A settlement has been reached between the Florida Keys Children’s Shelter, two other Monroe County nonprofits, and a 17-year-old girl who was sold into sex trafficking after the agencies failed to protect her, according to the lawsuit. Additionally, Our Kids of Miami/Monroe and Wesley House Family Services was also “named in the suit” that was filed by the girl back in March of 2016 in U.S. District Court in Miami.
A settlement has been reached between the Florida Keys Children’s Shelter, two other Monroe County nonprofits, and a 17-year-old girl who was sold into sex trafficking after the agencies failed to protect her, according to the lawsuit. Additionally, Our Kids of Miami/Monroe and Wesley House Family Services was also “named in the suit” that was filed by the girl back in March of 2016 in U.S. District Court in Miami.
While details of the settlement have not been made public, it brings an end to a lawsuit that was brought about by a young girl’s horrific experience. With a history of running away from shelters, attorneys for the girl argued that the shelters were dangerous places “that could not protect [her] from harm.” According to the lawsuit, not only did the defendants “ignore and/or deliberately failed to learn of the plethora of red flags, dangers and warning signs that [the teen’s] needs were not being properly assessed and provided for,” but it was an actual staff member of the Florida Keys Children’s Shelter that sold the girl to a trafficking ring in the first place.
In total the girl had to endure 41 days of captivity, during which she was “forced into prostitution and sex with her captors, who threatened to murder her and her family if she tried to escape or refused their orders, forced to take drugs and contracted a sexually transmitted disease,” according to attorneys Stacie Schmerling and Howard Talenfeld.
Unfortunately, the settlement comes mere months after “former shelter mentor Ricky Atkins was sentenced to 32 years in prison for child sex trafficking of two girls who were 15 and 16 the summer of 2014.” Atkins happened to work at the same “Tavernier shelter central to the federal lawsuit,” so it would seem as if that shelter, in particular, has some issues to sort out.
The lawsuit itself was mediated by Rodney Max, who said recently that the suit was mediated “between April 4 and 11.” He also added, “please note that attorneys have done an outstanding job in achieving resolution of this case while representing the best interests of their clients.”
Sources:
Children’s shelter to settle lawsuit over sex trafficking
Children’s shelter didn’t protect girl from sex trafficking, lawsuit says
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