Sixty-nine men have filed a lawsuit that alleges a staff member at a state-run juvenile detention facility in Baltimore County sexually abused them when they were children as the government looked the other way.

Ronald Neverdon held various titles at the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School on Old Harford Road, including unit manager and housing supervisor from the mid-1960s to mid-1990s, the lawsuit asserts, and victimized children at the center and other locations.

Neverdon, the lawsuit claims, gave them special privileges, provided them with money, drugs and expensive gifts and threatened to punish them if they disclosed the abuse.

The men “still endure the consequences of his abuse” and “remain trapped in the past,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in Baltimore Circuit Court against the State of Maryland and the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services and contains six counts including negligence. Neverdon is not named as a defendant.

“I hope the State of Maryland recognizes the trauma — and really, lifetime of trauma — that they caused these men," said Adam Slater, founding and managing partner of Slater Slater Schulman LLP, whose law firm represents them and filed the case. “And not just the men in this complaint: all the men and women who were sexually abused in the Maryland juvenile detention system.”

“I hope the state considers doing the right thing by these brave survivors,” he added.

Slater said the men want to see meaningful change. They would also like “some type of closure and acknowledgement that they were sexually abused.”

Neverdon, 78, of Ashburton, could not be reached for comment. He has not been charged with a crime.

In a statement, Mike Sharp, a spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, said the agency “takes allegations of sexual abuse of children in our care with utmost seriousness and we are working hard to provide decent, humane and rehabilitative environments for youth.”

“We do not comment on pending litigation,” Sharp said.

The men range in age from 31 to 66. They live in six counties in Maryland — Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Cecil County, Charles County and Harford County — along with New Castle County, Delaware, and Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

Slater said his law firm specializes in representing survivors of child sexual abuse and never sought out clients for the case. The men, he said, come from different places and do not know each other.

The number of men alleging that one staff member sexually abused them is “pretty mind-boggling,” Slater said.

The lawsuit comes nearly one month after the Maryland Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Child Victims Act of 2023, which eliminated time limits for survivors to file lawsuits. The law also made it easier for them to sue institutions.

Survivors can seek damages for each occurrence of abuse against state and local governments up to $890,000. The cap is higher for cases against private institutions: $1.5 million.

Since the legislation took effect on Oct. 1, 2023, about 3,500 people have sued the state. In anticipation of a flood of lawsuits, the Archdiocese of Baltimore filed for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, Del. C.T. Wilson, a Democrat from Charles County and the architect of the legislation who shared his own story of enduring child sexual abuse, is working with the Maryland Office of the Attorney General on changes to the law.

The top fiscal adviser at the Maryland Department of Legislative Services, David Romans, has described these cases as “potentially an enormous liability for the state.”

Lawmakers are working to close a budget gap that’s almost $3 billion.