The City of Santa Monica, California, announced this week that it will pay nearly $230 million to the victims of former city employee Eric Uller, who allegedly sexually abused at least 229 minors, as part of a lawsuit settlement.
The pattern of abuse attributed to Uller occurred while he was working for the Police Activities League, an after-school program for public school students in the city.
“The settlement represents the City’s best effort to address the pain (of the victims). The actions of this former employee occurred two to three decades ago, and does not represent the exemplary work of our employees and the PAL program today,” the City argued.
Telemundo Noticias reported that many of Uller’s victims were Hispanic minors, some undocumented or with relatives in an irregular immigration situation.
Uller was found dead in her apartment in November 2018, in an apparent suicide. At the time, she was out on bail for various child molestation charges against her.
Uller, who was 50 years old when he died, faced accusations of abusing minors between the ages of 12 and 16 at the entity where he had volunteered since 1986. The investigation was led by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
Several of those affected and their families accused municipal officials of failures in the investigation and of ignoring the victims’ complaints for years.
In light of the controversy, the City retained an outside firm to review the allegations in a separate motion to that made for criminal allegations.
In previous interviews, the then-Santa Monica police chief and the league president have denied the allegations against Uller. For his part, lawyer Brian Claypool maintains that it is impossible for anyone to know what was happening. “We want to know why no one in the city of Santa Monica conducted an investigation of Eric Uller before 2019. There are several reports of Eric Uller abusing minor youth in the Santa Monica PAL in the 1990s, but not a single Police Department investigation. Santa Monica,” Claypool said.
The City said it created a child protection committee and hired a special officer to oversee youth programs. In addition, it was determined to update the research of volunteers of these initiatives.