The 23-year-old sued Evolutions Treatments Center on counts of negligence and negligent safety, claiming its employees didn’t take motion to stop the assault regardless of his warnings that he was being threatened with violence.
Prior the assault, when the plaintiff instructed the scientific director that he was fearful of his roommates, she suggested him “to make use of coping abilities and deep respiration,” he claims.
According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff started residing at Evolutions’ Fort Lauderdale facility in September 2019 and was housed with 5 different males. He says he raised considerations to employees over the 2 unhinged roommates’ habits, which included bullying, harassment, and threats of violence. One of the roommates concerned within the assault had instructed the person in a gaggle assembly that he was “going to smack the shit out of” him, the lawsuit alleges.
“Had [the] employees reacted to plaintiff’s a number of complaints, the traumatic occasions would have been prevented,” the lawsuit states. “This bodily and sexual assault was foreseeable and preventable given the ample discover defendant had of plaintiff’s considerations about his attackers.”
The alleged assault occurred on December 18, three months into the person’s keep. The lawsuit alleges that when the sufferer entered his bed room, the 2 roommates “emerged from hiding behind the door,” and stated, “What’s up, motherfucker?” They accused of him of stealing a battery charger and boxers earlier than commencing the assault, the plaintiff says.
The pair grabbed the sufferer, held him down in a headlock, and kicked and punched him till his face beginning bleeding, the lawsuit states. The grievance says the boys then pulled the person’s pants down, “slapped his buttocks, grabbed an extended pipe-like object… and penetrated [his] rectum for no less than one to 2 minutes.”
A 3rd roommate allegedly watched the assault from his mattress and didn’t intervene. The plaintiff claims nobody got here to his assist whereas he was “screaming on the prime of his lungs and begging for the assault to cease.”
The plaintiff acquired remedy at Broward General Hospital earlier than being to transferred to Broward County’s Nancy J. Cotterman Sexual Assault Treatment Center. The facility’s report indicated the person had “ache to his face and anal canal, bruising to [his] face on bilateral cheeks and nostril,” and bruises and abrasions on his physique together with a laceration on his anus, in line with the courtroom paperwork.
One witness allegedly instructed the Fort Lauderdale Police Department that one of many assailants stated he was going to “‘beat the fuck of out of’ and ‘rape’ [the] plaintiff” about ten minutes previous to the assault. Another witness stated he heard the sufferer’s screams and assumed he was being assaulted, in line with the grievance.
TLC Recovery Center of South Florida, doing enterprise as Evolutions Treatment Center, didn’t reply to New Times‘ requests for remark.
Evolutions, based in 2013, has an inpatient facility in Miami, an outpatient heart in Lauderdale by the Sea, along with its facility in Fort Lauderdale, in line with Evolutions’ web site. The firm supplies habit rehabilitation companies and psychological well being remedy.
Three different former sufferers beforehand sued Evolutions over alleged incidents of sexual misconduct and assault.
In November 2021, two girls sued the substance abuse remedy heart, alleging {that a} behavioral well being technician sexually abused them throughout their stints at a Broward County Evolutions facility in 2017. One lady stated the technician took benefit of his place as her caretaker to sexually abuse her repeatedly over the course of her keep. One of lawsuits alleges {that a} therapist knew in regards to the technician’s “predatory” habits however did not cease him.
Another lady filed a lawsuit towards the corporate this previous July with allegations that she was sexually assaulted on the facility in Miami in March 2021.