After her first visit to Silma’s teenage hall in Los Angeles County, Efty Sharony submitted a report that said she witnessed conditions worse than anything she saw in “20 years of experience in visiting every Class A dance facility in California.”

In a 2023 report to then-2023 Secretary of Health and Human Services Mark Ghaly, the state’s Health and Human Services Secretary, that teenagers living in safe youth treatment facilities can be heard screaming throughout the building, lashing out at their bodies, crying and how they scream.

According to Sharony's report, urine leaked from young people in the cell who were in isolation for more than 18 hours during the lockdown. At the time, the unit held dozens of young people convicted of serious and violent crimes.

The conditions at Barry J. Nidorf’s Juvenile Hall are exactly what Sharony wants to help solve as part of a broader effort led by Gov. Gavin Newsom to ensure that the state’s youth prison system is reshaped. Shani said while serving as the Ombudsman for the Youth and Community Recovery Office, the supervisor told her that she should be the “only tooth” the agency has.

A 18-year-old died of a drug overdose just weeks after Sharony issued a wake-up call about Nidorf. California and Community Calibration ordered the closure of the lobby on the same day.

However, instead of encouraging her to continue digging, Sharoni alleges that her boss quickly told her to stop investigating the teenage hall.

Three months later, according to a whistleblower complaint filed last year, she was previously working at Newsom Administration but had no experience in juvenile justice.

"It is obvious that Evrat's boss is more interested in creating fantasy of solving many crises in the state's teenage facilities rather than doing anything about it," the complaint reads.

A spokesperson for the state Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment on confidential personnel matters, but said the agency remains committed to promoting “trauma-sensitive, culturally informed, gender-respectful, and appropriate services for young people involved in the adolescent justice system.”

The statement said that this approach involves giving the Ombudsman “full authority” and “single instructions” to investigate complaints from young people in detention.

"Ensure that every complaint is thoroughly investigated is crucial to protect youth across the state and the main goals of OYCR," the spokesperson said.

Matthew Umhofer, Sharoni's attorney, said he has not received any response to the complaint of the whistleblower, the predecessor of the lawsuit.

"Efty was fired for engaging in a job. She was fired because her findings of the pathetic conditions in the juvenile facility didn't match the state's political narrative. It was illegal." "We have provided all opportunities for the state to correct the errors here, but if they don't correct the errors, we are ready to fight for Efty in court."

Sharony's allegations are that state officials have little appetite to address chronic problems in teenage halls in Los Angeles, echoing other concerns about recent efforts to improve youth facilities in the county's collapse.

Faced with questions about his office’s failure to enforce a four-year court settlement, the solution calls for reforms in the hall. General Rob Bonta said earlier this month that he was considering putting it in “take over human rights,” essentially in the Los Angeles County probation department’s control over the local area.

California and Community Calibration also ordered another Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, to close last year, but the probation department ignored the orders for months without consequences. The judge finally intervened last month, with about 100 young people moving from Los Padrinos to other facilities under a plan published by the probation department earlier this month.

Sharony fires angered local officials, who have watched the hall for years.

Sharony's dismissal was a huge mistake, he wrote a bill, he wrote a bill, he wrote a bill, he wrote a bill, he wrote a bill, he wrote a bill, he wrote a bill.

"I'm angry that they fired someone with passion, experience in this space, and they brought someone from within," Menjivar said. "How do you take responsibility when you hire someone who is already on the team?"

Sharony, who previously worked as an adjunct professor at the Loyola Law School’s Juvenile Innocence and Fair Judgment Clinic and under former La Menyor Eric Garcetti’s inmate re-entry program, said she believes the position of the Ombudsman could make her part of the state’s re-imagination of the juvenile justice system.

Newsom announced his intention to shut down the state's youth prison system in 2019, which was previously believed to be a teenager who committed serious crimes such as murder until he was 25 years old.

Sharony said her supervisory role allowed her to conduct on-site inspections at a juvenile facility with only 48 hours of notification and review the conditions identified in the complaint. She claimed that those visits to lotus leaf feathers were shortly there.

When she kept it with young people at a contra Costa facility while investigating concerns about access to mental health services, Sharony said the department head called her supervisor in the Youth and Community Recovery Office to complain.

Sharony said that after documenting Nidorf's dirty conditions, local officials allegedly tried to ignore their heads and voice frustrations again. In the complaint of the whistleblower, Shani said: “Her colleagues’ voices prioritize political relations rather than timely investigations.”

A HHS spokesman declined to comment on Sharony's specific allegations.

A spokesperson for the Contra Costa County Department of Probation said they “never filed a complaint with OYCR nor would they describe any conversations we had with OYCR as a complaint.”

“Our relationships and interactions with OYCR are consistent with how we interact with any national agency or supervisory agency,” the department said in a statement. “We work in the process and policies established to maintain constructive and professional relationships.”

Shani said in a complaint from the whistleblower that her report in Los Angeles was ignored by state officials.

"She was stranded by the darkness and was removed from her job after a serious discovery of her initial investigation," the complaint read.

A HHS spokesman said the Youth and Community Recovery Office has no authority to investigate whether safe youth treatment agency complexes comply with state regulations. That didn't stop them from acknowledging the situation there, Shaloney said in an interview.

Shani’s boss said in an email to the complaint of the whistleblower that they were suspending her face-to-face visit: “When we finally adjust our policies and procedures and continue to hire and board new employees. Field trips are expected to resume in the coming weeks.”

But then, in June 2023, Sharony was fired. She said she never had a reason to fire.

She was replaced by Alisa Hart, former deputy legal secretary of Newsom's office, who helped the state respond to the COVID-19-19 pandemic, after previously working with the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. She also previously worked as a staff attorney for the Public Legal Counsel at Pro Bono Civil Rights Corporation. Sharony believes that Hart's lack of experience working in the juvenile justice system has made her increasingly qualified for the position of Ombudsman.

A spokesman for the Office of Youth and Community Recovery said the agency “hired the most qualified candidates when filling the vacant positions” but declined to answer specific questions about HART rather than pointing out her biography on the state website. A Newsom spokeswoman said the governor was not hired.

HHS spokesman Kate Lamb said the complainant office received 49 complaints from Nidorf and Los Padrinos Juvenile Halls last year. Lamb said the investigation into 22 of the complaints has not been completed.

According to Lamb, the office received twice as many complaints in 2023 when Shani worked in a complaint position, and has since been closed. Some of these complaints were handled after Sharony left the agency.

Those who frequently show up in the LA teenage hall said Sharon’s removal was just a sign that state officials were not taking the county’s youth justice crisis seriously.

"The first ombudsmen were a person well-known and respected in the LA juvenile system, a veteran stakeholder in the LA juvenile system," said Jerod Gunsberg, a senior criminal defense attorney representing the teenager. "Then the ombudsmen were removed from her place and we never heard anything from LA again."