SUIT: YOUTHS HELD ILLEGALLY COUNTY HIT BY WRONGFUL DETENTION ALLEGATION.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Only a few months after Los Angeles County agreed to a record $27 million settlement for holding adults in jail too long, a class-action lawsuit was filed Wednesday accusing the county of unlawfully holding at least 19 foster youths in juvenile detention facilities for days or weeks after judges ordered them released.

The lawsuit alleges the county illegally detained the youths from two to 19 days after judges ordered their release. In some cases, the youths were strip-searched at the juvenile detention facilities.

``I think it's horribly sad,'' said Manhattan Beach attorney Sanford Jossen, who filed the lawsuit seeking unspecified damages. ``And - putting myself in the position of some of these kids - it must be incredibly frightening, especially to remain incarcerated after a judge ordered them released.

``How could they not feel completely helpless and demoralized? I think our community should and can do better by these kids.''

In August, the Board of Supervisors approved a record $27 million settlement with up to 400,000 former county jail inmates who were held beyond their release dates and improperly strip-searched.

The suit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court alleges the teen-agers' cases occurred in 2000 and 2001, with the most recent incident last August, at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, Central Juvenile Hall near Boyle Heights and Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar.

In recent months, county officials have acknowledged that the problem has occurred for years in juvenile halls. But officials said Wednesday the problem has all but disappeared since new procedures were adopted last autumn.

Chief Probation Officer Richard Shumsky said he and child welfare director Anita Bock agreed in October on a system that notifies child welfare officials of children who need to be returned to foster homes. If a social worker doesn't pick up the child, a county Probation Department van takes the child home.

``We think it's working out very well,'' Shumsky said. ``Initially, there was one child overdetained, but since then I don't think there has been any. That youngster was released the next morning.''

According to the lawsuit, a 14-year-old boy remained incarcerated for 19 days in a juvenile hall after a judge dismissed the case against him. The teen-ager's social worker did not arrange to have him transferred out of the facility.

The county Probation Department ``has the authority to strip-search minors incarcerated in juvenile hall,'' Jossen said. ``The problem is these kids were ordered released. They shouldn't have been there and shouldn't have been subjected to a strip-search.''

County officials in recent months conceded the problem of false imprisonment of foster children stemmed from a lack of coordination between the county's Probation Department, which runs juvenile halls, and the Department of Children and Family Services, which cares for abused and neglected children and employs social workers to help them.

``It's not a secret this has been an issue,'' Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Michael Nash said.