A series of lawsuits accuses a now-deceased former San Mateo County probation officer of sexually abusing boys in the county's juvenile hall from from 1990s to the early 2000s. (Pauline Lubens/Bay Area News Group archives)
A Bay Area probation officer sexually abused children under his care for years, according to 11 lawsuits that allege San Mateo County officials knew about the abuse but failed to stop it.
John Domeniconi, who died in 2020 four years after retiring, allegedly forced the children into numerous sex acts, according to the lawsuits filed in San Mateo County Superior Court.
The sexual abuse occurred mostly between 1994 and 2002, the lawsuits claim, during false pretenses for strip searches and showers. The victims described in the lawsuits were boys who had been detained in the county’s juvenile hall. The lawsuits were filed separately over the course of several weeks, but in late January, they were bundled together by the court to be handled by a single judge, Nancy Fineman.
Domeniconi is alleged to have used both rewards and threats to force the kids to comply, the lawsuits say. Rewards described in court documents included candy, dessert or cheeseburgers, as well as a promise not to punish the boys for violating various rules at the juvenile hall. Other times, the probation officer threatened the boys to cooperate or risk being sent to the state’s youth prison system, lawyers allege.
Several of the lawsuits report that either the alleged abuse victims or their parents reported Domeniconi’s abuse to the county, but that their complaints were ignored.
A spokesperson for San Mateo County, Michelle Durand, said in an email the county is investigating the allegations, but noted that it is “challenging because they relate to events largely occurring approximately 30 years ago.” But she did deny the allegations that the county ignored the abuse: “Any suggestion that the county was aware that juvenile detainees were being sexually assaulted and failed to take action is false.”
Durand said the plaintiffs’ original complaints “named Domeniconi as a defendant and made allegations against him personally, but later corrected the error when we informed them he died in 2020.” One allegation “involves alleged activity between 2018 and 2020,” she said, but noted how “Domeniconi retired in 2016.”
Joseph Goethals, the attorney representing the 11 plaintiffs in the lawsuits filed in December and January, said his team is working to clarify the dates of that abuse but that it happened when Domeniconi was overseeing adults on probation toward the end of his career with the county.
Goethals said the county did not uphold its duty to keep the children from being harmed during the time they were under the care of the probation department.
“The county is responsible for hiring, training, supervising, and investigating all of their employees in order to properly protect children from sexual abuse,” Goethals said.
The majority of the lawsuits mainly describe minors in custody as the victims, but one case involves a man who was an adult on probation during the last few years of Domeniconi’s career as a probation officer. In that case, Domeniconi allegedly threatened the man with a probation violation if he did not perform sexual acts.
Members of the San Mateo County Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Commission — comprised of volunteers who monitor conditions in the county’s juvenile detention facilities and report to the Superior Court and county Board of Supervisors — said they learned of the allegations from the lawsuit and they are conducting a review of current policies and practices to ensure there are no ongoing threats.
“The intent of the committee is to focus on the future and how do we make sure this isn’t going to happen again,” said Monroe Labouisse, the current chair of the commission.
Durand, the county spokesperson, said there are currently numerous ways that minors in custody can report complaints. She said complaints of criminal activity are referred to law enforcement agencies, and non-criminal misconduct is investigated by an internal affairs department.
The San Mateo County lawsuits follow a 2020 state law that opened a rare three-year window for survivors to sue perpetrators for sexual abuse that may have taken place decades ago. The law effectively paused California’s statute of limitations, enabling suits for civil damages to be filed. Even after that window closed at the end of 2022, survivors can file civil suits if they are under 40 years old, or if it has been within five years since they discovered the psychological effects they’ve suffered from sexual abuse.
Los Angeles County has a similar but more large-scale case underway. To date, lawyers for nearly 300 boys and girls detained at the county’s facilities and camps over the last three decades allege they were sexually abused by numerous probation department employees.
San Mateo County has had a troubled past when it comes to sex crimes within juvenile probation. In 2013, the former head of the probation department, Stuart Forrest, was convicted of child pornography possession charges. The same year, Dr. William Ayres — the former president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry — was sentenced to prison for molesting children for years under the guise of physical exams. Many of the boys had been referred to his office by local schools and the county’s juvenile probation system. Ayres died in prison in 2016.
The current lawsuits seek damages for Domeniconi’s alleged victims, who have suffered severe psychological problems from their abuse, according to the court filings. But Goethals also urges the need for policies and practices that will prevent such abuse.
“I know that the majority of probation officers do a great job to protect children,” he said. “But it’s not enough for the majority of them to do their job and do it well — we have to be training and investigating well for the one or two individuals who may really be traumatizing children.”
This story is being co-published with The Imprint, a national nonprofit news outlet covering child welfare and youth justice.
Originally published at Annie Sciacca