(Editor’s note: This story contains allegations of sexual abuse of children. If you suspect that a child has been abused, call 800-652-1999 or report online.)
A new federal lawsuit, filed Monday, offers a window into an allegedly toxic culture of grooming and abuse at a state-run Kearney youth center. It alleges that employees failed to protect the teen boys there, blamed them, punished them and conducted shoddy investigations.
It’s an environment that allowed a 14-year-old boy to be sexually abused by two state employees in his time there, the suit says. Those two employees and eight others are now targets of the lawsuit.
This is the second known federal civil suit filed in connection with a scandal that has intensified over the last year at the Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Center in Kearney, a landing place for teenage boys in the state’s juvenile justice system when other options are exhausted.
An investigation by the Inspector General of Nebraska Child Welfare earlier this year found that 37 teen boys had made sexual abuse-related allegations against 19 employees, and that the center’s culture had allowed abuse.
While state law makes it nearly impossible to sue the state directly for compensation, federal cases like this are an alternative — but more arduous — route to accountability. The latest lawsuit names individual employees, but the state itself could still be on the hook, according to a statement from Omaha lawyer Keith Dornan.
“Even though you can’t name the State or a State Agency (DHHS) directly (in suits like this) …the State is still responsible for any money judgement arising out of its employees’ actions or inactions that were done under the color of law,” Dornan, who filed the suit, wrote, citing a previous case handled by his firm.
Jeff Powell, spokesperson for DHHS, said the agency was “unable to comment on pending litigation.”
The complaint alleges that YRTC-Kearney had “a culture of sexual abuse, victim blaming, cover-ups, and retaliation” for years, and that it affected many kids there but especially boys like his client, referred to as John Doe in the complaint.
The unnamed boy is Ja’Zavier Martin, who’s now 17 and spoke with the Flatwater Free Press for a previous story. While Flatwater doesn’t typically name victims of sexual abuse, it is naming Ja’Zavier with permission from his mother, Jennifer Martin, who said Ja’Zavier agreed as well.
Jennifer Martin sent statements from herself and her son to Flatwater via text message:
“I understand behavior is how I ended up in YRTC,” Ja’Zavier Martin’s statement reads. “Yet the events surrounding this whole atrocity should never have happened. I had begun to adjust to being there, working my program and trying to get back home. The extra ordeals only created further emotional distress on an already overwhelmed individual. I hope each individual involved receives the punishment garnered from what we all experienced.”
Jennifer Martin said that she never thought she would be told an adult hurt her son in any capacity, let alone state employees while he was in the state’s care.
“It hurt me deeply to know instead of helping my son, a decision was made to abuse my child,” she said.
Martin, 14 years old when the alleged abuse began, filed the lawsuit through his mom. They accuse two former YRTC-Kearney employees, both Youth Program Specialists, of abusing him.
One of the named employees, Martha Ruiz Palacios, pleaded no contest to third-degree sexual assault and contributing to the delinquency of a minor as part of a plea agreement. A judge sentenced her to two years in jail earlier this year.
The complaint filed Monday alleges that Ruiz Palacios groomed and sexually abused Martin for two months starting in summer 2025.
One day, he was allowed to go to a park off site with his mom, and an employee called and asked where they were, according to the complaint. Ruiz Palacios got that location, left her work at the YRTC, found the boy and — while his mom used the bathroom — had sexual contact with him and gave him a vape pen, the complaint alleges. State employees found the vape pen on his return to the YRTC, suspected his mom and searched her vehicle.
As punishment for the contraband, it alleges that employees prolonged his time at the center and sent him to the juvenile equivalent of solitary confinement.
When employees discovered that he and Ruiz Palacios had been seen kissing, the center’s response also fell short, according to the lawsuit: He wasn’t adequately protected nor given appropriate mental health services, it alleges, and DHHS didn’t immediately alert his mom, attorney or probation officer.
It alleges another former employee also groomed and sexually abused the boy, calling him “Daddy,” giving him candy and encouraging him to touch her breasts. She’s also named in the lawsuit filed by another former YRTC-Kearney teen earlier this month.
Prosecutors previously charged the employee with second-degree sexual abuse of a protected person, but recently dropped the charge because they couldn’t find the victim. Prosecutors intend to refile once he’s found.
Flatwater isn’t naming her or other employees in this story who are not facing active criminal charges.
Others named in the lawsuit are the DHHS Office of Juvenile Services program manager, the former leader of YRTC-Kearney, her boss who oversaw all YRTCs, four employees in the center’s compliance department and one unit manager.
The wider culture at the center was “insidious,” it alleges, due to administrators’ “deliberate indifference” and staff who bucked procedures meant to protect the boys confined there.
“From the administrators at the very top of DHHS to the entry-level employees who worked at YRTC-Kearney, each of these defendants had training and procedures that — if followed faithfully — would have prevented nearly all of the tremendous harm done under their watch,” it reads.
Photo by Lori Potter for the Flatwater Free Press
But employees consistently failed to follow federal Prison Rape Elimination Act standards, according to the suit, instead creating their own procedures. Those procedures, it alleges, were “deliberately deficient” and protected employees “to the detriment of the youth in their care.”
Other department failures listed in the suit: failing to properly screen, train or supervise its employees.
Instead of federally required training for interviewing young sexual abuse victims, compliance staff were trained in an oft-criticized technique used to interrogate adult criminal suspects, according to the lawsuit.
When abuse and grooming reports arose, DHHS employees’ investigations were “token, ineffective, and counter-productive,” the complaint reads, and resulted in punishing and isolating victims, who were often not believed and even blamed.
And when they reported allegations to the state’s child abuse and neglect hotline, they often “minimized the veracity of the allegations, discredited the victims,” failed to share sexual abuse had occurred and withheld relevant information, it alleges.
While juvenile public defenders and others raised alarm, DHHS ignored them, according to the lawsuit.
Martin’s lawyers allege that the employees in the suit violated his constitutional rights. The lawsuit asks for a jury trial and compensation.
“Plaintiff has experienced trauma that will haunt him for the rest of his life, and he deserves justice and accountability from those responsible who directly abused him, those who indirectly enabled that abuse through their deliberate indifference, and the State of Nebraska itself for allowing it to happen under its watch,” the complaint reads.
The first lawsuit, filed Oct. 1, targeted several of the same defendants with similar claims.
The number of lawsuits may multiply.
Both Dornan’s firm and Pesek Law, which is working with a national group of trial lawyers on the first lawsuit, are taking YRTC cases at no up-front cost. As of last week, attorney Ross Pesek said one other potential client had contacted his firm. Dornan said his firm has another client, as well, and intends to file that case soon.
