Temecula Woman Wins $18 Million Civil Settlement In Look-Back Sex Abuse Case

TEMECULA, CA — A Temecula woman who said she was sexually abused by her former brother-in-law as a child in the '60s and '70s was awarded over $18 million in damages this month. Patricia “Patti” Egan doesn’t know if she’ll see a penny of the award, but in taking her former brother-in-law to court, she said she’s gained something even more valuable: her voice.

Egan, now 65, filed a civil lawsuit against Stewart Gordon in June 2020 through the Child Victims Act's look-back window for adult victims of child sexual abuse. In the suit, she claimed Gordon sexually abused her starting when she was 11 years old, while they lived in New York. The abuse continued until she was 18, she said.

After a jury-less trial that ended Nov. 10, New York Supreme Court Justice L. Michael Mackey ordered Gordon to pay $18,810,296 in damages to Egan, more than two years after her suit was opened, according to court records.

In his decision, Mackey said Gordon “essentially ripped Egan’s life apart and deprived her of the opportunity to pursue a fulfilling career, become the wife and mother she wanted to be and to become the person she wanted to be,” court records show.

In a letter to the court, Gordon claimed there was no money to send to Egan. "There is really just about nothing that creditors can have access to,” Gordon wrote. “In a word, my planner stated that I am uncollectable.”

Whether or not she receives compensation from Gordon was never the point, Egan told Patch.

She is one of several victims of childhood sexual abuse who lobbied for the passage of the New York Child Victims Act and the associated look-back window that allowed survivors to sue perpetrators, regardless of whether the statute of limitation passed.

Egan’s case was one of almost 10,000 civil lawsuits filed in New York during the window that opened in 2019. New York was among 24 states that instituted such look-back windows, including California, where Egan now resides.

On the last day of the New York look-back window, Manhattan Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, a champion of the act, stated that “the amount of people who filed cases shows how pervasive the problem of child sex abuse has been.” In California, a similar look-back window for adults who were child victims of sexual abuse, known as AB-218, is open until Jan.1, 2023.

The look-back window for survivors, such as Egan, allowed them to at last confront their childhood trauma even long after the statutes of limitations had expired.

Egan first found the courage to confront her past after a conversation with her husband when he asked why she never swam with him in their new backyard pool, she told Patch.

“(My husband) would get in the pool and I’d get out,” she said. “It never really registered why.”

However, a five-page sworn statement explained her memories of sexual abuse suffered, including a strong memory of Gordon in their pool.

Egan was 14 when she dipped into her sister’s above-ground pool in her first bikini. “When I was swimming alone on multiple occasions, he would change into his bathing suit and join me,” she wrote.

His molestation turned her love of swimming, which “should have been fun, into horrible reoccurring abuse,” Egan said.

Though the abuse in the swimming pool occurred decades before, the memories of abuse were so fresh they affected her current life and her marriage, she said. That moment of clarity began her journey toward seeking both healing and justice for the childhood that was stolen from her, according to Egan.

In an email written by Gordon in 2002, submitted to the court as evidence, he admitted to sexually abusing Egan and offered to pay for her therapy and any “expenditures due to what I have done to you.” He offered to send a monthly check in the amount of $325, she said. The checks from Gordon never came and therapy bills mounted, she said.

Egan said when she decided to take action, she faced challenges.

While lawyers gave much attention to high-profile cases against the Boy Scouts of America and the Catholic Church, according to Egan, she found it difficult to find legal representation for a family case.

Though the look-back window closed in August 2021, Egan’s case, like many, was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“One attorney was over his head and my case went nowhere,” she said. “He returned my retainer.” Then Egan met lawyer Peter J. Scagnelli of Albany, NY, who “hit the ground running,” she said. “I was fortunate enough to find Peter and have this case move forward.”

During the courtroom proceedings, Egan’s psychologist, Dr. Jean Ghanem-Ybarra testified that she still suffers from both chronic post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder. Ghanem-Ybarra, explained to the court how “many simple things, such as shopping or going out to a restaurant or movie, are extremely difficult for her, and physical intimacy causes terrifying flashbacks of her abuse,” court documents show.

She is still working through the long-term effects of the abuse, she says.

“Thanks to the passage of the Child Victims Act, today I can ask this court to give my abuse a voice,” she said in her victim’s impact statement in court. “I ask that you help me gain back a feeling of worth, power, and a sense of justice.”

Egan hopes that new laws will be written to eradicate statutes of limitation with regard to sex crimes against children, especially as the California Childhood Sexual Assault look-back window is about to close at the end of 2022.

“We should all have the opportunity to be heard when we are ready. Some victims may never be ready or even able to take a stand for themselves,” she said. “For those who can, they should be allowed to do so without time constraints.”

Egan and her attorney said they are not ceasing their quest for restitution. “Anything — even to have him write my name down on a $5 check every day of his life would be vindication,” she said.

For Egan, the ruling was not about money.

“I feel more relieved than I ever have in my entire life,” she said. “He’s been found liable, and I have been heard. But I’m not done fighting yet.”