Netflix’s Maya Kowalski has said no amount of money will ever bring her mother back after she won a bombshell $260 million lawsuit against Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital.
17-year-old Kowalski, the subject of the documentary “Take Care of Maya,” has since filed a criminal complaint alleging she was sexually abused while being treated at the hospital.
Her mother, Beata Kowalski, died by suicide in 2017 after she was banned from visiting her sick daughter in the hospital.
Now, Maya Kowalski told NewsNation, “No amount of money would ever replace my mom. “Honestly, we were just happy to get a ‘yes,’ we were happy that our prayers were answered.”
Kowalski and her family filed a $220 million lawsuit in October 2018, accusing the Florida medical facility, Maya’s social worker Cathi Bedy and Dr. Sally Smith and her employer, Suncoast Center, sued.
Netflix’s Maya Kowalski has said no amount of money will ever bring her mother back after she won a bombshell $260 million lawsuit against Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital
Maya’s mother Beata (right) took her own life after she was diagnosed with depression and an adjustment disorder after being separated from Maya for almost three months
In December 2021, the family settled with Smith and Suncoast for $2.5 million and the Kowalski family dropped their case against Bedy shortly before the trial began. It remains unclear whether a settlement was brokered.
In 2016, a judge ordered Maya to be held at the medical facility under state custody while child abuse allegations against her parents were investigated.
At the time, hospital staff assumed Beata had suffered from “Münchausen-by-proxy,” or medical child abuse.
Munchausen by proxy is a mental illness and a form of child abuse in which a child’s caregiver, usually a mother, either fakes symptoms or induces real symptoms to create the impression that the child is sick.
After winning the trial, Kowalski filed a criminal complaint alleging that she was sexually abused at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.
Maya Kowalski (pictured with her attorney Nick Whitney) won her landmark lawsuit against Johns Hopkins Hospital, with the jury finding in her favor and awarding millions of dollars in damages
For eight weeks, jurors heard from the Kowalskis, doctors, nurses and experts in the $220 million lawsuit that was the focus of the harrowing Netflix documentary “Take Care of Maya.”
The now 17-year-old was diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) at age 9, but was hospitalized in October 2016 at age 10 with severe pain
Jurors ruled in the teenager’s favor this week, finding that the JHACH had falsely imprisoned her – leading to her mother Beata’s suicide.
The hospital has vehemently denied the allegations and sought to appeal the verdict after six jurors took nearly three days to review mountains of evidence.
Now, speaking exclusively to , the family’s attorney, Greg Anderson, revealed that Maya filed a criminal complaint with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office on Friday.
“Maya Kowalski filed a criminal complaint with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department this morning for an assault and battery at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital during the period October 8-13, 2016,” Anderson said.
“It is unclear who the attacker was, although my client was able to identify him very accurately by height, weight, hair color and clothing – he was wearing a lab coat and had a stethoscope slung over his shoulders.”
“Although we cannot definitively determine whether it was a staff member or someone who gained access to the intensive care unit and her room, we contend alternatively that it was a doctor or someone who looked like a doctor. “ “Another employee or someone who shouldn’t have been there got involved.”
Anderson said after the years of hardship, pain and suffering brought on by the case, this is another blow to the family that has already endured so much.
“Ms. Kowalski was there under false imprisonment by Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, as a jury found yesterday,” he said.
“During the initial period of her incarceration there in October, a man entered the room, appeared to be an unsupervised doctor, or a woman or someone else in the room knocked once, came through the door, came up to her and then pulled her out Pajamas down and underwear.’
‘[He] came in and pulled down her pajamas and underwear to stare at her [and] Touch her private parts.
“Maya suppressed this until about four weeks ago, [but] She wrote some notes to the psychiatrist there at the time, Dr. Katzenstein, and later to Dr. Henschke, the two psychiatrists she met on the way.
Anderson has presented a variety of evidence and testimony to support the claim that Maya betrayed the attack on “a boy when she was 13.”
The hospital’s attorney, Ethan Shapiro, said the allegations came to light during the trial and that JHACH is investigating.
“As soon as the hospital became aware of the allegations, it immediately initiated an internal investigation in accordance with its policy and contacted law enforcement last month,” he said.
Netflix’s Maya Kowalski has filed a criminal complaint claiming she was “sexually abused at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital” after winning a landmark lawsuit against the Florida facility seeking more than $261 million in damages
“Federal privacy laws prevent Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital from sharing more, but the hospital takes allegations of this nature very seriously and always puts the safety of its patients above all else.”
After eight weeks of testimony from experts, the jury deliberated on the Kowalski family and hospital staff before deciding to award the family $211,451,174 in compensatory damages.
They also awarded an additional $50 million in punitive damages for false imprisonment and false imprisonment, with charges totaling more than $261 million.
In a post to her Instagram Story last Thursday, Maya uploaded a picture of herself smiling in court after breaking down in tears following the blockbuster trial.
“We feel so blessed!” “I will be forever grateful,” she wrote online.
Maya, 17, was just 10 years old when she was deported by the state after doctors accused her parents of faking symptoms of her rare condition – complex regional pain syndrome.
The jury concluded that the emotional distress of her mother Beata Kowalski – who was banned from seeing her daughter for three months – led to her suicide in 2017.
The Kowalski family filed a $220 million lawsuit against Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, where Maya Kowalski (left) was held as a child, after staff suspected she was a victim of “medical child abuse.” become.
Maya, her father Jack and her brother Kyle burst into tears as the jury’s results were read out in a St. Petersburg court on Thursday.
The jury found Children’s Hospital liable for the false imprisonment of Maya, the assault on Maya, the fraudulent billing of her father Jack, the infliction of emotional distress on Beata, the wrongful death claim on the estate of Beata, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress on Maya is responsible.
The family argued that the grieving mother fell into depression and eventually hanged herself in the family’s garage, but Johns Hopkins had vehemently denied that this led to her death or that she mistreated Maya.
In a statement after the verdict, Hill Ward Henderson attorney Howard Hunter, who represented Johns Hopkins in the case, told that the hospital plans to appeal the decision.
Over eight weeks, twelve jurors in the trial heard interviews with the Kowalski family, hospital staff and experts. Six jurors decided in favor of Kowalski.
The Kowalski family claimed the hospital took Maya for medical reasons, citing examples of assaults that included “stripping” her down to a sports bra and shorts to take photos of the lesions, as well as “hugging, kissing and holding her.” “ without their parents’ permission while in their care.
After jury instructions were read, one juror was medically dismissed after a defense request to appoint the juror as a replacement was denied.