Three more federal civil rights lawsuits were filed against Oregon Youth Authority staff Sept. 18, alleging three different employees groomed and sexually abused youth and young adults who were in custody.

The latest litigation brings the total to six lawsuits filed against the Oregon Youth Authority this year. The suits also accuse supervisors of failing to intervene and report the sexual abuse.

Custodial sexual misconduct charges are pending in Marion and Linn counties against two of the former Oregon Youth Authority staff named in the suits.

A lawyer from Oregon Justice Resource Center’s Youth Justice Project is calling for an ombudsperson to oversee the state’s youth correctional facilities to ensure youth are not subjected to “predatory behavior” by staff.

Oregon Youth Authority spokesperson Will Howell said the conduct alleged “runs completely against our values and commitments to our youth.”

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

In one suit, a female plaintiff identified as A.G. alleges a security staff member, Travis Craft, who worked at Oak Creek Youth Correctional Facility in Albany, groomed the 20-year-old for sex in early 2021. Over the course of four months that year, Craft had “coercive sexual encounters,” with the 20-year-old at the juvenile facility, the suit alleges.

Craft began working in her living unit that year and started inappropriate sexual conversations with her, brought her gifts to gain her trust and then kissed her, the suit said. He then had her meet him in an office in the medical clinic that lacked any security cameras and had her perform oral sex, the suit said.

In another suit, a plaintiff identified as D.H. alleges that Cherie MacDougall, then a staff member at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility, started grooming him for sex when he was 21 years old in 2022. The suit alleges that MacDougall engaged in “coercive sexual relations” with D.H. on at least 20 occasions during a four-month period in 2022.

MacDougall worked as a group life coordinator on D.H.’s living unit called Haystack, reserved for youth who struggle with substance abuse.

MacDougall brought marijuana “dab” pens and cellphones to D.H., when he was 18, shared details of her personal life with him and in late April 2022, fondled his penis while in the kitchen of the Haystack living unit, the suit alleges. A few days later, she approached D.H. again in the kitchen and had sex with him there, the suit alleges.

She threatened D.H. that if he ever told anyone, “you know what I can do to you,” according to the suit. She also sent him nude photos of herself on the cellphone she smuggled into the facility for him and arranged to meet him for sex in a bathroom in the administrative and vocational buildings , the suit says. She sexually abused him at least 20 times over four months, the suit alleges. D.H. is set to be released from custody shortly, according to his lawyers.

In another suit, a plaintiff identified as O.G. also was assigned to MacLaren’s Haystack unit, where MacDougall is alleged to have started grooming the 15-year-old for sex by smuggling him marijuana pens in custody, even though he was in that unit to get treatment for his substance abuse. Over the course of a year, MacDougall had sexual contact with O.G. multiple times, the suit alleges.

O.G.’s custody at MacLaren was repeatedly extended because he kept failing his mandated drug tests due to the marijuana MacDougall kept supplying him, the suit alleges.

The suits allege Joseph O’Leary, director of Oregon Youth Authority, and Dan Berger, superintendent of MacLaren, were both aware that Oregon Youth Authority had a long history of “turning a blind eye to reports of staff sexually abusing youth at its facilities by failing to investigate reports of abuse, failing to properly train staff, and failing to institute or properly implement policies that would protect youth from sexual abuse by staff.”

The suits also allege that Berger failed to appoint a manager to ensure staff compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, as required for juvenile facilities.

The suits are filed by the same law firms, Levi Merrithew Horst in Portland and the Seattle-based firm Schroeter, Goldmark & Bender.

“It’s our mission to fight for those who have been victimized by a system meant to protect them. We aim to hold the OYA accountable for their failures so that going forward, these youth can focus on rehabilitation without being subject to exploitation and harm,” said Norah Van Dusen, one of the lawyers who filed the suits.

Echtenkamp, of Wilsonville, and Craft, of Albany, now face criminal charges.

Craft, 37, was indicted in July in Linn County on seven counts, including three counts of first-degree custodial sexual misconduct, two counts of second-degree custodial sexual misconduct, and one count each of attempted custodial sexual misconduct and attempted sexual abuse stemming from conduct alleged to have occurred between March and the end of August 2021.

He was arrested Sept. 11, pleaded not guilty to the charges and posted 10%, or $1,000, of his $10,000 bail the next day and was released from jail, according to Linn County Circuit Court records.

Echtenkamp, 34, was indicted in December in Marion County on seven counts charging her with five counts of first-degree custodial sexual misconduct, one count of first-degree official misconduct and initiating a false report. The alleged sexual abuse occurred in September 2021 through April 2022, the indictment alleges.

Echtenkamp has pleaded not guilty to the charges. She posted $2,000, or 10%, of her $20,000 bond, and was released pending trial.

MacDougall no longer works at Oregon Youth Authority and has not been charged with any crime.

All three staffers resigned while under investigation, according to Howell. Echtenkamp resigned in May 2022, while under investigation. Craft resigned in June 2022, and MacDougall resigned in May 2023, according to agency records.

Attorney Thaddeus Betz, director of Oregon Justice Resource Center’s Youth Justice Project, called for an ombudsperson position to oversee the state’s youth correctional facilities to ensure youth are not subjected to “predatory behavior” by staff. He said he will urge state lawmakers in the upcoming session to take that step to “protect youth from further harm.”

“Our state constitution requires that people in custody are protected from unnecessary punishment, and that rehabilitation is part of the goal of their sentence. The treatment of the plaintiffs in these lawsuits runs counter to these aims,” he said in a statement. “Rather than helping youth work toward rehabilitation and healing, staff instead sought to gratify their own selfish desires, and leadership did not ensure that youth in custody were safe.”

Three of Oregon Youth Authority’s nine facilities are audited by an independent contractor every year to ensure they comply with the Prison Rape Elimination Act, Howell said. He said the facilities have a “100% success rate” in the last two years.

Yet in the last audit of MacLaren done in 2022, it was out of compliance due to inadequate staffing and video monitoring. The audit said state lawmakers must either increase staff or reduce the number of residents served. While some progress had been made toward reducing the number of youth per supervisor, the audit found that one supervisor could be responsible for up to 20 youth during sleeping hours, compared to the daytime ratio of one supervisor per 10 youth.

According to an agency Prison Rape Elimination Act compliance report in 2022, 35 new cameras were installed at MacLaren and 12 new cameras were installed in the Oak Creek Youth Correctional Facility to ensure they increased “line-of-sight supervision and enhanced ability to protect residents from sexual abuse.”