Hartgrove Hospital Abuse Lawsuits

According to the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, on December 1, 2025, prosecutors filed five felony counts against Edmund Rivers, a former Hartgrove mental-health counselor. Prosecutors allege he sexually abused five boys, ages 7 to 14, at the facility between 1996 and 2004; the counts include three counts of criminal sexual assault and two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault, and a judge ordered him detained.¹²

Mr. Rivers has been charged, not convicted. He is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

According to prosecutors, Rivers worked at Hartgrove from 1993 to 2004 and had daily contact with minor patients, and several survivors came forward after learning of a civil lawsuit filed against the hospital.¹²

In December 2024, a lawsuit was filed in Cook County against UHS and Hartgrove on behalf of a former child patient; attorneys said more than 100 former minor patients — some as young as 8 — had come forward with abuse allegations involving Hartgrove and other UHS Illinois facilities.³⁴ UHS rejected the allegations and said it would defend the cases.⁴

Hartgrove is one of several UHS behavioral-health facilities in Illinois. A U.S. Senate Finance Committee report titled "Warehouses of Neglect" documented systemic problems in UHS youth residential facilities.⁵ UHS also resolved a federal billing matter for $122 million with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2020.⁶

As a matter of regulatory/compliance history — not evidence of patient abuse — HHS OIG records show Hartgrove Behavioral Health System agreed to pay $735,671.64 (June 23, 2023) to resolve allegations that it employed an individual it knew or should have known was excluded from Illinois Medicaid, disclosed under a Corporate Integrity Agreement. In each such settlement the party contested OIG's allegations and denied liability, and no finding of liability was made.⁷

The former Hartgrove site at 520 N. Ridgeway Avenue now operates as Garfield Park Hospital, also a UHS facility.⁸ If you were treated at that location under either name, you may have a claim.