care, speech, and other rights under the Constitution, and we are committed to defending those rights,” said Jon Davidson, senior counsel for the LGBTQ & HIV Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Whitehurst writes for the Associated Press.

HONOLULU — Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani and his agent, Nez Balelo, moved to dismiss a lawsuit filed last month accusing them of causing a Hawaii real estate investor and broker to be fired from a $240-million luxury housing development on the Big Island’s Hapuna Coast.

Ohtani and Balelo were sued Aug. 8 in Hawaii Circuit Court for the First Circuit by developer Kevin J. Hayes Sr. and real estate broker Tomoko Matsumoto, West Point Investment Corp. and Hapuna Estates Property Owners, who accused them of “abuse of power” that allegedly resulted in tortious interference and unjust enrichment.

Hayes and Matsumoto had been dropped from the development deal by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, the joint venture’s majority owner.

In papers filed Sunday, lawyers for Ohtani and Balelo said Hayes and Matsumoto in 2023 acquired rights for a joint venture in which they owned a minority percentage to use Ohtani’s name, image and likeness under an endorsement agreement to market the venture’s real estate development at the Mauna Kea Resort. The lawyers said Ohtani was a “victim of NIL violations.”

“Unbeknownst to Ohtani and his agent Nez Balelo, plaintiffs exploited Ohtani’s name and photograph to drum up traffic to a website that marketed plaintiffs’ own side project development,” the lawyers wrote. “They engaged in this self-dealing without authorization, and without paying Ohtani for that use, in a selfish and wrongful effort to take advantage of their proximity to the most famous baseball player in the world.”

The lawyers claimed Hayes and Matsumoto sued after “Balelo did his job and protected his client by expressing justifiable concern about this misuse and threatening to take legal action against this clear misappropriation.” They called Balelo’s actions “clearly protected speech “

In a statement issued after the suit was filed last month, Kingsbarn called the allegations “completely frivolous and without merit.”

Ohtani is a three-time MVP on the defending World Series champion Dodgers.

“Nez Balelo has always prioritized Shohei Ohtani’s best interests, including protecting his name, image, and likeness from unauthorized use,” a lawyer for Ohtani and Balelo, said in a statement. “This frivolous lawsuit is a desperate attempt by plaintiffs to distract from their myriad of failures and blatant misappropriation of Mr. Ohtani’s rights.”

Lawyers for Hayes and Matsumoto did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court on Friday blocked President Trump’s plans to end protections for 600,000 people from Venezuela who have had permission to live and work in the United States, saying that plaintiffs are likely to win their claim that the Republican administration’s actions were unlawful.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that maintained temporary protected status designations for Venezuelans while they challenge actions by the Trump administration in court.

The 9th Circuit judges found that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had no authority to vacate or set aside a prior extension of temporary protected status because the governing statute written by Congress does not permit it.

Then-President Biden’s Democratic administration had extended temporary protected status, commonly known as TPS, for people from Venezuela.

“In enacting the TPS statute, Congress designed a system of temporary status that was predictable, dependable, and insulated from electoral politics,” Judge Kim Wardlaw, who was nominated by President Clinton, a Democrat, wrote for the panel. The other two judges on the panel were also nominated by Democratic presidents.

In an email, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security blasted the decision as more obstruction from “unelected activist” judges.

“For decades the TPS program has been abused, exploited, and politicized as a de facto amnesty program,” the email read. “While this injunction delays justice and undermines the integrity of our immigration system, Secretary Noem will use every legal option at the Department’s disposal to end this chaos and prioritize the safety of Americans.”

Congress authorized temporary protected status, or TPS, as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. It allows the secretary of DHS to grant legal immigration status to people fleeing countries experiencing civil strife, environmental disaster or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions” that prevent a safe return to that home country. The terms are for six, 12 and 18 months.

The appellate judges said the guaranteed time limitations were critical so people could gain employment, find long-term housing and build stability without fear of shifting political winds.

But in ending the protections soon after Trump took office, Noem said conditions in Venezuela had improved and it was not in the U.S. national interest to allow migrants from there to stay on for what is a temporary program. It’s part of a broader move by Trump’s administration to reduce the number of immigrants who are in the country either without legal documentation or through legal temporary programs.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco found in March that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claim that the administration had overstepped its authority in terminating the protections. Chen postponed the terminations, but the Supreme Court reversed him without explanation, which is common in emergency appeals.

It is unclear what effect Friday’s ruling will have on the estimated 350,000 Venezuelans in the group of 600,000 whose protections expired in April. Their lawyers say some have already been fired from jobs, detained in immigration jails, separated from their U.S. citizen children and even deported.

Protections for the remaining 250,000 Venezuelans are set to expire Sept. 10.

“What is really significant now is that the second court unanimously recognized that the trial court got it right,” said Emi MacLean, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Northern California representing plaintiffs.

She added that while the decision might not benefit immediately those people who have already lost their status or are about to lose their status, Friday’s ruling “should provide a path for the administration’s illegal actions related to Venezuela and TPS to finally be undone.”

A court declaration provided by plaintiffs showed the turmoil caused by the Trump administration and Supreme Court decision.

A Washington woman who worked in restaurants was deported in June along with her daughters, 10 years and 15 months old, after ICE officers told her to bring her children to an immigration check-in. The father of the baby, who is a U.S. citizen, remains in the U.S. while the woman tries to figure out what to do.

Also in June, a FedEx employee appeared in uniform at his required immigration check-in only to be detained, the court declaration states. He slept for about two weeks on a floor, terrified he would be sent to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison. His wife cannot maintain the household on her earnings.

“I am not a criminal,” he said in the declaration, adding that “immigrants like myself come to the United States to work hard and contribute, and instead our families and lives are being torn apart.”

Millions of Venezuelans have fled political unrest, mass unemployment and hunger. Their country is mired in a prolonged crisis brought on by years of hyperinflation, political corruption, economic mismanagement and an ineffectual government.

Attorneys for the U.S. government argued the Homeland Security secretary’s clear and broad authority to make determinations related to the TPS program were not subject to judicial review. They also denied that Noem’s actions were motivated by racial animus.

But the appellate judges said courts clearly had jurisdiction in cases where the actions were unlawful. They declined to address whether Noem was motivated by racial animus.

Har writes for the Associated Press.

Jimmie Allen, the Grammy-nominated singer known for “Best Shot” and “Warrior,” is liable for sexually assaulting a woman in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2022 and filming it, a federal judge decided this week.

Judge Aleta A. Trauger on Monday filed an order in Tennessee federal court granting a motion for sanctions and judgment against the 40-year-old country musician, according to court documents reviewed by The Times. Allen’s accuser — identified in court documents as “Jane Doe 2” — filed her motion against the singer and his co-defendants in May, but they failed to respond in a timely manner, the order said.

“The court therefore interprets this motion to be unopposed,” Trauger said, adding later in her order, “defendants throughout have failed to comply with case management discovery deadlines and even failed to comply with specific Orders of this court.”

The order adds that Allen and the co-defendants — his bodyguard and Aadyn’s Dad Touring Inc. — also failed to pay the plaintiff $5,950 in nonrefundable legal fees, as ordered in March. A legal representative for the defendants did not immediately respond on Wednesday to The Times’ request for comment.

Elizabeth Fegan, an attorney for the plaintiff, told The Times on Wednesday that her legal team is “pleased with the Court’s decision to grant judgment for Plaintiff in light of Jimmie Allen’s refusal to participate in the litigation process.”

“We look forward to proving up Plaintiff’s damages caused by Allen’s predatory acts,” Fegan added.

Allen faced multiple sexual assault lawsuits in the summer of 2023, which took a toll on his career and professional opportunities. In May 2023, a woman who said she was Allen’s former manager accused him of sexual battery, assault, false imprisonment, sex trafficking and emotional distress. The woman — identified in court documents as “Jane Doe” — dropped her complaint against Allen in March 2024 after reaching a settlement with the singer, and eventually dismissed the case with prejudice in October 2024.

Jane Doe 2 sued Allen in June 2023, requesting a jury trial and an unspecified amount in damages. She alleged in her complaint that Allen sexually assaulted her in his hotel room in Las Vegas in July 2022. She also accused the singer of filming the alleged assault without her consent, causing her to “suffer extreme emotional distress, including anxiety and depression.”

Allen responded to the two lawsuits with a countersuit of his own in July 2023. At the time, he denied the allegations and accused one woman of defaming him, and the other woman of illegally taking his cellphone after consenting to being recorded.

Amid the final weeks of litigation in Jane Doe 2’s suit, Allen promoted new music and live concerts on social media. Earlier this month, he also addressed the sexual assault allegations on the “Playlisted Podcast,” hosted by Austin Burke.

“I always tell people, ‘No matter where you go in life, the more successful you become … be careful because you have a target on your back,’” he said in an episode published Aug. 10. “Anytime you hear the word ‘lawsuit,’ know there’s money involved.”

He added later in the episode: “As the world moves forward, I just wish people are smarter. I hope people aren’t ‘sheeple’ anymore. That people actually use their brain in every decision, in everything they read.”

Shohei Ohtani’s name is in headlines again.

And, for the second time in two years, not for baseball reasons.

News emerged this week that Ohtani, the Dodgers’ two-way star and reigning National League MVP, was being sued along with his agent in Hawaii by a real estate investor and broker.

The claim: That Ohtani and his representative, Nez Balelo of Creative Artists Agency, had the plaintiffs fired from a $240 million luxury housing development that Ohtani had been contracted to help endorse.

The contours of the case are complicated; relating to contract law, tortious interference and two years of alleged disputes between Balelo and the plaintiffs, developer Kevin J. Hayes Sr. and real estate broker Tomoko Matsumoto, leading up to their termination from the project.

But as it pertains to Ohtani and this current Dodgers season, only one question really matters:

Will the situation create any distraction for him off the field?

When pressed on that Wednesday, he quickly shut the idea down.

“I’m focused on what the team is doing,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “And doing everything in my power to make sure we bring a W on the field.”

According to the lawsuit, Hayes and Matsumoto reached an endorsement deal with Ohtani in 2023 for their luxury housing development on Hawaii’s Big Island. The Japanese star was not only to be a spokesperson for the project, but also a resident committed to purchasing one of the development’s 14 residences as an offseason home.

However, the lawsuit claimed, Balelo increasingly demanded unspecified concessions (the details of which were redacted in the filing) over the last two years from Hayes and Matsumoto — becoming what it described as a “disruptive force” who “inserted himself into every aspect of the relationship.”

Last month, the lawsuit alleged, Balelo went to Hayes’ and Matsumoto’s business partner, Kingsbarn Realty Capital, and threatened litigation if the two weren’t terminated from the project.

“Kingsbarn openly admitted … that Balelo had demanded the terminations and that they were being done solely to placate him,” the lawsuit said. “Specifically, Kingsbarn acknowledged that Balelo had threatened to drag Kingsbarn into a separate lawsuit unless it terminated Hayes and Matsumoto.”

The lawsuit also claims that Balelo’s supposed threat of litigation — which pertained to the use of Ohtani’s name, image and likeness rights being used to promote a seperate real estate project on Hawaii’s Big Island — was “baseless,” amounting to an “abuse of power” by Ohtani’s longtime agent to “force a business partner to betray its contractual obligations and strip Plaintiffs of the very project they conceived and built.”

A Kingsbarn spokesperson told The Athletic this week that the allegations “are completely frivolous and without merit,” and that “Kingsbarn takes full responsibility for its actions regarding Kevin Hayes and for removing Tomoko Matsumoto as the project’s broker.”

Ohtani’s direct involvement in the dispute appears limited.

According to a person with knowledge of the situation who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, the plaintiffs dealt almost exclusively with Balelo, who has represented Ohtani since he came to the major leagues from Japan before the 2018 season.

Still, because Balelo was acting on behalf of Ohtani, the superstar was included as a defendant as well.

That means — just like in March 2024, when scandal swirled around Ohtani after his former interpreter was found to have stolen money from his bank accounts to pay off illegal gambling debts — Ohtani has another potential disturbance to navigate off the field.

Granted, Ohtani hardly seemed affected by last year’s controversy, helping the Dodgers win the World Series while winning the third MVP award of his career. And this current lawsuit, according to attorney and legal expert Arash Sadat of Mills Sadat Dowlat LLP, presents a much more standard type of legal dispute often seen around real estate deals.

“This kind of stuff happens all the time,” Sadat said. “They’re not rare at all.”

Sadat noted that, based on the lawsuit, it’s not clear “what Shohei knew and didn’t know” when it came to Balelo’s alleged interactions with the plaintiffs.

“All of the allegations in the complaint relate to conduct by his agent,” Sadat said. “If the plaintiffs in this case could show any direct involvement by Ohtani, you can bet that would have been included in the complaint.”

If the case were to proceed without a resolution, it is possible Ohtani could eventually be required to give a deposition detailing his knowledge of the alleged events.

That, however, is not something that would happen imminently. And even if it did, Sadat added, it’s unclear whether his testimony would even be released publicly, given that large swaths of redactions in the original lawsuit of seemingly proprietary business information.

Sadat speculated the chances of the case ever going to trial as slim. The overwhelming majority of such lawsuits are typically settled or dismissed well before then.

“Real estate tends to bring out emotions in people,” Sadat said. “You have a high-profile real estate developer. You have a high-profile real estate agent. You have a sports agent over at CAA. You’re talking about big egos here. And when that happens, and someone feels slighted, oftentimes… litigation is the result.”

A Hawaii real estate investor and broker are suing Shohei Ohtani, claiming the Dodgers’ star and his agent got them fired from a $240-million luxury housing development on the Big Island’s coveted Hapuna Coast that they brought him in to endorse.

According to the lawsuit filed in Hawaii Circuit Court on Friday, Ohtani’s agent, Nez Balelo, increasingly demanded concessions from developer Kevin J. Hayes Sr. and real estate broker Tomoko Matsumoto before demanding that their business partner, Kingsbarn Realty Capital, drop them from the deal.

“Balelo and [Ohtani], who were brought into the venture solely for [Ohtani’]s promotional and branding value, exploited their celebrity leverage to destabilize and ultimately dismantle Plaintiffs’ role in the project — for no reason other than their own financial self-interest,” the lawsuit claims.

The suit accuses Ohtani and Balelo of tortious interference and unjust enrichment. Hayes, a developer with 40 years of experience, and Matsumoto, who was to be the listing agent for the houses averaging $17.3 million each, say that Ohtani and Balelo also tried to undermine their interests in a second, neighboring venture.

A spokesman for Balelo’s agency, CAA Baseball, declined comment. Attempts to reach Kingsbarn officials for comment were not immediately successful.

“This case is about abuse of power,” the lawsuit says. “Defendants used threats and baseless legal claims to force a business partner to betray its contractual obligations and strip Plaintiffs of the very project they conceived and built.

“Defendants must be held accountable for their actions, not shielded by fame or behind-the-scenes agents acting with impunity. Plaintiffs bring this suit to expose Defendants’ misconduct and to ensure that the rules of contract, fair dealing, and accountability apply equally to all — celebrity or not.”

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, left, speaks with his agent, Nez Balelo, while attending a game between the Rams and New Orleans Saints at SoFi Stadium in December 2023.

(Ryan Sun / Associated Press)

Ohtani, 31, arrived from Japan in 2018 as perhaps the most heralded international star in baseball history, with an ability to both pitch and hit that made him doubly valuable to his team. A five-time All-Star and three-time most valuable player, he signed a record 10-year, $700-million contract with the Dodgers before last season and helped the team win the 2024 World Series.

Investment materials for The Vista at Mauna Kea Resort, which remained online on Monday night, listed Hayes and Matsumoto as part of the management team, along with Kingsbarn. It called Ohtani “Japan’s Babe Ruth” and the “1st Resident,” giving him top billing ahead of the iconic Mauna Kea Resort, “one of the most celebrated hotels in Hawaii,” Hapuna Beach, “rated the #1 beach in America by Conde Nast Traveler” and two golf courses — one designed by Arnold Palmer, the other by Robert Trent Jones Sr.

“Ohtani will act as the celebrity spokesperson for the project and has committed to purchasing one of the 14 residences within the project,” the brochure says. “He also intends to spend significant time at The Vista in the off-season and will construct a small hitting and pitching facility for preseason training.”

The suit says the developers spent 11 years working on the deal and “as part of a bold marketing strategy” signed an endorsement deal in 2023 with Ohtani, “one of the most high-profile endorsements imaginable.”

“This partnership with Ohtani will elevate the demand and create buzz within the Japanese luxury vacation home market, which is a primary target audience for the project,” the investment brochure said. “We see Shohei Ohtani’s homeownership as having a significant impact on the global exposure of the project and expect to accelerate the pace of sales, thereby helping us achieve our pricing objectives.”

The suit said Balelo “quickly became a disruptive force,” threatening to pull Ohtani from the deal if concessions weren’t made.

“Kingsbarn began capitulating to Balelo’s every whim,” the suit said. “Over time, it became increasingly obvious that Kingsbarn was more concerned about preserving its relationship with [Ohtani] than honoring its obligations to its business partners.”

Last month, in what the suit called “a coordinated ambush,” Kingsbarn fired Hayes and Matsumoto.

“Kingsbarn openly admitted during the call that Balelo had demanded the terminations and that they were being done solely to placate him,” the suit said. “Plaintiffs stand to lose millions of dollars in compensation tied to projected homebuilding profit, construction management fees, and broker commissions.”

Golen writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Appellate court judges expressed broad skepticism Thursday over President Trump’s legal rationale for his most expansive round of tariffs.

Members of the 11-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington appeared unconvinced by the Trump administration’s insistence that the president could impose tariffs without congressional approval, and it hammered its invocation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to do so.

“IEEPA doesn’t even mention the word ‘tariffs’ anywhere,” Circuit Judge Jimmie Reyna said in a sign of the panel’s incredulity at a government attorney’s arguments.

Brett Schumate, the attorney representing the Trump administration, acknowledged in the 99-minute hearing “no president has ever read IEEPA this way” but contended it was nonetheless lawful.

The 1977 law, signed by President Carter, allows the president to seize assets and block transactions during a national emergency. It was first used during the Iran hostage crisis and has since been invoked for a range of global unrest, from the 9/11 attacks to the Syrian civil war.

Trump says the country’s trade deficit is so serious that it likewise qualifies for the law’s protection.

In sharp exchanges with Schumate, appellate judges questioned that contention, asking whether the law extended to tariffs at all and, if so, whether the levies matched the threat the administration identified.

“If the president says there’s a problem with our military readiness,” Chief Circuit Judge Kimberly Moore posited, “and he puts a 20% tax on coffee, that doesn’t seem to necessarily deal with [it].”

Schumate said Congress’ passage of IEEPA gave the president “broad and flexible” power to respond to an emergency, but that “the president is not asking for unbounded authority.”

But an attorney for the plaintiffs, Neal Katyal, characterized Trump’s maneuver as a “breathtaking” power grab that amounted to saying “the president can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants so long as he declares an emergency.”

No ruling was issued from the bench. Regardless of what decision the judges’ deliberations bring, the case is widely expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump weighed in on the case on his Truth Social platform, posting: “To all of my great lawyers who have fought so hard to save our Country, good luck in America’s big case today. If our Country was not able to protect itself by using TARIFFS AGAINST TARIFFS, WE WOULD BE “DEAD,” WITH NO CHANCE OF SURVIVAL OR SUCCESS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’’

In filings in the case, the Trump administration insists that “a national emergency exists” necessitating its trade policy. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade, a specialized federal court in New York, was unconvinced, ruling in May that Trump exceeded his powers.

The issue now rests with the appeals judges.

The challenge strikes at just one batch of import taxes from an administration that has unleashed a bevy of them and could be poised to unveil more on Friday.

The case centers on Trump’s so-called Liberation Day tariffs of April 2 that imposed new levies on nearly every country. But it doesn’t cover other tariffs, including those on foreign steel, aluminum and autos, nor ones imposed on China during Trump’s first term and continued by President Biden.

The case is one of at least seven lawsuits charging that Trump overstepped his authority through the use of tariffs on other nations. The plaintiffs include 12 U.S. states and five businesses, including a wine importer, a company selling pipes and plumbing goods, and a maker of fishing gear.

The U.S. Constitution gives the Congress the authority to impose taxes — including tariffs — but over decades lawmakers have ceded power over trade policy to the White House.

Trump has made the most of the power vacuum, raising the average U.S. tariff to more than 18%, the highest rate since 1934, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University.

Wiseman and Sedensky write for the Associated Press. Sedensky reported from New York.

Cardi B’s infamous microphone-throw incident is being raised again, almost two years after it took place in Las Vegas.

An Ohio woman is suing the 32-year-old “Bodak Yellow” rapper, claiming battery, assault and negligence. The owners of Drai’s Beachclub and Nightclub, where the incident took place on July 29, 2023, are also being sued for negligence. The suit was filed days before the statute of limitations in Nevada for such charges ran out.

According to court documents filed in Clark County on Monday, the plaintiff — who chose to go by Jane Doe because of “psychiatric trauma” — alleges that during Cardi B’s performance, she encouraged the audience to “splash water on her” amid “visibly high-temperature conditions.” Though she initially approved, allegedly pouring water on herself and stating “Wooh that s— feel good,” it was when the plaintiff partook that the rapper abruptly and “forcefully” threw her microphone.

The object is said to have hit Jane Doe, with Cardi B shouting “I said splash my p—, not my face, b—.” Documents called it an “unreasonable escalation” that resulted in “harmful and offensive contact.” Though the deed was investigated by police at the time, the rapper was not charged. Representatives for Cardi B did not immediately respond on Thursday to The Times’ request for comment.

Just weeks later the microphone was auctioned on eBay and fetched $99,000. It is a key part of the case, as Jane Doe claims the sale “exacerbated emotional distress.” At the time, sellers told TMZ that the money would be given to two charities — the Wounded Warrior Project and Friendship Circle Las Vegas, a local program that helps individuals with special needs.

The plaintiff is seeking damages up to $15,000 for alleged physical and emotional injuries, as well as reputational harm.

Florida’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the state’s congressional redistricting map, rejecting a challenge over the elimination of a majority-Black district in north Florida that was pushed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The court, dominated by DeSantis appointees, ruled that restoration of the district that previously united Black communities from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee, or across 200 miles, would amount to impermissible racial gerrymandering. That, the majority ruled, violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees.

“The record leaves no doubt that such a district would be race-predominant. The record also gives us no reasonable basis to think that further litigation would uncover a potentially viable remedy,” said Chief Justice Carlos Muniz in the court’s majority opinion.

The decision means Florida’s current congressional districts that give Republicans a 20-8 advantage over Democrats will remain in place for the 2026 midterm elections and beyond. The former north Florida district was most recently represented by a Black Democrat, former Rep. Al Lawson. The new districts divide that area among three Republicans.

A panel of three federal judges previously upheld the current congressional districts.

“This was always the constitutionally correct map — and now both the federal courts and the FL Supreme Court have upheld it,” DeSantis said on X.

One of the plaintiffs, the National Redistricting Foundation, called the new ruling “alarming” because it “diminishes the voting power of Black Floridians” by upholding the GOP-drawn map.

“The court is abandoning the most basic role of the judiciary: to provide justice for the people,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the foundation.

Earlier redistricting efforts by the state Legislature included versions of the north Florida district that preserved Black voting power. But after a veto by DeSantis, the governor pushed through the current map that eliminated it.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said one problem for the plaintiffs was they did not propose a viable alternative map but only pointed out potential problems with the current one.

“It is not enough in the redistricting context for challengers to identify a flaw in an enacted districting plan and demand that the court send the Legislature back to the drawing board,” the decision said.

Justice Jorge Labarga was the lone dissenter, contending the lawsuit should be sent back to a lower court for further proceedings to allow the challengers a chance to produce different districts.

“By foreclosing further litigation, the majority’s decision now allows to remain in place a congressional redistricting plan that is unconstitutional under the Florida Constitution,” Labarga wrote.

Anderson writes for the Associated Press.

BOSTON — Plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s campaign of arresting and deporting college faculty and students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations spent the first few days of the trial showing how the crackdown silenced scholars and targeted more than 5,000 protesters.

The lawsuit, filed by several university associations, is one of the first against President Trump and members of his administration to go to trial. Plaintiffs want U.S. District Judge William Young to rule that the policy violates the 1st Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

The government argues that no such policy exists and that it is enforcing immigration laws legally to protect national security.

Investigating protesters

One of the key witnesses was Peter Hatch, who works for the Homeland Security Investigations unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Over two days of testimony, Hatch told the court a “Tiger Team” was formed in March — after two executive orders that addressed terrorism and combating antisemitism — to investigate people who took part in the protests.

Hatch said the team received as many as 5,000 names of protesters and wrote reports on about 200 who had potentially violated U.S. law. The reports, several of which were shown in court Thursday, included biographical information, criminal history, travel history and affiliations with pro-Palestinian groups as well as press clips and social media posts on their activism or allegations of their affiliation with Hamas or other anti-Israel groups.

Until this year, Hatch said, he could not recall a student protester being referred for a visa revocation.

“It was anything that may relate to national security or public safety issues, things like: Were any of the protesters violent or inciting violence? I think that’s a clear, obvious one,” Hatch testified. “Were any of them supporting terrorist organizations? Were any of them involved in obstruction or unlawful activity in the protests?”

Among the report subjects were Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who was released last month after 104 days in federal immigration detention. Khalil has become a symbol of Trump’s clampdown on the protests.

Another was Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was released in May from a Louisiana facility. She spent six weeks in detention after she was arrested while walking on the street of a Boston suburb. She says she was illegally detained following an op-ed she cowrote last year criticizing the school’s response to the war in Gaza.

Hatch also acknowledged that most of the names came from Canary Mission, a group that says it documents people who “promote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.” The right-wing Jewish group Betar was another source, he said.

Hatch said most of the leads were dropped when investigators could not find ties to protests and the investigations were not inspired by a new policy but rather a procedure in place at least since he took the job in 2019.

What is Canary Mission?

Weeks before Khalil’s arrest, a spokesperson for Betar told the Associated Press that the activist topped a list of foreign students and faculty from nine universities that it submitted to officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who made the decision to revoke Khalil’s visa.

The Department of Homeland Security said at the time that it was not working with Betar and refused to answer questions about how it was treating reports from outside groups.

In March, speculation grew that administration officials were using Canary Mission to identify and target student protesters. That’s when immigration agents arrested Ozturk.

Canary Mission has denied working with administration officials, while noting speculation that its reports led to that arrest and others.

While Canary Mission prides itself on outing anyone it labels as antisemitic, its leaders refuse to identify themselves and its operations are secretive. News reports and tax filings have linked the site to a nonprofit based in the central Israeli city of Beit Shemesh. But journalists who have visited the group’s address, listed in documents filed with Israeli authorities, have found a locked and seemingly empty building.

In recent years, news organizations have reported that several wealthy Jewish Americans made cash contributions to support Canary Mission, disclosed in tax paperwork filed by their personal foundations. But most of the group’s funding remains opaque, funneled through a New York-based fund that acts as a conduit for Israeli causes.

Were student protesters targeted?

Attorneys for the plaintiffs pressed a State Department official Friday over whether protests were grounds for revoking a student’s visa, repeatedly invoking several cables issued in response to Trump’s executive orders as examples of policy guidance.

But Maureen Smith, a senior advisor in the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, said protest alone wasn’t a critical factor. She wasn’t asked specifically about pro-Palestinian protests.

“It’s a bit of a hypothetical question. We would need to look at all the facts of the case,” she said. “If it were a visa holder who engages in violent activity, whether it’s during a protest or not — if they were arrested for violent activity — that is something we would consider for possible visa revocation.”

Smith also said she didn’t think a student taking part in a nonviolent protest would be a problem but said it would be seen in a “negative light” if the protesters supported terrorism. She wasn’t asked to define what qualified as terrorism nor did she provide examples of what that would include.

Scholars scared by the crackdown

The trial opened with Megan Hyska, a green card holder from Canada who is a philosophy professor at Northwestern University, detailing how efforts to deport Khalil and Ozturk prompted her to scale back her activism, which had included supporting student encampments and protesting in support of Palestinians.

“It became apparent to me, after I became aware of a couple of high-profile detentions of political activists, that my engaging in public political dissent would potentially endanger my immigration status,” Hyska said.

Nadje Al-Ali, a green card holder from Germany and professor at Brown University, said that after the arrests of Khalil and Ozturk, she canceled a planned research trip and a fellowship to Iraq and Lebanon, fearing that “stamps from those two countries would raise red flags” upon her return. She also declined to take part in anti-Trump protests and dropped plans to write an article that was to be a feminist critique of Hamas.

“I felt it was too risky,” Al-Ali said.

Casey writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Adam Geller in New York contributed to this report.

CONCORD, N.H. — A federal judge in New Hampshire said Thursday he will certify a class action lawsuit including all children who will be affected by President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship and issue a preliminary injunction blocking it.

Judge Joseph LaPlante announced his decision after an hour-long hearing and said a written order will follow. The order will include a seven-day stay to allow for appeal, he said.

The class is slightly narrower than that sought by the plaintiffs, who originally included parents as plaintiffs.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a pregnant woman, two parents and their infants. It’s among numerous cases challenging Trump’s January order denying citizenship to those born to parents living in the U.S. illegally or temporarily. The plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and others.

At issue is the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The Trump administration says the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means the U.S. can deny citizenship to babies born to women in the country illegally, ending what has been seen as an intrinsic part of U.S. law for more than a century.

“Prior misimpressions of the citizenship clause have created a perverse incentive for illegal immigration that has negatively impacted this country’s sovereignty, national security, and economic stability,” government lawyers wrote in the New Hampshire case.

LaPlante, who had issued a narrow injunction in a similar case, said while he didn’t consider the government’s arguments frivolous, he found them unpersuasive. He said his decision to issue an injunction was “not a close call” and that deprivation of U.S. citizenship clearly amounted to irreparable harm.

Cody Wofsy, an attorney for the plaintiffs, and his team have been inundated by families who are confused and fearful about the executive order, he said. Thursday’s ruling “is going to protect every single child around the country from this lawless, unconstitutional and cruel executive order,” he said.

Several federal judges had issued nationwide injunctions stopping Trump’s order from taking effect, but the U.S. Supreme Court limited those injunctions in a June 27 ruling that gave lower courts 30 days to act. With that time frame in mind, opponents of the change quickly returned to court to try to block it.

In a Washington state case before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges have asked the parties to write briefs explaining the effect of the Supreme Court’s ruling. Washington and the other states in that lawsuit have asked the appeals court to return the case to the lower court judge.

As in New Hampshire, a plaintiff in Maryland seeks to organize a class-action lawsuit that includes every person who would be affected by the order. The judge set a Wednesday deadline for written legal arguments as she considers the request for another nationwide injunction from CASA, a nonprofit immigrant rights organization.

Ama Frimpong, legal director at CASA, said the group has been stressing to its members and clients that it is not time to panic.

“No one has to move states right this instant,” she said. “There’s different avenues through which we are all fighting, again, to make sure that this executive order never actually sees the light of day.”

The New Hampshire plaintiffs, referred to only by pseudonyms, include a woman from Honduras who has a pending asylum application and is due to give birth to her fourth child in October. She told the court the family came to the U.S. after being targeted by gangs.

“I do not want my child to live in fear and hiding. I do not want my child to be a target for immigration enforcement,” she wrote. “I fear our family could be at risk of separation.”

Another plaintiff, a man from Brazil, has lived with his wife in Florida for five years. Their first child was born in March, and they are in the process of applying for lawful permanent status based on family ties — his wife’s father is a U.S. citizen.

“My baby has the right to citizenship and a future in the United States,” he wrote.

Ramer and Catalini write for the Associated Press. Catalini reported from Trenton, N.J.