San Mateo County accused of negligence

For years, a San Mateo County probation officer used his position to assault boys entrusted under his care while in juvenile detention, according to a series of lawsuits filed against the county accused of ignoring reports of the abuse and not reprimanding the officer.

Ten lawsuits were filed Feb. 10 and Feb. 14 by attorneys Joe Goethals and Charles Stone on behalf of the victims who, Goethals said, told similar and intimate stories of abuse inflicted by former Deputy Probation Officer John Domeniconi when he was employed by San Mateo County.

Domeniconi died a few years ago and therefore can’t be held criminally accountable for the allegations, a tragedy, according to Goethals. But, he said, the county must now be held accountable for what he said was a failure to implement necessary oversight and protocol to protect the children in its care.

“This was a person who had a perverse interest in these boys and identified them in part because of what he saw in them and in part because he was able to identify attributes about these boys that they were less likely to complain or to be believed if they did complain,” Goethals said. “It breaks my heart that we failed them and my goal, through this case — we’re going to shine a light on the dark past and make sure this doesn’t ever happen again to anyone else.”

Their stories

The names of Domeniconi’s alleged victims were kept anonymous in the filings, listed as John VM Doe, John DB Doe, John SA Doe, John TR Doe, John RM Doe, John JV Doe, John RA Doe, John AM Doe, John DB Doe and John CG Doe in their respective complaints.

All but one of the alleged victims were minors at the time of the assaults, according to court filings. They varied in age, having been born between 1983 to 1991, with most of the assaults taking place sometime between 1994 to 2002. The most recent assault, according to the filings, occurred between 2018 to 2020.

The assaults frequently occurred at Hillcrest Juvenile Hall, the filings allege. Occasionally, the assaults and harassing behavior occurred at the victims’ homes, at schools, Domeniconi’s home or other county sites, according to the complaints.

Regardless of where the victim’s were, their stories offered similar looks into Domeniconi’s alleged treatment of them. According to the filings, Domeniconi would often allegedly seclude the boys under the guise of needing to conduct a standard strip search only to force the boys to touch parts of themselves.

In some cases, Domeniconi allegedly kissed some of the boys, touched their penises and genitals, put his finger up their anuses, rubbed his erection on their bodies and forced them to perform oral sex on him or requested to perform oral sex on the boys, according to the filings.

The boys, now grown men, also described deep feelings of discomfort as Domeniconi would allegedly watch them shower, many of them saying they observed him touching himself and masturbating, according to the complaints.

John SA Doe was a minor between the ages of 12 and 14 when Domeniconi was his brother’s probation officer. The role gave Domeniconi access to John SA Doe’s home where Domeniconi allegedly forced the boy and his brother to provide him with a urine sample at the same time while he watched and placed the boy on his lap, causing the boy to feel Domeniconi’s erection, according to the filings.

At one point, the victim said Domeniconi conducted a cavity search on him, inserting his fingers into his anus and telling him “It’s OK. I do this to everyone. It’s for your safety,” before transferring the boy to Hillcrest where similar assaults continued, the complaint read.

Multiple victims accused Domeniconi of similarly asking them to provide him with a urine sample without an explanation for why and would watch them as they provided it, according to the filings.

The most recent allegations come from John JG Doe who alleges Domeniconi used the urine sample excuse to create an opportunity to sexually touch, harass, batter, assault and abuse the victim, a young man under probation at the time. Domeniconi, according to the filings, allegedly threatened the victim with a probation violation if he did not agree to perform oral and manual sex on Domeniconi or to allow the probation officer to perform the acts on him.

When not using threats to silence his victims, the filings assert that Domeniconi used gifts such as not punishing the boys for violating Hillcrest rules or the terms of their probation or rewarding them with candy, desserts and cheeseburgers.

Fear and inaction

Fear of retaliation and of inaction by others in authority also silenced the boys, the filings assert. Domeniconi’s alleged crimes against boys under the county’s supervision was considered a known secret, the victims allege in their complaints.

“It’s far too easy to ignore their complaints or write them off as troubled youths,” said Goethals, recalling similarities between these cases of alleged abuse and acts of abuse perpetrated by William Hamilton Ayres, an adolescent psychiatrist who used his position to molest boys in the county between 1988 and 1996. “We know better, we know that these are incredibly vulnerable youths who are going up against officers of the law who control every aspect of their lives and [the boys] are afraid to speak up. And, even if they do speak up, they are worried they won’t be believed or that they will be punished even more harshly for speaking up.”

The mothers of at least two boys reported the abuse their sons experienced while in custody to individuals in the county’s Probation Department, according to the filings, which allege that the administration ignored the complaints.

Another victim, according to his complaint, also reported his experience with Domeniconi to the department with his complaint resulting in a police report and interview. None of the boys were provided support through their parents, an advocate or an attorney for their protection, the complaints assert.

“Rather than punished or investigated, Deputy Probation Officer John Domeniconi was protected by his department and San Mateo County. He was not only retained; he was promoted,” read the filings.

The county did not provide a comment by the time of publication. Goethals said he’s currently in the process of retrieving documents from the county, which informants have told him exist and corroborate the allegations of abuse by Domeniconi.

Seeking justice

In the years following their assaults, the victims have reportedly experienced emotional, mental and psychological problems — depression, anxiety, emotional distress, lowered self-esteem, difficulty with meaningful interactions with others including those in positions of power, trust issues, especially with men and authority figures, struggles with interpersonal relationships, difficulties sleeping and sleep deprivation, nightmares, nervousness, shame, flashbacks and more — stemming from the trauma allegedly inflicted by Domeniconi, according to the filings.

Their suffering, they assert, has also caused them to lose out on education, employment and professional development opportunities, resulting in lost past and future earnings, according to the complaints.

Now, more than 20 years later, for many of the victims, they’re seeking damages from the county and other unnamed defendants who they say failed to protect them during their time in the county’s care by neglecting to enforce the county’s own rules and regulations, properly train employees or to adopt and implement safety measures to prevent similar incidents from occurring.

The legal team behind the cases have yet to identify anyone else who may have been behind the abuse or a possible coverup of incidents. It’s possible, Goethals said, that more victims are out there. Anyone who feels they have important information, especially about additional victims, can reach Goethals by email at joe@goethalslegal.com.

“Things like this don’t happen just because there was one failure. Things like this happen when there are multiple failures on a system level,” Goethals said. “We will get to the bottom of who knew what and when they knew it because we don’t want to see this get swept under the rug.”