The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office is investigating allegations that false claims of child sexual abuse may have been filed against the county, as it settled thousands of legitimate claims for a total of more than $4 billion.

DA Nathan Hochman announced the opening of the investigation on Wednesday during a news conference, where he said hundreds of claims are being investigated to determine whether fraud occurred.

"With respect to these fraudsters, and we estimated that there are a significant number of fraudsters involved in these fraudulent settlement claims, we're going to go after them," Hochman said. "We're going to go after them aggressively. We're going to go after them to put them behind bars, and we're going to go after them to send a message ... that you will be arrested, you will be prosecuted and you will be punished."

Hochman claimed the uptick in alleged fraud began after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 218 in Oct. 2019. The bill, among other things, drastically expanded the statute of limitations on the reporting of child sexual abuse crimes, granting several more years for victims to evaluate and report their experiences.

As a result, Hochman said, thousands of new cases came in across LA County, many of which were against county employees working in the juvenile probation system.

On April 4 of this year, the county announced a settlement with about 6,800 claimants for $4 billion, the largest sexual abuse settlement in U.S. history....

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