More allegations of sexual abuse emerge from Oregon’s juvenile detention system

Note: This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse. If you or someone you know may be a victim of sexual abuse, confidential support, information and advice are available at the National Sexual Assault Hotline by calling 800-656-4673. Text chat is also available online.

New allegations of staff at the Oregon Youth Authority sexually abusing teens and young adults in custody emerged in a series of federal civil rights lawsuits filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

The latest allegations bring the number of young people who say they were sexually abused while in the care of Oregon’s juvenile detention system from three to six.

Youth convicted of serious crimes before they’re 18 years old serve sentences at Oregon Youth Authority facilities. The agency can incarcerate children as young as 12 and can hold them until they turn 24 years old. Some are later transferred to the state’s prison system.

According to the lawsuits, the abuse occurred between 2019 and 2023 at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn and Oak Creek Youth Correctional Facility in Albany.

The series of lawsuits identify four former staff with sexual abuse, while 11 others are named for either failing to report or prevent the abuse.

“I would consider this widespread sexual abuse,” Norah Van Dusen, one of the attorneys representing the six who sued Oregon’s juvenile detention agency, told OPB.

“I do not think these are isolated incidents. This looks, by all accounts to us, as being the tip of the iceberg.”

So far, two of the former Oregon Youth Authority employees named in the civil rights lawsuits have also been charged criminally. Even in cases where people in custody are legally adults, it’s against the law for staff who work in carceral settings to have relationships with people in custody. This is partly because of the power dynamic guards and other staff have over people charged or convicted of crimes.

Van Dusen said all six cases she’s working on have been referred to law enforcement agencies, but said she’s not aware of the status of the other criminal investigations.

Will Howell, a spokesperson for the Oregon Youth Authority, said the alleged conduct is “completely against our values and commitments” to youth in custody.

“We will continue to offer multiple avenues for our youth to report violations, and to encourage reporting,” Howell wrote in a statement. “We will continue to swiftly investigate, and take decisive action when individuals undermine our work.”

One former security employee, Travis Craft, who is named in one of the civil lawsuits filed Wednesday, was arrested a week ago. Craft was indicted by a Linn County grand jury in July. He’s charged with three counts of custodial sexual misconduct — a felony — as well as four misdemeanors, including attempted sexual abuse.

“I don’t have a comment,” Craft told OPB on Wednesday. His attorney did not immediately return a request for comment.

A.G., who is identified in court documents by her initials, says in 2021 she was groomed and later sexually abused by Craft at the Oak Creek Youth Correctional Facility in Albany. She was 17 years old when she arrived at the facility in 2018. Craft began working as a “group life coordinator” and part of the security staff in 2021 and began to engage A.G. in “inappropriate sexual conversations” that the lawsuit alleges were designed to groom her for a sexual relationship.

“We talked about sexual kinks, and things that he was into and things that I was into and he told me a lot of really personal information about his home life and his affairs with other women,” A.G. told OPB. “It wasn’t attention I was used to getting.”

A.G. said the culture normalizes close relationships between staff and the youth being held there, making it easier for abuse like this to happen.

“It’s really expected for you to be close with at least one staff there,” she said.

According to the lawsuit and A.G.’s interview with OPB, after several months, Craft kissed A.G. and on another occasion “removed his penis from his pants, pushed [A.G.] to her knees and made her perform oral sex on him.”

It occurred at least two more times over the course of four months. A.G. said a friend later reported the incident, but she denied it. She said it took her years to realize she was abused and later reported the incident herself after she left Oak Creek.

“I don’t want any of the 14, 15, 16-year-old girls and boys that are getting locked up to deal with people taking advantage of their naivete,” A.G. told OPB. “I want people to acknowledge that this is a big enough issue and actually try and do something about it.”

Another former Oregon Youth Authority social worker, Emily Echtenkamp, is named in three of the civil rights lawsuits, and was also arrested and charged with custodial sexual misconduct in December.

According to the lawsuits, Echtenkamp “targeted” two teens who she knew were already victims of childhood sexual abuse identified in lawsuits refiled Wednesday by their initials A.A. and S.Q.

Two other former staff members, Amira Andrade and Cherie MacDougall, were also accused in the lawsuits of sexual abuse.

According to one of the complaints, MacDougall allegedly told 21-year-old D.H. “You know what I can do to you,” which he understood to mean she would “get him in trouble if he told anyone about the sexual abuse.” He believed that could potentially result in a significantly longer sentence.

A separate complaint alleges MacDougall had a sexual relationship with O.G. when he was 15 years old, living in a unit at MacLaren for youth struggling with substance use. MacDougall “plied [O.G.] with drugs despite knowing ... that he needed to demonstrate sobriety in order to earn parole,” the lawsuit said. O.G. began failing drug tests, repeatedly extending his sentence.

The lawsuits also fault numerous supervisors and colleagues, who were allegedly aware of numerous sexual relationships as well as the vulnerability of the youth in their care.