(Editor’s note: This story contains allegations of sexual abuse of children. If you suspect that a child has been abused, call 800-652-1999 or report online.)
A new federal lawsuit, filed Thursday, alleges that seven state employees violated an Omaha teen’s civil rights when he was sexually abused at a state-run youth center. It also alleges that state workers – some of whom are still employed – allowed the abuse to continue and punished the boy for reporting it.
It’s the first known civil suit stemming from a series of sexual abuse allegations at the Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Center in Kearney, one of the last resorts for teenage boys in Nebraska’s juvenile justice system.
The extent of the allegations has come to light gradually, through juvenile court hearings, documents and reporting. The Inspector General of Nebraska Child Welfare eventually found that, in a year, 37 boys made 44 sexual abuse-related allegations against 19 staff members, and that the center’s culture allowed abuse to happen.
The state Department of Health and Human Services ousted the center’s top leader and her boss, who was in charge of all three of the state’s YRTCs. It has made dozens of other changes, too, while denying that systemic problems exist.
Now, the two ousted administrators are among the seven employees facing a federal lawsuit.
In the complaint, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska, the Omaha teen accuses two employees of sexually abusing him while he was in custody at the YRTC in Kearney. He accuses the others — the two administrators and three employees from the YRTC’s compliance department — of dismissing multiple warnings and allowing the abuse to continue.
The former YRTC youth is named in the lawsuit, but the Flatwater Free Press is not naming him in this story because he is an alleged victim of sexual abuse. It is also not naming employees in this story if they do not have active criminal charges.
“This case is about the repeated sexual abuse of children confined at Nebraska’s Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Center in Kearney, the culture that enabled that abuse, and officials who had many opportunities to stop it but utterly failed to protect the children in their care,” the complaint reads.
Department spokesperson Jeff Powell said Thursday that DHHS was “unable to comment on pending litigation.”
Attorneys at Pesek Law in Omaha are partnering with a high-powered national group of trial attorneys — Trial Lawyers for Justice — on the case, bringing in extra firepower for what they expect to be a yearslong battle.
Trial Lawyers for Justice gets involved in complicated cases like this that involve systemic failures of corporations or governments, according to managing partner Jakob Norman. He said he hasn’t seen systematic abuse allegations like these, by multiple people at one facility, in his 23 years as an attorney.
“How many people had the chance to stop this? That’s the shocking part,” Norman said.
This case likely won’t be the last of its kind.
Nebraska law makes it difficult to sue the state for compensation. But an Omaha lawyer, Keith Dornan, has said previously that he plans to bring a federal lawsuit on behalf of another alleged victim. And the legal team who filed the federal lawsuit Thursday is preparing to take on more.
The firms are working on this current case on contingency, attorney Ross Pesek said. That means there’s no charge for their legal services if they lose, but they take a cut of an award if they succeed.
The statute of limitations in cases like this doesn’t apply until the victim turns 25, according to Pesek.
“If people that have been abused in Kearney are being told no, being told that there’s no path towards accountability, we want them to know that we’re ready, willing and able,” he said.
The current lawsuit alleges that Jessica Camacho, now charged with six felonies, started grooming and abusing the Omaha boy almost as soon as he arrived at YRTC-Kearney in October 2023. He was 16 years old.
She cultivated “a secret relationship” with him using special attention, gifts and promises of a “life with her after his release.” She taught him to “hide their communications,” the complaint reads.
The complaint alleges she led the boy to camera blind spots in the center and repeatedly subjected him to sexual penetration and various other forms of sexual contact.
Camacho resigned and has pleaded not guilty to her criminal charges.
The lawsuit also alleges that another former employee touched the Omaha boy’s penis through an opening in his cell door. That employee also no longer works for DHHS.
The ousted administrators and three compliance staff named in the lawsuit did not protect the boy despite warnings that “became impossible to ignore,” the complaint says. The three compliance staff still work for DHHS.
The suit alleges that officials dismissed reports from the boy and employees. The boy, it says, feared “retaliation” for reporting his abuse and faced punishment.
After the boy reported sexual misconduct, a compliance employee characterized him as having “an extensive pattern of making accusations.” He was then punished in August 2024 for “falsely reporting staff sexual misconduct” and forced to write a two-page paper on the topic, the complaint says.
Camacho had a history of similar allegations, according to the complaint.
She had been accused of having sex with a detained youth just a few weeks after the Omaha boy arrived, it reads. Officials closed that allegation as “unfounded.” She was counseled about “physical boundaries” with teens in February 2024. A year later, in February 2025, another staff member reported the Omaha boy’s sexual relationship with Camacho, the complaint reads. Compliance employees also classified that allegation as “unfounded.”
She gave the Omaha boy a phone to stay in contact with him after she got suspended last March for sharing a drink with another youth, according to the complaint.
The phone, which staff later discovered, contained sexually explicit photos and videos of Camacho. She had also “engaged in sexual conduct during video calls,” according to the complaint.
Officials told the Nebraska State Patrol about what was on the phone, according to the complaint. They also told the Deputy Ombudsman for Institutions about the phone — but not its sexual contents.
“After the telephone was discovered, (the teen) tried to tell staff about his relationship with Camacho,” the complaint reads. “Staff told him that he was being manipulative and placed him in confinement …”
Officials classified the explicit content on the phone as “Staff-to-Youth Inappropriate Boundaries,” according to the complaint, and didn’t disclose the “evidence of Camacho’s sexual abuse” to the boy’s probation officer, legal representatives or the juvenile court.
“Their failure left the people responsible for his placement unable to respond to that evidence,” the complaint reads.
The Omaha teen stayed at Kearney for six more months. The complaint alleges that Camacho stayed in contact with him even after she resigned, via letters and phone calls.
It wasn’t until late September 2025 that Douglas County Juvenile Court Judge Amy Schuchman held an emergency hearing and ordered him to be moved from the center, writing that she was “disgusted and disturbed” by the lack of transparency.
The state employees violated the boy’s constitutional rights and caused “serious psychological injury, emotional distress, humiliation, fear, loss of trust, and loss of enjoyment of life,” his lawyers argue.
Lawyers are asking for a jury trial, compensation for injuries and punitive damages.
“There’s a lot of flaws with the law, but Nebraska juries are the redemption,” Pesek said. “All I want is to give them the opportunity to declare that we do not condone or protect child rape by government officials in Nebraska.”
The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.