By Breann Bierman
CHANDLER, AZ (CBS5) - A caregiver for Child Protective Services has been sentenced to 10 years probation for child abuse.
A judge sentenced Angelica Jimenez Thursday morning, according to the Maricopa County Superior Court.
In January, Jimenez plead guilty to one count of Child Abuse and Hindering Prosecution.
Chandler Police arrested Jimenez in August after a baby girl she was caring for was rushed to the hospital. Jimenez initially told police she was alone when the infant stopped breathing.
Doctors found multiple bruises, abrasions and a cigarette burn on the baby's body. It was also discovered that the baby had 14 broken bones, some believed to have been caused by severe shaking.
Detectives learned later that Jimenez was with her boyfriend, Steven Saldana, when the baby was found not breathing and that he'd been staying at her home.
After a number of interviews, Jimenez admitted that she knew Saldana had been abusing the baby since the end of July, but that she never called police or CPS.
Police said Saldana is a convicted felon with a long criminal history. He faces three counts of child abuse in the case.
Source http://www.wave3.com/story/16547172/cps-caregiver-pleads-guilty-to-child-abuse
CPS corruption hurts and destroys families worldwide. Please use caution posting about CPS here or anyplace on the internet. For your protection, using your full, real name and precise location is not advised. CPS has eyes everywhere and CPS is notorious for taking what people say, twisting it, embellishing on it and then using it against them in CPS "investigations" and at court proceedings.
Showing posts with label child abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label child abuse. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Teacher's aide at a special needs school arrested on child abuse charges
By Jessica Janner
Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- A teacher's aide at Variety School in Las Vegas was arrested on Tuesday on child abuse charges after school district police obtained surveillance video of the alleged acts.
The teacher's aide has been identified as 28-year-old Lachelle James. James has worked directly with special needs children, at Variety School, for more than seven years.
She was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on five counts of felony child abuse charges and one count of battery.
According to the arrest report, James hurt an 11-year-old student by "dragging him to the floor and using physical force to restrain him." In the report, she is also accused of battery against another student by "pushing him twice" and "grabbing him by the face and pinning him to rolling wardrobe cabinets."
Surveillance video was obtained by Clark County School District Police. The alleged crimes occurred on March 6 according to police paperwork.
The Clark County School District said a school police investigation led to the arrest of the teacher's aide. The superintendent ordered her suspended without pay and she will be terminated upon approval of an arbitrator.
"Our community should be assured that the district will not tolerate this behavior by any employee and that our police department will work swiftly on this case," a spokersperon with the district said.
Video:http://bcove.me/y34erhrr
Source http://www.ktnv.com/news/local/141831883.html
Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- A teacher's aide at Variety School in Las Vegas was arrested on Tuesday on child abuse charges after school district police obtained surveillance video of the alleged acts.
The teacher's aide has been identified as 28-year-old Lachelle James. James has worked directly with special needs children, at Variety School, for more than seven years.
She was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on five counts of felony child abuse charges and one count of battery.
According to the arrest report, James hurt an 11-year-old student by "dragging him to the floor and using physical force to restrain him." In the report, she is also accused of battery against another student by "pushing him twice" and "grabbing him by the face and pinning him to rolling wardrobe cabinets."
Surveillance video was obtained by Clark County School District Police. The alleged crimes occurred on March 6 according to police paperwork.
The Clark County School District said a school police investigation led to the arrest of the teacher's aide. The superintendent ordered her suspended without pay and she will be terminated upon approval of an arbitrator.
"Our community should be assured that the district will not tolerate this behavior by any employee and that our police department will work swiftly on this case," a spokersperon with the district said.
Video:http://bcove.me/y34erhrr
Source http://www.ktnv.com/news/local/141831883.html
Monday, March 5, 2012
Child welfare confidentiality draws scrutiny - Indiana
Associated Press
SOUTH BEND, Ind.— An Indiana law that keeps all child-protection records confidential except in cases of fatality or near fatality is out of date and prevents accountability when a child dies, some judges and lawmakers say.
"I have to make decisions based on the evidence before me," said St. Joseph Probate Judge Peter Nemeth, "and I'm not always sure that DCS is telling me everything."
The Indiana House has voted to create a legislative committee to review changes in how the state investigates reports of child abuse and neglect. Democratic legislators have questioned the Department of Child Services' spending and a new child abuse hotline that routes all reports to a centralized call center in Indianapolis
Republican legislators have defended the agency's performance, saying DCS has doubled the number of caseworkers and helped reduce the number of child abuse deaths since 2005.
But critics say there is a cloak of secrecy surrounding the agency and worry that failing to provide some information could have tragic consequences.
An Indiana child fatality review team studies and reports on deaths of Indiana children. Its public reports provide a general overview and broad recommendations but don't delve into specifics of what happened or did not happen, the South Bend Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/AirHoB).
Reports from a DCS ombudsman office established in 2010 to investigate complaints involving the department also contain only general trends and non-identifying information about specific cases.
DCS Director James Payne said he supports more openness.
"I'm not opposed to loosening up the confidentiality. I've said for years that `confidential' is really `secret,"' said Payne, a former juvenile court judge who opened his Marion County courtroom to cameras for a "Dateline" television special about the juvenile justice system. "The issue really is the degree of that."
Child protection officials say they worry that more openness could expose parents to unfounded tips and stigmatize children.
But others note that unsubstantiated reports of abuse or neglect are only kept for three months and say that has prevented child welfare workers from having all the information they need in some cases, including the beating death of Tramelle Sturgis, a 10-year-old South Bend boy, in November.
In that case, prosecutors learned that earlier reports to DCS about the boy and his family had been destroyed.
State Sen. John Broden, D-South Bend, introduced an amendment this session to change DCS record-keeping rules to store records of unsubstantiated reports for at least three years.
Broden, a former DCS attorney, advocates easing the system's confidentiality requirements so long as names of children and parents remain confidential.
"If the press wants to come and look at various cases and orders, I'd have no problem with that," he said.
Source http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-in-childservices-con,0,1108594.story
SOUTH BEND, Ind.— An Indiana law that keeps all child-protection records confidential except in cases of fatality or near fatality is out of date and prevents accountability when a child dies, some judges and lawmakers say.
"I have to make decisions based on the evidence before me," said St. Joseph Probate Judge Peter Nemeth, "and I'm not always sure that DCS is telling me everything."
The Indiana House has voted to create a legislative committee to review changes in how the state investigates reports of child abuse and neglect. Democratic legislators have questioned the Department of Child Services' spending and a new child abuse hotline that routes all reports to a centralized call center in Indianapolis
Republican legislators have defended the agency's performance, saying DCS has doubled the number of caseworkers and helped reduce the number of child abuse deaths since 2005.
But critics say there is a cloak of secrecy surrounding the agency and worry that failing to provide some information could have tragic consequences.
An Indiana child fatality review team studies and reports on deaths of Indiana children. Its public reports provide a general overview and broad recommendations but don't delve into specifics of what happened or did not happen, the South Bend Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/AirHoB).
Reports from a DCS ombudsman office established in 2010 to investigate complaints involving the department also contain only general trends and non-identifying information about specific cases.
DCS Director James Payne said he supports more openness.
"I'm not opposed to loosening up the confidentiality. I've said for years that `confidential' is really `secret,"' said Payne, a former juvenile court judge who opened his Marion County courtroom to cameras for a "Dateline" television special about the juvenile justice system. "The issue really is the degree of that."
Child protection officials say they worry that more openness could expose parents to unfounded tips and stigmatize children.
But others note that unsubstantiated reports of abuse or neglect are only kept for three months and say that has prevented child welfare workers from having all the information they need in some cases, including the beating death of Tramelle Sturgis, a 10-year-old South Bend boy, in November.
In that case, prosecutors learned that earlier reports to DCS about the boy and his family had been destroyed.
State Sen. John Broden, D-South Bend, introduced an amendment this session to change DCS record-keeping rules to store records of unsubstantiated reports for at least three years.
Broden, a former DCS attorney, advocates easing the system's confidentiality requirements so long as names of children and parents remain confidential.
"If the press wants to come and look at various cases and orders, I'd have no problem with that," he said.
Source http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-in-childservices-con,0,1108594.story
Friday, March 2, 2012
Calista Springer's estate can't sue state workers for her death, court rules
Blogger note:
We hope that these families moves their suits to federal court (section 42 USC 1983) where state workers are less likely to be granted immunity for their lack of action (crimes). Once again, a child who was truly in danger but CPS turns a blind eye. Likely because they were too busy chasing innocent parents and kidnapping their children.
By Emily Monacelli
CENTREVILLE -- The family of Calista Springer cannot sue the state for her death, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.
Springer's grandmother, Suzanne Langdon, acting as a representative of Calista's estate, sued the Michigan Department of Human Services and St. Joseph County Child Protective Services in October 2010, asserting that state workers failed to protect Calista from her parents, which resulted in her death.
Calista was 16 when she was found chained to her bed in an upstairs room in her family's Centreville home following a February 2008 house fire.
The appeals court combined Springer's case with that of Nicholas Daniel Braman, whose estate also sued child protective services workers after Braman's father killed Nicholas, himself and his wife in October 2007 in Montcalm County. In both cases, the court ruled that the children's estates could not sue state workers for allegedly improperly acting upon allegations of abuse.
Read the 11-page opinion issued Thursday here.
"Although plaintiffs recited several failures by the employee defendants to comply with their official CPS investigation policies and guidelines, these failures merely prove the state's failure to act, not that it was acting pursuant to a mandatory policy of inaction," the appeals court ruling says.
"Plaintiffs do not point to any official policy or custom that mandated CPS investigators to improperly investigate the abuse allegations against the decedents' parents or to fail to protect the decedents," the opinion reads.
State workers found "insufficient evidence" to substantiate allegations made against Springer's and Braman's parents, and had no basis to remove the children from their homes, according to the court.
"While the facts of these cases are indeed tragic, this is not an appropriate case in which to impose a damage remedy on the state for a state constitutional due process violation, as no violation can be established," the opinion says.
Calista's grandmother filed three separate lawsuits in October 2010, one in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, one in the state Court of Claims in Lansing, and a third in St. Joseph County Circuit Court. Each demand jury trials and seek awards “in excess of $75,000.”
The court filings provided information from Michigan State Police records about abuse and neglect complaints that Langdon said were filed by family members, teachers, a mental-health worker, friends and acquaintances.
The suits claimed St. Joseph County protective services caseworker Patricia Skelding and supervisor Cynthia Bare failed to adequately respond to documented abuse from Calista's parents, Anthony and Marsha Springer. Langdon's federal suit also named as defendants former state DHS director Marianna Udow; her chief deputy, Laura Champagne; and former state manager of DHS Child Protective Services programs Ted Forrest.
A jury in February 2010 found Anthony and Marsha Springer guilty of torture and child abuse in Calista's death. They were each sentenced to prison terms.
Allegations of abuse and neglect against the Springers began in April 1995 and included accusations of lead poisoning, untreated burns, physical and emotional abuse, restraint by ropes, and being locked in her bedroom.
Source http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/03/calista_springers_family_cant.html
We hope that these families moves their suits to federal court (section 42 USC 1983) where state workers are less likely to be granted immunity for their lack of action (crimes). Once again, a child who was truly in danger but CPS turns a blind eye. Likely because they were too busy chasing innocent parents and kidnapping their children.
By Emily Monacelli
CENTREVILLE -- The family of Calista Springer cannot sue the state for her death, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.
Springer's grandmother, Suzanne Langdon, acting as a representative of Calista's estate, sued the Michigan Department of Human Services and St. Joseph County Child Protective Services in October 2010, asserting that state workers failed to protect Calista from her parents, which resulted in her death.
Calista was 16 when she was found chained to her bed in an upstairs room in her family's Centreville home following a February 2008 house fire.
The appeals court combined Springer's case with that of Nicholas Daniel Braman, whose estate also sued child protective services workers after Braman's father killed Nicholas, himself and his wife in October 2007 in Montcalm County. In both cases, the court ruled that the children's estates could not sue state workers for allegedly improperly acting upon allegations of abuse.
Read the 11-page opinion issued Thursday here.
"Although plaintiffs recited several failures by the employee defendants to comply with their official CPS investigation policies and guidelines, these failures merely prove the state's failure to act, not that it was acting pursuant to a mandatory policy of inaction," the appeals court ruling says.
"Plaintiffs do not point to any official policy or custom that mandated CPS investigators to improperly investigate the abuse allegations against the decedents' parents or to fail to protect the decedents," the opinion reads.
State workers found "insufficient evidence" to substantiate allegations made against Springer's and Braman's parents, and had no basis to remove the children from their homes, according to the court.
"While the facts of these cases are indeed tragic, this is not an appropriate case in which to impose a damage remedy on the state for a state constitutional due process violation, as no violation can be established," the opinion says.
Calista's grandmother filed three separate lawsuits in October 2010, one in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, one in the state Court of Claims in Lansing, and a third in St. Joseph County Circuit Court. Each demand jury trials and seek awards “in excess of $75,000.”
The court filings provided information from Michigan State Police records about abuse and neglect complaints that Langdon said were filed by family members, teachers, a mental-health worker, friends and acquaintances.
The suits claimed St. Joseph County protective services caseworker Patricia Skelding and supervisor Cynthia Bare failed to adequately respond to documented abuse from Calista's parents, Anthony and Marsha Springer. Langdon's federal suit also named as defendants former state DHS director Marianna Udow; her chief deputy, Laura Champagne; and former state manager of DHS Child Protective Services programs Ted Forrest.
A jury in February 2010 found Anthony and Marsha Springer guilty of torture and child abuse in Calista's death. They were each sentenced to prison terms.
Allegations of abuse and neglect against the Springers began in April 1995 and included accusations of lead poisoning, untreated burns, physical and emotional abuse, restraint by ropes, and being locked in her bedroom.
Source http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/03/calista_springers_family_cant.html
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Mothers charged with abuse over condition of Jefferson County home
Written by Jason Riley
The house was, by all accounts, filthy and unfit for children to live in, filled with dog feces, urine, rotting garbage and other hazards.
It was the type of home from which the state routinely removes children, at least until the the dangers are eliminated.
But more than two years after two toddlers were removed from the home in eastern Jefferson County and placed with a family member, prosecutors entered into what some local officials say is uncharted terrority in so-called “dirty house” cases: prosecuting twin sisters for raising the children in such a hazardous environment.
Local officials say the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services routinely investigates dirty-house cases, but it’s rare for them to wind up in Family Court — and unheard of for anyone to face criminal charges where no child was injured in the home, as is the situation for Jeanette Allen and Janet Doughty, who are charged with criminal abuse and wanton endangerment over the home’s condition.
“It is our belief that these are the only two people in Jefferson County that have ever been prosecuted” in a case like this, Allen’s attorney, Brian Butler, said during a recent court hearing, where he argued that the case should be dismissed for selective prosecution.
“This never happens. ... These people are being treated differently and unfairly.”
The defense claims that Allen and Doughty, in their early 20s, are being singled out because of what happened to their children after they were removed from the home.
Christopher Allen, 2, was beaten to death and Wyatt Allen, his half brother, also then 2, was injured within days of being removed on Aug. 25, 2008, and placed with their aunt, Nereida Allen.
Jeanette Allen is Christopher's mother, and Doughty is Wyatt's mother.
Nereida Allen and her former boyfriend, Joshua Peacher, were convicted last year of wanton murder, assault and criminal abuse and sentenced to 47 and 70 years in prison, respectively, for the death and abuse.
Timing questioned
A day before they were sentenced, the sisters were indicted over the condition of their home. They have pleaded not guilty.
“The timing is suspicious,” said J. Clark Baird, Doughty’s attorney. “These girls were not charged until after this trial was finished.”
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney David Scott has said prosecutors didn't seek charges sooner because they didn't wish to interfere with the murder case, and Kentucky has no statute of limitations on felonies.
And as unique as the 2011 indictment appears to be, defense attorneys have gone to equally unheard of lengths in trying to get the cases dismissed.
Butler has filed a subpoena for one of the prosecutors, asking a judge to order him to turn over any similar criminal cases ever handled by the Jefferson commonwealth’s attorney’s office; a family law attorney who served as court-appointed guardian for the two children testified that she had never heard of this type of prosecution; and, most recently and most surprisingly, the defense brought a longtime Jefferson Family Court judge in to testify in front of the circuit judge in the case.
On Jan. 30, Judge Joan Byer testified that she has handled thousands of cases, many involving dirty homes where children lived, but had never seen a family member criminally prosecuted over the condition of a home.
In fact, Byer testified, social workers typically keep dirty-home cases out of Family Court, giving the parents a chance to clean up and fix problems — such as a lack of electricity — in order to get the children back.
“The goal is not to send the case to (Family) Court except in the most extreme or extraordinary circumstances,” Byer told Judge Barry Willett.
But prosecutors argue that Allen and Doughty’s case is, in fact, extreme and extraordinary.
“This is more than a dirty-house case,” Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Dorislee Gilbert told Willett on Oct. 31. “The behavior they engaged in was much more than that.”
Not only was the home a health hazard — the prosecution will have an expert testify at trial that the exposure to the feces could have caused long-lasting physical problems for the children — but the sisters admitted that they would lock the children in a room by tying an electric cord from the door handle to a heavy piece of furniture, according to court records.
A social worker told police that the sisters were putting their children “in danger” and that the home was a “safety hazard.” Both sisters, who are out of jail on their own recognizance, admitted to social workers that the home was unfit for their children, according to court records.
Yet the social worker also said in an interview with police that the children were not ill and that the sisters could have gotten them back once the house was cleaned, without any court involvement, according to a transcript of the interview.
The sisters inherited the home, which has been been sold, from their mother.
Butler said in court records that he has subpoenaed Scott to force prosecutors to “admit that they have never prosecuted a dirty-house case despite the fact that they are relatively routine.”
In an interview, Scott said this “case is not simply about a dirty house but the criminal conduct of a parent exposing their children to hazardous conditions, and that constitutes abuse.”
Scott declined to say if the state had tried similar cases, saying the issue was pending before Willett and he couldn’t discuss it.
The newspaper could not find any similar felony cases in Jefferson County. But the county attorney’s office, which handles District Court cases, said criminal prosecution in dirty-house cases is rare but not unheard of.
And there have been similar cases prosecuted outside Jefferson County.
Warren Commonwealth's Attorney Chris Cohron, past president of the Commonwealth’s Attorneys Association, said he had similar cases, including one in which a man pleaded guilty to criminal abuse after being charged with allowing a 4-year-old to be locked in a room with feces on the wall and with urine-soaked carpet.
“We’ve had cases with children living in abject squalor that we believe rose to the level of criminality,” he said.
In the sisters’ case, Butler said that he will argue that Child Protective Services found Christopher and Wyatt were healthy and without any evidence of abuse when they were removed from the home. The agency determined that the children should be temporarily relocated to allow their mothers time to clean the residence.
Prosecutors, Butler said, are creating law, a scenario no different than if they tried to prosecute a parent for smoking around their children or for giving them too much fast food.
“The commonwealth has in fact created a novel crime without any injury to the child,” Butler said in a motion to dismiss. “... Simply put, a prosecutor does not and should not have the power to create law.”
Byer testified that she had reviewed the particulars of the case and found it was not unlike others she had seen.
“Unfortunately ... this type of scenario is not an unusual scenario for the court to get,” she said. “I could give example after example of similar types of situations. ... I have never in 16 years been aware of a criminal prosecution” in a case where the child was not injured in the dirty house.
The judge told Willett that she had a recent case in which a dead dog lay in a bathroom for weeks and another where a man locked a child in a basement, forcing him to urinate in a bottle. Neither led to criminal charges.
Scott questioned Byer, however, on whether she has seen homes so bad that she felt that someone should be charged for putting children’s safety at risk.
Byer said she couldn’t answer that question but believed it would require an intent to do harm.
Susan Meschler, a family law attorney who was appointed guardian for the boys, testified that the uncleanliness of the house was just a minor part of the case and that she has never seen a case where someone has been criminally prosecuted for a dirty home.
Willett has not ruled on whether to dismiss the case before trial, but senior status Judge Geoffrey Morris, sitting in for Willett during a November hearing, said the fact that Byer hadn’t heard of any of these type of cases wouldn’t sway him to dismiss the case, at least before trial.
“It doesn’t make any difference whether another judge had never seen a case like this,” Morris said. “Wouldn’t mean a thing to me.”
Source http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120219/NEWS01/302190064/house-conditions-child-abuse?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CHome%7Cs
The house was, by all accounts, filthy and unfit for children to live in, filled with dog feces, urine, rotting garbage and other hazards.
It was the type of home from which the state routinely removes children, at least until the the dangers are eliminated.
But more than two years after two toddlers were removed from the home in eastern Jefferson County and placed with a family member, prosecutors entered into what some local officials say is uncharted terrority in so-called “dirty house” cases: prosecuting twin sisters for raising the children in such a hazardous environment.
Local officials say the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services routinely investigates dirty-house cases, but it’s rare for them to wind up in Family Court — and unheard of for anyone to face criminal charges where no child was injured in the home, as is the situation for Jeanette Allen and Janet Doughty, who are charged with criminal abuse and wanton endangerment over the home’s condition.
“It is our belief that these are the only two people in Jefferson County that have ever been prosecuted” in a case like this, Allen’s attorney, Brian Butler, said during a recent court hearing, where he argued that the case should be dismissed for selective prosecution.
“This never happens. ... These people are being treated differently and unfairly.”
The defense claims that Allen and Doughty, in their early 20s, are being singled out because of what happened to their children after they were removed from the home.
Christopher Allen, 2, was beaten to death and Wyatt Allen, his half brother, also then 2, was injured within days of being removed on Aug. 25, 2008, and placed with their aunt, Nereida Allen.
Jeanette Allen is Christopher's mother, and Doughty is Wyatt's mother.
Nereida Allen and her former boyfriend, Joshua Peacher, were convicted last year of wanton murder, assault and criminal abuse and sentenced to 47 and 70 years in prison, respectively, for the death and abuse.
Timing questioned
A day before they were sentenced, the sisters were indicted over the condition of their home. They have pleaded not guilty.
“The timing is suspicious,” said J. Clark Baird, Doughty’s attorney. “These girls were not charged until after this trial was finished.”
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney David Scott has said prosecutors didn't seek charges sooner because they didn't wish to interfere with the murder case, and Kentucky has no statute of limitations on felonies.
And as unique as the 2011 indictment appears to be, defense attorneys have gone to equally unheard of lengths in trying to get the cases dismissed.
Butler has filed a subpoena for one of the prosecutors, asking a judge to order him to turn over any similar criminal cases ever handled by the Jefferson commonwealth’s attorney’s office; a family law attorney who served as court-appointed guardian for the two children testified that she had never heard of this type of prosecution; and, most recently and most surprisingly, the defense brought a longtime Jefferson Family Court judge in to testify in front of the circuit judge in the case.
On Jan. 30, Judge Joan Byer testified that she has handled thousands of cases, many involving dirty homes where children lived, but had never seen a family member criminally prosecuted over the condition of a home.
In fact, Byer testified, social workers typically keep dirty-home cases out of Family Court, giving the parents a chance to clean up and fix problems — such as a lack of electricity — in order to get the children back.
“The goal is not to send the case to (Family) Court except in the most extreme or extraordinary circumstances,” Byer told Judge Barry Willett.
But prosecutors argue that Allen and Doughty’s case is, in fact, extreme and extraordinary.
“This is more than a dirty-house case,” Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Dorislee Gilbert told Willett on Oct. 31. “The behavior they engaged in was much more than that.”
Not only was the home a health hazard — the prosecution will have an expert testify at trial that the exposure to the feces could have caused long-lasting physical problems for the children — but the sisters admitted that they would lock the children in a room by tying an electric cord from the door handle to a heavy piece of furniture, according to court records.
A social worker told police that the sisters were putting their children “in danger” and that the home was a “safety hazard.” Both sisters, who are out of jail on their own recognizance, admitted to social workers that the home was unfit for their children, according to court records.
Yet the social worker also said in an interview with police that the children were not ill and that the sisters could have gotten them back once the house was cleaned, without any court involvement, according to a transcript of the interview.
The sisters inherited the home, which has been been sold, from their mother.
Butler said in court records that he has subpoenaed Scott to force prosecutors to “admit that they have never prosecuted a dirty-house case despite the fact that they are relatively routine.”
In an interview, Scott said this “case is not simply about a dirty house but the criminal conduct of a parent exposing their children to hazardous conditions, and that constitutes abuse.”
Scott declined to say if the state had tried similar cases, saying the issue was pending before Willett and he couldn’t discuss it.
The newspaper could not find any similar felony cases in Jefferson County. But the county attorney’s office, which handles District Court cases, said criminal prosecution in dirty-house cases is rare but not unheard of.
And there have been similar cases prosecuted outside Jefferson County.
Warren Commonwealth's Attorney Chris Cohron, past president of the Commonwealth’s Attorneys Association, said he had similar cases, including one in which a man pleaded guilty to criminal abuse after being charged with allowing a 4-year-old to be locked in a room with feces on the wall and with urine-soaked carpet.
“We’ve had cases with children living in abject squalor that we believe rose to the level of criminality,” he said.
In the sisters’ case, Butler said that he will argue that Child Protective Services found Christopher and Wyatt were healthy and without any evidence of abuse when they were removed from the home. The agency determined that the children should be temporarily relocated to allow their mothers time to clean the residence.
Prosecutors, Butler said, are creating law, a scenario no different than if they tried to prosecute a parent for smoking around their children or for giving them too much fast food.
“The commonwealth has in fact created a novel crime without any injury to the child,” Butler said in a motion to dismiss. “... Simply put, a prosecutor does not and should not have the power to create law.”
Byer testified that she had reviewed the particulars of the case and found it was not unlike others she had seen.
“Unfortunately ... this type of scenario is not an unusual scenario for the court to get,” she said. “I could give example after example of similar types of situations. ... I have never in 16 years been aware of a criminal prosecution” in a case where the child was not injured in the dirty house.
The judge told Willett that she had a recent case in which a dead dog lay in a bathroom for weeks and another where a man locked a child in a basement, forcing him to urinate in a bottle. Neither led to criminal charges.
Scott questioned Byer, however, on whether she has seen homes so bad that she felt that someone should be charged for putting children’s safety at risk.
Byer said she couldn’t answer that question but believed it would require an intent to do harm.
Susan Meschler, a family law attorney who was appointed guardian for the boys, testified that the uncleanliness of the house was just a minor part of the case and that she has never seen a case where someone has been criminally prosecuted for a dirty home.
Willett has not ruled on whether to dismiss the case before trial, but senior status Judge Geoffrey Morris, sitting in for Willett during a November hearing, said the fact that Byer hadn’t heard of any of these type of cases wouldn’t sway him to dismiss the case, at least before trial.
“It doesn’t make any difference whether another judge had never seen a case like this,” Morris said. “Wouldn’t mean a thing to me.”
Source http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120219/NEWS01/302190064/house-conditions-child-abuse?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CHome%7Cs
Friday, February 10, 2012
Judge on emaciated child: Didn’t anyone notice?
Blogger Note:
Now here is a judge that realizes that there are many people culpable in situations where a child is being abused but those in authroity look the other way. Way to go Judge!
CPS is such a failure as is many of the mandated reporters and it amazes me that the federal government continues to fund CPS.
Now, if we could only find a judge that will put a stop to this money machine that could care a less about children!
---
As the case of a 9-year-old boy with malnutrition continued in juvenile court, the emphasis shifted away from the boy’s parents and toward the actions of others who saw him.
By Carol Marbin Miller
Though Marsee Strong and Edward Bailey remain in Miami-Dade jails on aggravated child abuse charges, an inquiry Wednesday into the welfare of their 9-year-old son focused largely on the role of the doctors, therapists and investigators who were intimately involved with the family — yet failed to notice that the boy was profoundly malnourished and displaying visible signs of abuse.
Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman, who presides over child welfare cases at the county’s Children’s Courthouse in Allapattah, had an unusual hearing in the case Wednesday, requiring administrators with the Department of Children & Families to provide a detailed timeline of the agency’s involvement with the parents, as well as the involvement of other professionals. The 9-year-old, who is one of the family’s six children, was picked up by police last week after he was found wandering his North Miami Beach neighborhood naked, emaciated and sporting an injured eye.
“I still don’t understand how the child could get in this condition, how nothing was done, or inadequate things were being done,” Lederman said during the hearing.
The boy, who was described as having the frame of a 3-year-old, remains in the hospital, where doctors are fighting the effects of malnutrition, said DCF’s attorney, Christine Lopez-Acevedo. “He’s doing better,” Lopez-Acevedo said.
Officially, the children have been under the supervision of DCF since 2002, when a physical abuse report to the state’s abuse and neglect hotline led the agency to take custody of them. They remained in DCF’s care until 2004, when they were returned to Strong and Bailey. DCF retained jurisdiction over the case since then.
DCF’s attorney, Lopez-Acevedo, told Lederman the agency had substantial contact with the family in the ensuing years, though it appears much of the scrutiny concerned one of the 9-year-old’s older sisters, who has had significant involvement with the state’s juvenile justice system, and does not currently live with the family. Though investigators had spoken with the family several times over the past two years, no allegations emerged that Strong or Bailey had mistreated the kids, Lopez-Acevedo said.
Indeed, in June of last year Strong asked DCF for help in raising the children, Lopez-Acevedo said.
Neither the 9-year-old nor his siblings are being named by The Miami Herald to protect their privacy.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Lopez-Acevedo did not accuse the parents of mistreating their children. She said the 9-year-old at the center of the case appears to suffer from poorly understood psychiatric and medical conditions that cause him to eat excessively, and then vomit. Though police described him as horrifically malnourished — he weighed only 35 pounds at age 9, and Lederman said in court last week that he looked like a concentration camp survivor with protruding bones — the boy had been under the regular care of pediatricians and mental health workers, Acevedo said.
“There were a number of eyes on this child, and the [state child-abuse hotline] reports that came in did not include the possibility that he was not being fed in the home,” Acevedo told the judge. “To the naked eye, with his clothes on, you could not necessarily tell this child was suffering from malnutrition.”
Rita Doval, a nurse with the state’s Child Protection Team who interviewed the children, said the kids assured her they were well-fed at home. The 9-year-old said that his parents sometimes withheld food from him, but Doval said the parents contend they were told by other doctors to regulate what the boy ate because he would sometimes eat until he made himself sick. Though the withholding of food may have seemed like a punishment, Doval said, it was intended to protect him.
A court-appointed psychologist, Michael DiTomasso, said neither the 9-year-old nor his siblings suggested they had been abused by Bailey or Strong, though some of the children said they had been allowed to beat each other.
“Three of the children all made clear they had a good mommy and a good daddy,” DiTomasso said. “They were really defensive. They felt really bad, and they saw their parents get arrested. They miss the little one, too. They worry about him in the hospital.”
DiTomasso said he asked the 9-year-old pointedly to explain the marks and bruises police found on his body, but was unable to get an explanation. “My God, you look at the little boy and say, what happened to him? I saw the pictures, and then I saw the child. My first impression was, My God, who did this to him?”
The psychologist said the 9-year-old was in dire need of a comprehensive medical and psychiatric evaluation, and he was surprised that such a battery of tests had not yet been performed. “Something was really wrong physically with this child,” DiTomaso said. “He needs a thorough physical work-up. He’ll get it now, right?”
Source http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/08/2631712/judge-on-emaciated-child-didnt.html
Now here is a judge that realizes that there are many people culpable in situations where a child is being abused but those in authroity look the other way. Way to go Judge!
CPS is such a failure as is many of the mandated reporters and it amazes me that the federal government continues to fund CPS.
Now, if we could only find a judge that will put a stop to this money machine that could care a less about children!
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As the case of a 9-year-old boy with malnutrition continued in juvenile court, the emphasis shifted away from the boy’s parents and toward the actions of others who saw him.
By Carol Marbin Miller
Though Marsee Strong and Edward Bailey remain in Miami-Dade jails on aggravated child abuse charges, an inquiry Wednesday into the welfare of their 9-year-old son focused largely on the role of the doctors, therapists and investigators who were intimately involved with the family — yet failed to notice that the boy was profoundly malnourished and displaying visible signs of abuse.
Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman, who presides over child welfare cases at the county’s Children’s Courthouse in Allapattah, had an unusual hearing in the case Wednesday, requiring administrators with the Department of Children & Families to provide a detailed timeline of the agency’s involvement with the parents, as well as the involvement of other professionals. The 9-year-old, who is one of the family’s six children, was picked up by police last week after he was found wandering his North Miami Beach neighborhood naked, emaciated and sporting an injured eye.
“I still don’t understand how the child could get in this condition, how nothing was done, or inadequate things were being done,” Lederman said during the hearing.
The boy, who was described as having the frame of a 3-year-old, remains in the hospital, where doctors are fighting the effects of malnutrition, said DCF’s attorney, Christine Lopez-Acevedo. “He’s doing better,” Lopez-Acevedo said.
Officially, the children have been under the supervision of DCF since 2002, when a physical abuse report to the state’s abuse and neglect hotline led the agency to take custody of them. They remained in DCF’s care until 2004, when they were returned to Strong and Bailey. DCF retained jurisdiction over the case since then.
DCF’s attorney, Lopez-Acevedo, told Lederman the agency had substantial contact with the family in the ensuing years, though it appears much of the scrutiny concerned one of the 9-year-old’s older sisters, who has had significant involvement with the state’s juvenile justice system, and does not currently live with the family. Though investigators had spoken with the family several times over the past two years, no allegations emerged that Strong or Bailey had mistreated the kids, Lopez-Acevedo said.
Indeed, in June of last year Strong asked DCF for help in raising the children, Lopez-Acevedo said.
Neither the 9-year-old nor his siblings are being named by The Miami Herald to protect their privacy.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Lopez-Acevedo did not accuse the parents of mistreating their children. She said the 9-year-old at the center of the case appears to suffer from poorly understood psychiatric and medical conditions that cause him to eat excessively, and then vomit. Though police described him as horrifically malnourished — he weighed only 35 pounds at age 9, and Lederman said in court last week that he looked like a concentration camp survivor with protruding bones — the boy had been under the regular care of pediatricians and mental health workers, Acevedo said.
“There were a number of eyes on this child, and the [state child-abuse hotline] reports that came in did not include the possibility that he was not being fed in the home,” Acevedo told the judge. “To the naked eye, with his clothes on, you could not necessarily tell this child was suffering from malnutrition.”
Rita Doval, a nurse with the state’s Child Protection Team who interviewed the children, said the kids assured her they were well-fed at home. The 9-year-old said that his parents sometimes withheld food from him, but Doval said the parents contend they were told by other doctors to regulate what the boy ate because he would sometimes eat until he made himself sick. Though the withholding of food may have seemed like a punishment, Doval said, it was intended to protect him.
A court-appointed psychologist, Michael DiTomasso, said neither the 9-year-old nor his siblings suggested they had been abused by Bailey or Strong, though some of the children said they had been allowed to beat each other.
“Three of the children all made clear they had a good mommy and a good daddy,” DiTomasso said. “They were really defensive. They felt really bad, and they saw their parents get arrested. They miss the little one, too. They worry about him in the hospital.”
DiTomasso said he asked the 9-year-old pointedly to explain the marks and bruises police found on his body, but was unable to get an explanation. “My God, you look at the little boy and say, what happened to him? I saw the pictures, and then I saw the child. My first impression was, My God, who did this to him?”
The psychologist said the 9-year-old was in dire need of a comprehensive medical and psychiatric evaluation, and he was surprised that such a battery of tests had not yet been performed. “Something was really wrong physically with this child,” DiTomaso said. “He needs a thorough physical work-up. He’ll get it now, right?”
Source http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/08/2631712/judge-on-emaciated-child-didnt.html
NJ Child Welfare Officials Faulted In Handling Slain Toddler’s Case, Says DYFS Commissioner
TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) – Child welfare officials in New Jersey failed to connect concerns of child abuse and domestic violence in the case of a 2-year-old whose father is accused of tossing her to her death still strapped in her car seat.
Children and Families Commissioner Allison Blake on Tuesday released a review over how the agency handled the case of Tierra Morgan-Glover.
The girl was found dead in a creek in Wall Township on Nov. 22. Prosecutors said the toddler’s father, Arthur Morgan III, killed her during a court-approved visit by attaching a tire iron to her car seat to weigh it down before throwing it into the creek from an overpass.
The cause of death was determined to be homicidal violence, including submersion in water.
Morgan was later arrested on Nov. 29 by U.S. Marshals in California after receiving a tip he was staying with friends in the San Diego area.
Child welfare officials investigated the turbulent relationship between Morgan and the child’s mother four times in 13 months before she was found dead.
In Dec., the toddler’s great grandfather blamed the court system for not doing enough to prevent Tierra’s death.
“My granddaughter pleaded with these people not to allow an unsupervised visit. Yet in spite of her request it was denied,” the man said.
The girl’s mother, Imani Benton, said a case worker told the courts there was no reason to deny Morgan unsupervised visitation.
“I reached out to the Department of Youth and Family Services when he hit her and he admitted to hitting her and they still deemed him fit as a parent,” Benton said.
Blake now says caseworkers never consulted with the agency’s domestic violence liaison. They and supervisors also failed to follow-up on recommendations made by the special response unit which first investigated child abuse claims.
Morgan is charged with murder.
Source http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/02/08/nj-child-welfare-officials-faulted-in-handling-slain-toddlers-case-says-dyfs-commissioner/
Children and Families Commissioner Allison Blake on Tuesday released a review over how the agency handled the case of Tierra Morgan-Glover.
The girl was found dead in a creek in Wall Township on Nov. 22. Prosecutors said the toddler’s father, Arthur Morgan III, killed her during a court-approved visit by attaching a tire iron to her car seat to weigh it down before throwing it into the creek from an overpass.
The cause of death was determined to be homicidal violence, including submersion in water.
Morgan was later arrested on Nov. 29 by U.S. Marshals in California after receiving a tip he was staying with friends in the San Diego area.
Child welfare officials investigated the turbulent relationship between Morgan and the child’s mother four times in 13 months before she was found dead.
In Dec., the toddler’s great grandfather blamed the court system for not doing enough to prevent Tierra’s death.
“My granddaughter pleaded with these people not to allow an unsupervised visit. Yet in spite of her request it was denied,” the man said.
The girl’s mother, Imani Benton, said a case worker told the courts there was no reason to deny Morgan unsupervised visitation.
“I reached out to the Department of Youth and Family Services when he hit her and he admitted to hitting her and they still deemed him fit as a parent,” Benton said.
Blake now says caseworkers never consulted with the agency’s domestic violence liaison. They and supervisors also failed to follow-up on recommendations made by the special response unit which first investigated child abuse claims.
Morgan is charged with murder.
Source http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/02/08/nj-child-welfare-officials-faulted-in-handling-slain-toddlers-case-says-dyfs-commissioner/
Caretaker details abuse child says he endured - Barahona Case
MIAMI (WSVN) -- The caretaker of a 10-year-old boy who was allegedly abused by his adoptive parents has provided new details about the abuse he said he and his murdered sister endured.
Katia Garcia was the temporary guardian who took care of Victor after the 10-year-old boy was found doused with chemicals and severely burned in a pickup truck on the side of Interstate 95, near West Palm Beach, on Feb. 14, 2011.
The body of Victor's twin sister, Nubia, was found in the back of the truck, which belonged to the siblings' adoptive father, Jorge Barahona.
The children's adoptive parents, Jorge and Carmen Barahona, were arrested and charged with murder and torture. Meanwhile, Victor was sent to live with Garcia.
Garcia made several audio statements to prosecutors in June, several months after Nubia's death. Garcia informed prosecutors that Victor told her what he remembered about living with the Barahonas. "His father used to put a bag over his head and that he used to choke him, and he says that there were a couple of times that he was very close to dying," said Garcia.
According to Garcia, Victor always referred to Jorge Barahona as "Dad," but that he nor his sister ever saw any signs of affection from their adoptive parents or heard them say "I love you."
Victor told Garcia about his sister Nubia and how she looked when he last saw her. "He stutters, because he's so angry. She had this big scab on her forehead and on her face and different parts of her face as well as smaller ones," Garcia said, "and he is very clear about that being what she looked like and how she was found the very last time he saw her."
Victor also talked about how he and his sister could barely walk after they were tied up for so long, Garcia said: "He would walk like hunchback because of the position that he had to remain in for so long."
Garcia continued, "He says that while they were in the bathtub, his dad would pour cold ice water on top of him and his sister."
In addition, Garcia said, Victor mentioned that Jorge Barahona would also pour other liquids on them while they were in the tub. "Like Clorox, like Drano," she said.
The abuse did not end there. "His father used to pour hot sauce in his ears, eyes, nose and mouth. His dad, his father, made him eat a cockroach," Garcia said Victor told her.
On another occasion, Garcia said, "[Victor] saw some of my eyelashes and then, he said that his was shut with like Krazy Glue."
According to Garcia, on Victor's birthday, all he could think of was Nubia. "That he missed her and that he thinks about her," she said. "He cried a couple times on his birthday."
Victor is now living with relatives in Texas.
Miami-Dade prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Jorge and Carmen Barahona.
Source http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/21006626802259/caretaker-details-abuse-child-says-he-endured/
Katia Garcia was the temporary guardian who took care of Victor after the 10-year-old boy was found doused with chemicals and severely burned in a pickup truck on the side of Interstate 95, near West Palm Beach, on Feb. 14, 2011.
The body of Victor's twin sister, Nubia, was found in the back of the truck, which belonged to the siblings' adoptive father, Jorge Barahona.
The children's adoptive parents, Jorge and Carmen Barahona, were arrested and charged with murder and torture. Meanwhile, Victor was sent to live with Garcia.
Garcia made several audio statements to prosecutors in June, several months after Nubia's death. Garcia informed prosecutors that Victor told her what he remembered about living with the Barahonas. "His father used to put a bag over his head and that he used to choke him, and he says that there were a couple of times that he was very close to dying," said Garcia.
According to Garcia, Victor always referred to Jorge Barahona as "Dad," but that he nor his sister ever saw any signs of affection from their adoptive parents or heard them say "I love you."
Victor told Garcia about his sister Nubia and how she looked when he last saw her. "He stutters, because he's so angry. She had this big scab on her forehead and on her face and different parts of her face as well as smaller ones," Garcia said, "and he is very clear about that being what she looked like and how she was found the very last time he saw her."
Victor also talked about how he and his sister could barely walk after they were tied up for so long, Garcia said: "He would walk like hunchback because of the position that he had to remain in for so long."
Garcia continued, "He says that while they were in the bathtub, his dad would pour cold ice water on top of him and his sister."
In addition, Garcia said, Victor mentioned that Jorge Barahona would also pour other liquids on them while they were in the tub. "Like Clorox, like Drano," she said.
The abuse did not end there. "His father used to pour hot sauce in his ears, eyes, nose and mouth. His dad, his father, made him eat a cockroach," Garcia said Victor told her.
On another occasion, Garcia said, "[Victor] saw some of my eyelashes and then, he said that his was shut with like Krazy Glue."
According to Garcia, on Victor's birthday, all he could think of was Nubia. "That he missed her and that he thinks about her," she said. "He cried a couple times on his birthday."
Victor is now living with relatives in Texas.
Miami-Dade prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Jorge and Carmen Barahona.
Source http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/21006626802259/caretaker-details-abuse-child-says-he-endured/
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
L.A. judge plans to open child dependency courts to press, public
The presiding judge of Los Angeles County’s juvenile court said Monday he would issue an order in the coming days that would increase access for the press and public in a branch of the legal system that handles child abuse and foster care cases.
Judge Michael Nash’s annoucement capped a hearing on his proposed order that drew an overflow crowd to hear a debate that had sharply divided many involved in the child welfare system.
Much of the debate since his proposal was floated in November centered on the perceived benefits or weaknesses of more openness, but Nash opened his hearing by saying he wanted to focus solely on existing law and stay clear of broader policy discussions.
“My purpose is to implement the statute that applies and the case law that applies,” Nash said.
Under his proposed order, the news media would be presumed to have a legitimate interest that would allow them to attend hearings. Other members of the public would have to demonstrate a legitimate interest or be present with the consent of the child or the child's attorney.
The news media and other members of the public could be barred from the courtroom but only after an objection is raised by one of the parties to the case. The objection would have to demonstrate that “there is a reasonable likelihood that access will be harmful to the child’s or children’s best interest.”
Kelli Sager, an attorney for the Los Angeles Times, said Nash’s proposed order finally provides a road map for judges who are attempting to implement a law that allows them to “admit such persons as he deems to have a direct and legitimate interest.”
“For 20 years,” she said, “there has been no process set up … and the process has been inconsistent or ad hoc at best.”
Leslie Starr Heimov, executive director of the Children’s Law Center of California, which represents the vast majority of children in the dependency system, said her firm continues to consider an appeal if the order is implemented. However, she said recent revisions “largely cured” her objections by raising the bar for non-news-media members of the public to remain in the courtroom.
Heimov said in an interview that her biggest remaining concern involves the hearings that would take place if an objection to public or news media attendance is raised. Such hearings should be closed to the public, she said, while lawyers argue about the potential harm to the child’s interests.
“Otherwise, we’re exposing the child to harm before the finding of the harm,” she said.
If that issue is resolved, she said her office may not appeal the order.
Source http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/01/judge-to-allow-public-access-to-dependency-court.html
Judge Michael Nash’s annoucement capped a hearing on his proposed order that drew an overflow crowd to hear a debate that had sharply divided many involved in the child welfare system.
Much of the debate since his proposal was floated in November centered on the perceived benefits or weaknesses of more openness, but Nash opened his hearing by saying he wanted to focus solely on existing law and stay clear of broader policy discussions.
“My purpose is to implement the statute that applies and the case law that applies,” Nash said.
Under his proposed order, the news media would be presumed to have a legitimate interest that would allow them to attend hearings. Other members of the public would have to demonstrate a legitimate interest or be present with the consent of the child or the child's attorney.
The news media and other members of the public could be barred from the courtroom but only after an objection is raised by one of the parties to the case. The objection would have to demonstrate that “there is a reasonable likelihood that access will be harmful to the child’s or children’s best interest.”
Kelli Sager, an attorney for the Los Angeles Times, said Nash’s proposed order finally provides a road map for judges who are attempting to implement a law that allows them to “admit such persons as he deems to have a direct and legitimate interest.”
“For 20 years,” she said, “there has been no process set up … and the process has been inconsistent or ad hoc at best.”
Leslie Starr Heimov, executive director of the Children’s Law Center of California, which represents the vast majority of children in the dependency system, said her firm continues to consider an appeal if the order is implemented. However, she said recent revisions “largely cured” her objections by raising the bar for non-news-media members of the public to remain in the courtroom.
Heimov said in an interview that her biggest remaining concern involves the hearings that would take place if an objection to public or news media attendance is raised. Such hearings should be closed to the public, she said, while lawyers argue about the potential harm to the child’s interests.
“Otherwise, we’re exposing the child to harm before the finding of the harm,” she said.
If that issue is resolved, she said her office may not appeal the order.
Source http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/01/judge-to-allow-public-access-to-dependency-court.html
Saturday, January 28, 2012
WA to pay $2.35M in abuse case settlement
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington state will pay $2.35 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a woman who alleged that two state agencies failed to protect her from a sex offender who abused her when she was a child.
The Pierce County Superior Court lawsuit alleged that a paroled child rapist named Danny Dorosky Sr. was allowed to live with the victim's family, despite a Parole Board order that required intensive management and supervision because of the prior sex crime.
One of the woman's lawyers, Jason Amala, said Dorosky ingratiated himself into the victim's family and eventually moved into the home, where he abused the girl for almost three years. She was 10 when the abuse started, Amala said.
The woman also contended that the Department of Social and Health Services' Child Protective Services failed to protect her after school officials in Shelton reported the girl might be a sexual abuse victim.
Corrections spokeswoman Selena Davis confirmed the settlement and its amount late Wednesday. She said she could not immediately comment on case details.
DSHS spokesman Thomas Shapley referred inquiries to a lawyer with the state attorney general's office who did not immediately return a call.
The woman's lawyers say the abuse began in 1990. After the victim's father contacted law enforcement about the man in 1993, Mason County officials eventually arrested Dorosky. He was convicted of child molestation and rape. He died in 2004, Amala said.
In a phone interview Wednesday with The Olympian, the now 31-year-old woman said she had buried her awareness of what had happened until recently, when her own daughter turned 10.
She said she looked up Dorosky's court records and eventually hired a lawyer.
She said "it makes me sick" that state employees could have prevented what had happened to her and didn't.
The plaintiff, a state employee, added that she would appreciate an apology from the state. Beyond that, she said she hopes her lawsuit will lead to policy changes that will prevent supervision failures.
Source http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/WA-to-pay-2-35M-in-abuse-case-settlement-2713424.php
The Pierce County Superior Court lawsuit alleged that a paroled child rapist named Danny Dorosky Sr. was allowed to live with the victim's family, despite a Parole Board order that required intensive management and supervision because of the prior sex crime.
One of the woman's lawyers, Jason Amala, said Dorosky ingratiated himself into the victim's family and eventually moved into the home, where he abused the girl for almost three years. She was 10 when the abuse started, Amala said.
The woman also contended that the Department of Social and Health Services' Child Protective Services failed to protect her after school officials in Shelton reported the girl might be a sexual abuse victim.
Corrections spokeswoman Selena Davis confirmed the settlement and its amount late Wednesday. She said she could not immediately comment on case details.
DSHS spokesman Thomas Shapley referred inquiries to a lawyer with the state attorney general's office who did not immediately return a call.
The woman's lawyers say the abuse began in 1990. After the victim's father contacted law enforcement about the man in 1993, Mason County officials eventually arrested Dorosky. He was convicted of child molestation and rape. He died in 2004, Amala said.
In a phone interview Wednesday with The Olympian, the now 31-year-old woman said she had buried her awareness of what had happened until recently, when her own daughter turned 10.
She said she looked up Dorosky's court records and eventually hired a lawyer.
She said "it makes me sick" that state employees could have prevented what had happened to her and didn't.
The plaintiff, a state employee, added that she would appreciate an apology from the state. Beyond that, she said she hopes her lawsuit will lead to policy changes that will prevent supervision failures.
Source http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/WA-to-pay-2-35M-in-abuse-case-settlement-2713424.php
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Detectives seek child abuse victims of former Lompoc-area soccer coach
Detectives are asking for the public's help in finding possible molestation victims of a man who coached youth soccer in the Lompoc area in the mid- to late 1980s, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department announced today.
The man, 52-year-old Terence Paul Stevens, is already facing multiple charges of child molestation.
During his coaching years, Stevens reportedly befriended several of his juvenile players, whom he ultimately molested, deputies said.
Two of those victims, who are now adults, have told investigators in recent months about their alleged victimization at the hands of Stevens when they were minors living in the Lompoc area.
By the mid 1990s, Stevens had moved to the San Diego area, where he continued coaching youth soccer. In 2008, Stevens was visiting Yuma, Ariz., when authorities there arrested him for sexual conduct with a minor. He has since been convicted of that crime and is serving a prison sentence in Arizona.
In August 2011, Stevens was extradited to Santa Barbara County to answer the local charges from the 1980s. Stevens is now facing 17 felony counts of lewd acts with a child; oral copulation of a minor and sodomy with a minor; all of which are related to the crimes committed against the two Lompoc-area victims.
Detectives are asking that anyone with information regarding additional victims call the Detective Bureau at 805-934-6170 or the sheriff's Anonymous Tip Line at 805-681-4171.
Source http://www.lompocrecord.com/news/local/detectives-seek-child-abuse-victims-of-former-lompoc-area-soccer/article_de28d196-45f4-11e1-b50f-001871e3ce6c.html
The man, 52-year-old Terence Paul Stevens, is already facing multiple charges of child molestation.
During his coaching years, Stevens reportedly befriended several of his juvenile players, whom he ultimately molested, deputies said.
Two of those victims, who are now adults, have told investigators in recent months about their alleged victimization at the hands of Stevens when they were minors living in the Lompoc area.
By the mid 1990s, Stevens had moved to the San Diego area, where he continued coaching youth soccer. In 2008, Stevens was visiting Yuma, Ariz., when authorities there arrested him for sexual conduct with a minor. He has since been convicted of that crime and is serving a prison sentence in Arizona.
In August 2011, Stevens was extradited to Santa Barbara County to answer the local charges from the 1980s. Stevens is now facing 17 felony counts of lewd acts with a child; oral copulation of a minor and sodomy with a minor; all of which are related to the crimes committed against the two Lompoc-area victims.
Detectives are asking that anyone with information regarding additional victims call the Detective Bureau at 805-934-6170 or the sheriff's Anonymous Tip Line at 805-681-4171.
Source http://www.lompocrecord.com/news/local/detectives-seek-child-abuse-victims-of-former-lompoc-area-soccer/article_de28d196-45f4-11e1-b50f-001871e3ce6c.html
Monday, January 23, 2012
Child care worker accused of raping boy - Texas
Blogger note:
Just because a daycare is registered somewhere or licensed by the state should not make you feel all that safe. We know a registered day care that has a 2ce convicted felon running it. How does that happen? The felony background check only goes back 5 years in the situation we are talking about. The felonies of this daycare provider ocurred in the 1970's and 1980's. We also know of state run daycare centers that have had many violations, some of which were harm inflicted on our family members while in their care. Foster children who go to the state licensed daycares are subjected to horrendous abuse and no one does anything about it. So be careful! Know your daycare provider and know them well.
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By Ana Ley
Police arrested a child-care worker accused of repeatedly raping and threatening an 11-year-old boy.
Bradley Bendele, 32, was arrested Friday night and charged with continuous sexual abuse of a young child, a first-degree felony.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Bendele raped the boy while he cared for him.
Bendele runs a child-care business, authorities said, though it does not appear to be licensed through the state's Department of Family and Protective Services.
The boy told police Bendele threatened several times to kill him and his family if he reported the attacks, according to the affidavit.
Bendele remained at Bexar County Jail on Saturday afternoon in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Child Protective Services spokeswoman Mary Walker said the Child Care Licensing division of the state's Department of Family and Protective Services is investigating the suspect's business as a potential illegal operation.
“It's so important for folks to go online and check out day care facilities and make sure they're registered and licensed by the state,” Walker said. “It's important for parents to know who they are leaving their children with.”
Source http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Child-care-worker-accused-of-raping-boy-2671456.php
Just because a daycare is registered somewhere or licensed by the state should not make you feel all that safe. We know a registered day care that has a 2ce convicted felon running it. How does that happen? The felony background check only goes back 5 years in the situation we are talking about. The felonies of this daycare provider ocurred in the 1970's and 1980's. We also know of state run daycare centers that have had many violations, some of which were harm inflicted on our family members while in their care. Foster children who go to the state licensed daycares are subjected to horrendous abuse and no one does anything about it. So be careful! Know your daycare provider and know them well.
----
By Ana Ley
Police arrested a child-care worker accused of repeatedly raping and threatening an 11-year-old boy.
Bradley Bendele, 32, was arrested Friday night and charged with continuous sexual abuse of a young child, a first-degree felony.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Bendele raped the boy while he cared for him.
Bendele runs a child-care business, authorities said, though it does not appear to be licensed through the state's Department of Family and Protective Services.
The boy told police Bendele threatened several times to kill him and his family if he reported the attacks, according to the affidavit.
Bendele remained at Bexar County Jail on Saturday afternoon in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Child Protective Services spokeswoman Mary Walker said the Child Care Licensing division of the state's Department of Family and Protective Services is investigating the suspect's business as a potential illegal operation.
“It's so important for folks to go online and check out day care facilities and make sure they're registered and licensed by the state,” Walker said. “It's important for parents to know who they are leaving their children with.”
Source http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Child-care-worker-accused-of-raping-boy-2671456.php
Friday, January 6, 2012
Attorneys for tortured teen sue seven government employees for alleged negligence
By Marjie Lundstrom
Attorneys for the young Sacramento woman who was tortured as a teen in her adoptive home filed a lawsuit Thursday against seven current and former government workers who had contact with the troubled household.
Lilly Manning, who turn turns 20 next week, and two of her siblings are seeking damages from six administrators and workers at Hiram Johnson High School, as well as a former social worker for Sacramento County's Child Protective Services.
Last month, the legal team, headed by Joe C. George, a lawyer/psychologist and child abuse expert, filed a claim for damages against CPS and the Sacramento City Unified School District.
The new civil filing seeks to hold the public employees personally liable for "negligent conduct" in their dealings with the children and their violent caregivers.
The new complaint for damages alleges that a CPS social worker was "a personal friend" of the abusive adoptive mother, Lillian Manning-Horvath, and dismissed or minimized warnings about the home. The complaint also alleges that the six employees associated with the school district saw Lilly's injuries or expressed suspicions about the family but failed to alert CPS, as required by law.
Both Lillian Manning-Horvath and her husband, Joseph Horvath, were sentenced to multiple life terms.
Source http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/05/4166302/attorneys-for-tortured-teen-sue.html
Attorneys for the young Sacramento woman who was tortured as a teen in her adoptive home filed a lawsuit Thursday against seven current and former government workers who had contact with the troubled household.
Lilly Manning, who turn turns 20 next week, and two of her siblings are seeking damages from six administrators and workers at Hiram Johnson High School, as well as a former social worker for Sacramento County's Child Protective Services.
Last month, the legal team, headed by Joe C. George, a lawyer/psychologist and child abuse expert, filed a claim for damages against CPS and the Sacramento City Unified School District.
The new civil filing seeks to hold the public employees personally liable for "negligent conduct" in their dealings with the children and their violent caregivers.
The new complaint for damages alleges that a CPS social worker was "a personal friend" of the abusive adoptive mother, Lillian Manning-Horvath, and dismissed or minimized warnings about the home. The complaint also alleges that the six employees associated with the school district saw Lilly's injuries or expressed suspicions about the family but failed to alert CPS, as required by law.
Both Lillian Manning-Horvath and her husband, Joseph Horvath, were sentenced to multiple life terms.
Source http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/05/4166302/attorneys-for-tortured-teen-sue.html
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Barahona judge’s efforts to ferret out leaks detailed
Court records released to The Herald document a judge’s efforts to identify lawyers or child welfare administrators she suspected of leaking secret material to the newspaper.
By Carol Marbin Miller and Diana Moskovitz
“Exceedingly chagrined” that a newspaper had published details about a controversial child custody hearing that she had wanted to keep secret, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia calendared a court hearing for Aug. 26 to ferret out who leaked.
But a day before the scheduled proceeding, an attorney for the Miami-Dade court system told The Miami Herald’s lawyers there would be no hearing. Their presence wasn’t needed.
What court administrators didn’t say: All the courtroom participants under suspicion of talking were going to be in court anyway that morning — at a conference the public was forbidden to attend. And Sampedro-Iglesia had another plan. She was going to require all of them to sign sworn statements that they had not betrayed her trust.
“Where, as here, confidential information is leaked, the Court is vested with the authority to take additional measures to ensure the children are protected and the Court’s orders are followed,” she wrote.
The fight over courtroom access and records concerned the fate of 10-year-old Victor Barahona, who was found Feb. 14 by a road ranger on the side of Interstate 95 in West Palm Beach, convulsing and drenched with chemicals inside his adoptive father Jorge Barahona’s pickup truck.
Jorge Barahona was nearby, on the ground, also ill. The decomposing body of Victor’s twin sister, Nubia, was later found soaked in chemicals and shoved inside a trash bag in the truck..
Police and prosecutors later said the twins had been “tortured” for months inside the Barahonas’ Miami-Dade home.
The case has come to symbolize the longstanding tensions between the rights of abused children to keep private the details of their suffering — versus the public’s desire to hold its government accountable. In the months following Nubia’s death, The Miami Herald went to court four times seeking to compel the release of records or fight efforts to close to the public hearings about the Barahona children. The details surrounding the efforts of Sampedro-Iglesia and State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle to identify leakers are contained in court records the newspaper obtained this week after filing suit for their release.
“One of the greatest privileges our Constitution provides is free press afforded by the First Amendment; however, the children in this case deserve their right to privacy, and it is this Court’s responsibility to protect these children,” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote in an order.
But Carole Shauffer, executive director of the Youth Law Center, who is helping Florida’s Department of Children & Families improve foster care under a private grant, said privacy concerns often have been used to shield public officials from scrutiny. “Agencies act,” she said, “as if the privacy is there to protect them. It is not. It is supposed to protect the child.”
In the weeks following the twins’ discovery, The Herald published a series of stories documenting critical lapses in the state’s supervision of the former foster children.
The Barahonas had been allowed by the state to adopt the twins in 2009 even though “the red flag of caution and warning was raised many times” by people around the family, including a principal and a volunteer guardian , according to the report done by a panel that investigated how the system failed. Even as Nubia’s body was discovered, two reports to the state’s abuse hotline had gone unheeded.
Amid such controversy, Sampedro-Iglesia closed all future court proceedings regarding the three surviving Barahona children, including Victor, to the public in an order dated July 21.
Under Florida law, hearings in which the state seeks to terminate a parent’s right to his or her children are closed to the public. The Herald’s attorney argued that the custody dispute, and other matters, were not part of such termination efforts, as both Barahona parents, now awaiting trial for murder and aggravated child abuse, had surrendered their rights. The judge disagreed.
A month later, at the request of prosecutors, Sampedro-Iglesia ordered Victor brought back to Miami from the home of his birth uncle in Texas for a hearing to determine who would continue to raise him.
Child welfare administrators wanted Victor to remain in Texas, but prosecutors were seeking his return to foster care in Miami.
On Aug. 19, The Herald reported that Victor had become the subject of a “judicial tug of war,” and that many child welfare experts felt that the hearing never should have been held. Victor himself had testified he wished to remain “with Tio and Tia” in Texas.
The Herald was forced to rely on anonymous sources for the story because its reporters had been kept out of the courtroom.
Insisting that children should never be returned to foster care when a qualified relative wished to adopt them, the head of the University of Miami Law School’s Children & Youth Law Clinic, Bernard Perlmutter, said at the time: “It seems like some kooky things have occurred here.”
The day the story appeared, Sampedro-Iglesia filed an order that Victor be allowed to live with his relatives in Texas.
Six days later, on Aug. 25, Sampedro-Iglesia signed a “gag order” once again forbidding parties to the dispute from discussing it. “Audaciously with the highest degree of impertinence,” she wrote, a courtroom observer even leaked the date of her court hearing to determine the identity of leakers.
“The cumulative effect of the media coverage and statements made by various persons, if allowed to continue, would contravene the basic principles set forth” in state child welfare law, she wrote.
Whoever spoke with the newspaper, she wrote, betrayed “not only the trust of the Court, but, most importantly, the trust of the minor child who is relying upon the good graces of adults to protect him from further sensationalistic intrusion into his private life.”
Sampedro later cancelled the hearing. But, records show, she instructed parties to the Barahona case to go into her chambers following an Aug. 26 status conference, and had her judicial assistant give them all copies of an affidavit stating they had not divulged confidential information.
Of 33 people asked to sign them, only one did not. Former DCF Regional Administrator Jacqui Colyer, who had retired from the agency, was banned by Sampedro-Iglesia from appearing in her court for any other proceedings involving Victor.
“Colyer has apparently decided to refrain from providing the Affidavit and has offered no explanation to the Court regarding such decision,” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote in a Sept. 22 order.
Sampedro also wrote two orders limiting the number of people who can attend future Barahona hearings, and, having concluded that she had “appropriately addressed the breach of confidentiality,” denied a request from State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle to hold further proceedings to identify the leakers. Fernandez Rundle, she wrote, had authority to investigate the matter herself.
Richard Gelles, dean of the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, a well-regarded children’s advocate who followed the case closely, said it was the state that failed the boy and his sister.
“Government,” Gelles said, “ought to be held as accountable as they hold parents when involved in a maltreatment proceeding. What this judge is saying is, no, she is beyond accountability. That is contrary to law and common sense.”
“Every judge who has had a hand in this case, every agent of state government, has to be accountable. They are part of the legal parentage of this boy.”
Source http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/30/2567341/barahona-judges-efforts-to-ferret.html
By Carol Marbin Miller and Diana Moskovitz
“Exceedingly chagrined” that a newspaper had published details about a controversial child custody hearing that she had wanted to keep secret, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia calendared a court hearing for Aug. 26 to ferret out who leaked.
But a day before the scheduled proceeding, an attorney for the Miami-Dade court system told The Miami Herald’s lawyers there would be no hearing. Their presence wasn’t needed.
What court administrators didn’t say: All the courtroom participants under suspicion of talking were going to be in court anyway that morning — at a conference the public was forbidden to attend. And Sampedro-Iglesia had another plan. She was going to require all of them to sign sworn statements that they had not betrayed her trust.
“Where, as here, confidential information is leaked, the Court is vested with the authority to take additional measures to ensure the children are protected and the Court’s orders are followed,” she wrote.
The fight over courtroom access and records concerned the fate of 10-year-old Victor Barahona, who was found Feb. 14 by a road ranger on the side of Interstate 95 in West Palm Beach, convulsing and drenched with chemicals inside his adoptive father Jorge Barahona’s pickup truck.
Jorge Barahona was nearby, on the ground, also ill. The decomposing body of Victor’s twin sister, Nubia, was later found soaked in chemicals and shoved inside a trash bag in the truck..
Police and prosecutors later said the twins had been “tortured” for months inside the Barahonas’ Miami-Dade home.
The case has come to symbolize the longstanding tensions between the rights of abused children to keep private the details of their suffering — versus the public’s desire to hold its government accountable. In the months following Nubia’s death, The Miami Herald went to court four times seeking to compel the release of records or fight efforts to close to the public hearings about the Barahona children. The details surrounding the efforts of Sampedro-Iglesia and State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle to identify leakers are contained in court records the newspaper obtained this week after filing suit for their release.
“One of the greatest privileges our Constitution provides is free press afforded by the First Amendment; however, the children in this case deserve their right to privacy, and it is this Court’s responsibility to protect these children,” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote in an order.
But Carole Shauffer, executive director of the Youth Law Center, who is helping Florida’s Department of Children & Families improve foster care under a private grant, said privacy concerns often have been used to shield public officials from scrutiny. “Agencies act,” she said, “as if the privacy is there to protect them. It is not. It is supposed to protect the child.”
In the weeks following the twins’ discovery, The Herald published a series of stories documenting critical lapses in the state’s supervision of the former foster children.
The Barahonas had been allowed by the state to adopt the twins in 2009 even though “the red flag of caution and warning was raised many times” by people around the family, including a principal and a volunteer guardian , according to the report done by a panel that investigated how the system failed. Even as Nubia’s body was discovered, two reports to the state’s abuse hotline had gone unheeded.
Amid such controversy, Sampedro-Iglesia closed all future court proceedings regarding the three surviving Barahona children, including Victor, to the public in an order dated July 21.
Under Florida law, hearings in which the state seeks to terminate a parent’s right to his or her children are closed to the public. The Herald’s attorney argued that the custody dispute, and other matters, were not part of such termination efforts, as both Barahona parents, now awaiting trial for murder and aggravated child abuse, had surrendered their rights. The judge disagreed.
A month later, at the request of prosecutors, Sampedro-Iglesia ordered Victor brought back to Miami from the home of his birth uncle in Texas for a hearing to determine who would continue to raise him.
Child welfare administrators wanted Victor to remain in Texas, but prosecutors were seeking his return to foster care in Miami.
On Aug. 19, The Herald reported that Victor had become the subject of a “judicial tug of war,” and that many child welfare experts felt that the hearing never should have been held. Victor himself had testified he wished to remain “with Tio and Tia” in Texas.
The Herald was forced to rely on anonymous sources for the story because its reporters had been kept out of the courtroom.
Insisting that children should never be returned to foster care when a qualified relative wished to adopt them, the head of the University of Miami Law School’s Children & Youth Law Clinic, Bernard Perlmutter, said at the time: “It seems like some kooky things have occurred here.”
The day the story appeared, Sampedro-Iglesia filed an order that Victor be allowed to live with his relatives in Texas.
Six days later, on Aug. 25, Sampedro-Iglesia signed a “gag order” once again forbidding parties to the dispute from discussing it. “Audaciously with the highest degree of impertinence,” she wrote, a courtroom observer even leaked the date of her court hearing to determine the identity of leakers.
“The cumulative effect of the media coverage and statements made by various persons, if allowed to continue, would contravene the basic principles set forth” in state child welfare law, she wrote.
Whoever spoke with the newspaper, she wrote, betrayed “not only the trust of the Court, but, most importantly, the trust of the minor child who is relying upon the good graces of adults to protect him from further sensationalistic intrusion into his private life.”
Sampedro later cancelled the hearing. But, records show, she instructed parties to the Barahona case to go into her chambers following an Aug. 26 status conference, and had her judicial assistant give them all copies of an affidavit stating they had not divulged confidential information.
Of 33 people asked to sign them, only one did not. Former DCF Regional Administrator Jacqui Colyer, who had retired from the agency, was banned by Sampedro-Iglesia from appearing in her court for any other proceedings involving Victor.
“Colyer has apparently decided to refrain from providing the Affidavit and has offered no explanation to the Court regarding such decision,” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote in a Sept. 22 order.
Sampedro also wrote two orders limiting the number of people who can attend future Barahona hearings, and, having concluded that she had “appropriately addressed the breach of confidentiality,” denied a request from State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle to hold further proceedings to identify the leakers. Fernandez Rundle, she wrote, had authority to investigate the matter herself.
Richard Gelles, dean of the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, a well-regarded children’s advocate who followed the case closely, said it was the state that failed the boy and his sister.
“Government,” Gelles said, “ought to be held as accountable as they hold parents when involved in a maltreatment proceeding. What this judge is saying is, no, she is beyond accountability. That is contrary to law and common sense.”
“Every judge who has had a hand in this case, every agent of state government, has to be accountable. They are part of the legal parentage of this boy.”
Source http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/30/2567341/barahona-judges-efforts-to-ferret.html
$68 Million Settlement Proposed for 10 Children Fraudulently Adopted and Abused
By BENJAMIN WEISER
Lawyers for 10 disabled children who were fraudulently adopted by a Queens woman more than 15 years ago and subjected to years of abuse have proposed a $68 million settlement in a civil rights lawsuit filed on their clients’ behalf, according to a confidential court filing.
The proposal comes as a federal magistrate judge in Brooklyn appears to be trying to mediate a settlement to the suit, filed in 2009, which seeks damages from New York City and three contract adoption agencies that placed the children with the woman, Judith Leekin.
The case has been seen as one of the most disturbing child welfare fraud cases in the city in recent years. Ms. Leekin used four aliases to adopt the children, who had physical or developmental disabilities, including autism and retardation, and later moved them to Florida. The children were caged, restrained with plastic ties and handcuffs, beaten with sticks and hangers, and kept out of school, according to court papers. An 11th child disappeared while in Ms. Leekin’s care and is presumed dead.
The suit asks that the 10 plaintiffs, now mostly in their 20s, be compensated for their years of suffering as well as for the services and treatment they will need for the rest of their lives.
The settlement proposal was cited in a letter from a defense lawyer in the case to the magistrate judge, Marilyn D. Go of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, where the lawsuit was brought.
The letter was filed publicly in October, but was quickly sealed after the lawyer wrote that it “referred to confidential discussions between the parties.” The New York Times obtained the letter while it was publicly available.
Ms. Leekin, 66, was imprisoned after she was convicted of fraud in federal court in Manhattan and of abuse in a state court in Florida. Federal prosecutors have said that as part of her scheme, she collected $1.68 million in subsidies from the city that went to support a lavish lifestyle.
When the 10 children were removed from her care in 2007, none had completed elementary school; only three could read and only at a third-grade level; and about half were declared either “totally incapacitated” or “vulnerable adults,” according to a report by a former Columbia University social work professor retained by the plaintiffs to examine the cases.
The 10 have since lived in Florida in state programs or on their own, and at least one is homeless, according to court filings.
New York City and the three private agencies have denied liability in the case, claiming that Ms. Leekin was a sophisticated serial criminal whose scheme fooled various professionals and, given the capabilities and practices of the time, would not have been foreseen or detected.
The agencies are HeartShare Human Services of New York, SCO Family of Services and the now-closed St. Joseph Services for Children and Families.
The agencies’ lawyer, Robert S. Delmond, did not respond to messages seeking a comment on Thursday. Lawyers for the city and the plaintiffs declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
In the now-sealed letter to Judge Go, Mr. Delmond described the $68 million demand as “a significant sum, which requires much consideration, thought, planning and involvement of corporate officers before they can reach a decision.” The agencies’ insurance carrier was reviewing the matter, he noted, and was “not prepared to make a settlement offer at this time.”
He requested more time to allow for further consultations with the insurer and meetings to discuss “possible settlement offers.”
It is unclear how the city and the private agencies might apportion any payout if a settlement is reached.
Jonathan S. Abady, a lawyer whose firm, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady, has handled suits against the city and private agencies in cases involving abused and neglected children, said “there does appear to be a uniform indemnification provision” in the contracts the city has with such agencies.
“But the city has the ultimate legal responsibility for the child,” said Mr. Abady, whose firm is not involved in the Leekin suit.
In August, Theodore Babbitt, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, asked Judge Go to move the case forward because of the “fragile, unstable and precarious” condition of the plaintiffs. “They are desperate for care that cannot be provided through the Florida state system,” he wrote.
He cited three of the male plaintiffs, who ranged in age from 19 to 24: one had been on a round-the-clock suicide watch after multiple attempts to take his own life. Another had fathered children out of wedlock and was homeless. A third had been arrested for domestic violence against his older brother. “He is angry and depressed and bottles it up inside until he violently explodes,” Mr. Babbitt wrote.
The court’s docket sheet shows that Judge Go has regularly held confidential phone and court conferences related to settlement issues, sometimes talking with just one side or the other.
Her efforts appear to date from July, when she said in open court that she was usually “programmed to be hopelessly optimistic about settlement.”
“For some reason,” she added, “I have not pushed the parties much in this case to discuss settlement, but let’s do so now.”
Source http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/nyregion/settlement-proposed-in-adoption-abuse-case.html?_r=1
Lawyers for 10 disabled children who were fraudulently adopted by a Queens woman more than 15 years ago and subjected to years of abuse have proposed a $68 million settlement in a civil rights lawsuit filed on their clients’ behalf, according to a confidential court filing.
The proposal comes as a federal magistrate judge in Brooklyn appears to be trying to mediate a settlement to the suit, filed in 2009, which seeks damages from New York City and three contract adoption agencies that placed the children with the woman, Judith Leekin.
The case has been seen as one of the most disturbing child welfare fraud cases in the city in recent years. Ms. Leekin used four aliases to adopt the children, who had physical or developmental disabilities, including autism and retardation, and later moved them to Florida. The children were caged, restrained with plastic ties and handcuffs, beaten with sticks and hangers, and kept out of school, according to court papers. An 11th child disappeared while in Ms. Leekin’s care and is presumed dead.
The suit asks that the 10 plaintiffs, now mostly in their 20s, be compensated for their years of suffering as well as for the services and treatment they will need for the rest of their lives.
The settlement proposal was cited in a letter from a defense lawyer in the case to the magistrate judge, Marilyn D. Go of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, where the lawsuit was brought.
The letter was filed publicly in October, but was quickly sealed after the lawyer wrote that it “referred to confidential discussions between the parties.” The New York Times obtained the letter while it was publicly available.
Ms. Leekin, 66, was imprisoned after she was convicted of fraud in federal court in Manhattan and of abuse in a state court in Florida. Federal prosecutors have said that as part of her scheme, she collected $1.68 million in subsidies from the city that went to support a lavish lifestyle.
When the 10 children were removed from her care in 2007, none had completed elementary school; only three could read and only at a third-grade level; and about half were declared either “totally incapacitated” or “vulnerable adults,” according to a report by a former Columbia University social work professor retained by the plaintiffs to examine the cases.
The 10 have since lived in Florida in state programs or on their own, and at least one is homeless, according to court filings.
New York City and the three private agencies have denied liability in the case, claiming that Ms. Leekin was a sophisticated serial criminal whose scheme fooled various professionals and, given the capabilities and practices of the time, would not have been foreseen or detected.
The agencies are HeartShare Human Services of New York, SCO Family of Services and the now-closed St. Joseph Services for Children and Families.
The agencies’ lawyer, Robert S. Delmond, did not respond to messages seeking a comment on Thursday. Lawyers for the city and the plaintiffs declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
In the now-sealed letter to Judge Go, Mr. Delmond described the $68 million demand as “a significant sum, which requires much consideration, thought, planning and involvement of corporate officers before they can reach a decision.” The agencies’ insurance carrier was reviewing the matter, he noted, and was “not prepared to make a settlement offer at this time.”
He requested more time to allow for further consultations with the insurer and meetings to discuss “possible settlement offers.”
It is unclear how the city and the private agencies might apportion any payout if a settlement is reached.
Jonathan S. Abady, a lawyer whose firm, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady, has handled suits against the city and private agencies in cases involving abused and neglected children, said “there does appear to be a uniform indemnification provision” in the contracts the city has with such agencies.
“But the city has the ultimate legal responsibility for the child,” said Mr. Abady, whose firm is not involved in the Leekin suit.
In August, Theodore Babbitt, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, asked Judge Go to move the case forward because of the “fragile, unstable and precarious” condition of the plaintiffs. “They are desperate for care that cannot be provided through the Florida state system,” he wrote.
He cited three of the male plaintiffs, who ranged in age from 19 to 24: one had been on a round-the-clock suicide watch after multiple attempts to take his own life. Another had fathered children out of wedlock and was homeless. A third had been arrested for domestic violence against his older brother. “He is angry and depressed and bottles it up inside until he violently explodes,” Mr. Babbitt wrote.
The court’s docket sheet shows that Judge Go has regularly held confidential phone and court conferences related to settlement issues, sometimes talking with just one side or the other.
Her efforts appear to date from July, when she said in open court that she was usually “programmed to be hopelessly optimistic about settlement.”
“For some reason,” she added, “I have not pushed the parties much in this case to discuss settlement, but let’s do so now.”
Source http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/nyregion/settlement-proposed-in-adoption-abuse-case.html?_r=1
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Reasons unclear for fatal CPS decision to return a child to her parents
Blogger Note:
#CPS FAILURE
It is obvious that CPS does not know a good home or good parents from bad ones.
-----
By Brad Branan
Giovanni Melchor was just a year old when he drowned in the stagnant water of his family's backyard swimming pool in late 2006.
The family's single-story, purple-trimmed home in south Sacramento seemed well maintained on the outside. But inside, a neighbor said, the house was infested with roaches and city inspectors later cited Giovanni's father for an unsecured pool fence, the lack of a door closing off the garage from the pool, and a host of other health and safety code violations.
Not even three years later, Giovanni's sister, Yeinira, who had been removed from the home and then returned, was also dead, a victim of medical neglect by her parents.
Case files from Sacramento County Child Protective Services, recently obtained by The Bee, show how the 2-year-old girl died. Court records show that her parents, Jose Jaime Melchor, 35, and Elizabeth Melchor, 29, pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges in July and were deported this year.
What the records don't explain is how the agency made the decision to return the child to care that led to her death.
County officials say they cannot discuss the case or the records because of confidentiality laws.
But without documentation, evaluating the agency's actions is difficult, said Ed Howard, senior counsel at the Children's Advocacy Institute in San Diego, who reviewed Yeinira's file at the request of The Bee.
"If we take them at face value – that there is no documentation for reuniting this child with a very troubled family – then this is a fiasco," Howard said. "You can't do this job without documenting your reasons for making such a decision."
Specifically, CPS records for Yeinira do not show whether the agency conducted an assessment about the risk of returning her to the home – using what's called the Structured Decision Making tool – in violation of its own policies.
"In all of its reports, the (CPS) Oversight Committee has recommended comprehensive and consistent use of the tool," said Gina Roberson, co-chair of the committee. "It means social workers are using the best practices in trying to prevent child abuse."
The CPS Oversight Committee, echoing the complaints of experts and child welfare advocates, has repeatedly found the agency's social workers have made questionable decisions and serious errors in high-risk cases such as the Melchor's. That assessment was repeated in other reports this year, including one by the California State Auditor.
CPS released two sets of files on the Yeinira case. The first contained 12 pages and no information about the family's extensive record with CPS. The second, released after The Bee requested it under the California Public Records Act, had 124 pages.
County Health and Human Services Director Ann Edwards said the release of the incomplete file was unintentional. But neither set answers the questions about the fatal decision to return her to her parents.
A troubled history
The year Giovanni died, the Melchors were living in a working-class neighborhood on Center Parkway. They had five children.
Neighbors, attorneys and a social worker who had contact over the years with the Melchors, an immigrant family from Mexico, said the family needed help. They said Elizabeth Melchor seemed incapable of caring for her children and, according to court records, Jose Jaime Melchor physically abused his wife.
Five reports of alleged abuse or neglect involving the family were made to CPS prior to Yeinira's birth in July 2006, court records show.
Some of the reports involved the father, who allegedly had a drinking problem and abused his wife, according to court and CPS files. Other reports involved the mother, accused of hitting the children. Two of the reports were upheld by CPS.
Yeinira had a heart defect and a cleft palate that made feeding her difficult. Less than a month after she was born, CPS received another complaint, noting the mother wasn't learning how to take care of her fragile daughter. The child was still in the hospital and at risk of dehydration if not properly nourished.
Melchor "admits she is depressed and overwhelmed," according to an unidentified reporter quoted in the CPS case file. The mother and the father were refusing the training needed to feed Yeinira, according to the report. The source recommended placing Yeinira in a special foster home for her medical needs.
The complaint was upheld. CPS started monitoring the child, but allowed her to go home with her mother. Yvette Washington, a home visitation worker with the county's Birth and Beyond program, was assigned to counsel the family.
"She seemed withdrawn," Washington said of Elizabeth Melchor in an interview with The Bee.
Washington said she brought a public health nurse to the family's home to explain the risks of having a pool with stagnant water and a small and unsecured fence.
The mother didn't seem to take the matter seriously, Washington said, adding that she stopped providing service to the family in 2006 because Melchor was unreceptive.
Giovanni drowned in October that year. Melchor told police she was taking care of Yeinira, and left her other children unattended in the garage for about an hour, records show. Giovanni apparently wandered from the garage and into the pool.
Police found the missing garage door and the unsecured pool fence. Neither parent was charged. CPS also initially declined to take protective action, determining that an allegation of neglect was unfounded, court records show.
That reluctance befuddled some of the Melchors' neighbors.
Andrea Garcia, who lived next door to the family, said the Melchors were troubled. Her interactions with the family usually came when something went wrong, she said, such as when the children were left outside in diapers in cold weather.
The Garcias watched the other Melchor children while the parents dealt with the emergency of finding Giovanni in the pool.
Andrea Garcia said the children were filthy. She said she entered the Melchor home for clean clothes and saw cockroaches everywhere.
Her father, Jesus Garcia, said he had worried about the safety of the Melchor children under their mother's care."We never understood why CPS let her keep the kids," he said.
Taken away, brought back
Ten months after the drowning, the four Melchor children became dependents of the county as a result of abuse and neglect, court records show.
In Yeinira's case, her parents repeatedly failed to bring her to doctor's appointments, CPS records show. She missed eight appointments in seven months. Doctor's notes indicated a growing concern about her well-being.
In foster care, she had surgery for her ailments and had recovered well. But in May 2008, less than two months after her surgery, Yeinira returned to her parents' home, joining her siblings who had been reunited with them several months earlier.
To place a foster child back in a parent's home, CPS must convince a dependency court judge that the conditions that originally made the home unsafe had been fixed. For Yeinira, CPS needed to ensure the issues at home had been addressed, said Bill Grimm, senior counsel at the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, who reviewed the child's file at The Bee's request.
"Given all that was going on before, there was a pretty high threshold for them to resume care," Grimm said.
The lack of documentation calls the agency's decisions into question, said Grimm, adding that returning Yeinira home without doing a risk assessment would have been a serious error, if that's what happened.
Without care
After Yeinira returned, she did not see a doctor for about a year because the family didn't have insurance, her father told Sacramento police investigators in 2009.
During that time, Yeinira had a seizure, her mother told police. She said she put rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and placed it under Yeinira's nose to revive her.
A couple of months later, Yeinira had another seizure. Yeinira "fell back, arched her back, and her feet twisted" as she fell onto concrete, her mother said, according to the investigative report. She again used rubbing alcohol and an onion to revive Yeinira.
The problem returned the next day, as Yeinira "fell forward, and her head hit the wall and her eyes went up," her mother said.
Again, Melchor turned to an onion and rubbing alcohol to revive her daughter. Her father was holding Yeinira in his lap when the mother noticed Yeinira wasn't breathing, she told investigators.
The father brought her to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, south Sacramento, minutes away from their home. Two days later, April 20, 2009, Yeinira died at Kaiser's Roseville hospital because of a lack of oxygen in the brain, an autopsy found.
The Coroner's Office said physical abuse also may have contributed to her death, noting that she'd had a broken arm and other recent injuries.
In court documents, Dr. Michael Myette of Kaiser said he could say with "95 percent to 99 percent certainty that if the parents had accessed care when she began seizing, she would still be alive."
One of the Melchors' attorneys, Lori Calvert, said the couple grew up without doctors and that Elizabeth Melchor had been taught to revive her mother, who also suffered from seizures, as she had revived Yeinira.
The Melchors faced a number of obstacles, their attorneys said. They were illiterate in their native Spanish, couldn't speak English and were poor.
The prosecutor handling their neglect case agreed and cited those factors when explaining to a judge why she sought approval for a plea agreement resulting in a two-year jail sentence for the Melchors, the lowest under sentencing guidelines.
The judge agreed to the sentencing recommendation. The Melchors had served about a year in jail awaiting trial and, with various credits, were released in July after pleading no contest to the charges. They were deported to Mexico shortly afterward, without any of their children. Their attorneys said the children were put up for adoption by the county.
Source http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/26/4145705/reasons-unclear-for-fatal-cps.html
#CPS FAILURE
It is obvious that CPS does not know a good home or good parents from bad ones.
-----
By Brad Branan
Giovanni Melchor was just a year old when he drowned in the stagnant water of his family's backyard swimming pool in late 2006.
The family's single-story, purple-trimmed home in south Sacramento seemed well maintained on the outside. But inside, a neighbor said, the house was infested with roaches and city inspectors later cited Giovanni's father for an unsecured pool fence, the lack of a door closing off the garage from the pool, and a host of other health and safety code violations.
Not even three years later, Giovanni's sister, Yeinira, who had been removed from the home and then returned, was also dead, a victim of medical neglect by her parents.
Case files from Sacramento County Child Protective Services, recently obtained by The Bee, show how the 2-year-old girl died. Court records show that her parents, Jose Jaime Melchor, 35, and Elizabeth Melchor, 29, pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges in July and were deported this year.
What the records don't explain is how the agency made the decision to return the child to care that led to her death.
County officials say they cannot discuss the case or the records because of confidentiality laws.
But without documentation, evaluating the agency's actions is difficult, said Ed Howard, senior counsel at the Children's Advocacy Institute in San Diego, who reviewed Yeinira's file at the request of The Bee.
"If we take them at face value – that there is no documentation for reuniting this child with a very troubled family – then this is a fiasco," Howard said. "You can't do this job without documenting your reasons for making such a decision."
Specifically, CPS records for Yeinira do not show whether the agency conducted an assessment about the risk of returning her to the home – using what's called the Structured Decision Making tool – in violation of its own policies.
"In all of its reports, the (CPS) Oversight Committee has recommended comprehensive and consistent use of the tool," said Gina Roberson, co-chair of the committee. "It means social workers are using the best practices in trying to prevent child abuse."
The CPS Oversight Committee, echoing the complaints of experts and child welfare advocates, has repeatedly found the agency's social workers have made questionable decisions and serious errors in high-risk cases such as the Melchor's. That assessment was repeated in other reports this year, including one by the California State Auditor.
CPS released two sets of files on the Yeinira case. The first contained 12 pages and no information about the family's extensive record with CPS. The second, released after The Bee requested it under the California Public Records Act, had 124 pages.
County Health and Human Services Director Ann Edwards said the release of the incomplete file was unintentional. But neither set answers the questions about the fatal decision to return her to her parents.
A troubled history
The year Giovanni died, the Melchors were living in a working-class neighborhood on Center Parkway. They had five children.
Neighbors, attorneys and a social worker who had contact over the years with the Melchors, an immigrant family from Mexico, said the family needed help. They said Elizabeth Melchor seemed incapable of caring for her children and, according to court records, Jose Jaime Melchor physically abused his wife.
Five reports of alleged abuse or neglect involving the family were made to CPS prior to Yeinira's birth in July 2006, court records show.
Some of the reports involved the father, who allegedly had a drinking problem and abused his wife, according to court and CPS files. Other reports involved the mother, accused of hitting the children. Two of the reports were upheld by CPS.
Yeinira had a heart defect and a cleft palate that made feeding her difficult. Less than a month after she was born, CPS received another complaint, noting the mother wasn't learning how to take care of her fragile daughter. The child was still in the hospital and at risk of dehydration if not properly nourished.
Melchor "admits she is depressed and overwhelmed," according to an unidentified reporter quoted in the CPS case file. The mother and the father were refusing the training needed to feed Yeinira, according to the report. The source recommended placing Yeinira in a special foster home for her medical needs.
The complaint was upheld. CPS started monitoring the child, but allowed her to go home with her mother. Yvette Washington, a home visitation worker with the county's Birth and Beyond program, was assigned to counsel the family.
"She seemed withdrawn," Washington said of Elizabeth Melchor in an interview with The Bee.
Washington said she brought a public health nurse to the family's home to explain the risks of having a pool with stagnant water and a small and unsecured fence.
The mother didn't seem to take the matter seriously, Washington said, adding that she stopped providing service to the family in 2006 because Melchor was unreceptive.
Giovanni drowned in October that year. Melchor told police she was taking care of Yeinira, and left her other children unattended in the garage for about an hour, records show. Giovanni apparently wandered from the garage and into the pool.
Police found the missing garage door and the unsecured pool fence. Neither parent was charged. CPS also initially declined to take protective action, determining that an allegation of neglect was unfounded, court records show.
That reluctance befuddled some of the Melchors' neighbors.
Andrea Garcia, who lived next door to the family, said the Melchors were troubled. Her interactions with the family usually came when something went wrong, she said, such as when the children were left outside in diapers in cold weather.
The Garcias watched the other Melchor children while the parents dealt with the emergency of finding Giovanni in the pool.
Andrea Garcia said the children were filthy. She said she entered the Melchor home for clean clothes and saw cockroaches everywhere.
Her father, Jesus Garcia, said he had worried about the safety of the Melchor children under their mother's care."We never understood why CPS let her keep the kids," he said.
Taken away, brought back
Ten months after the drowning, the four Melchor children became dependents of the county as a result of abuse and neglect, court records show.
In Yeinira's case, her parents repeatedly failed to bring her to doctor's appointments, CPS records show. She missed eight appointments in seven months. Doctor's notes indicated a growing concern about her well-being.
In foster care, she had surgery for her ailments and had recovered well. But in May 2008, less than two months after her surgery, Yeinira returned to her parents' home, joining her siblings who had been reunited with them several months earlier.
To place a foster child back in a parent's home, CPS must convince a dependency court judge that the conditions that originally made the home unsafe had been fixed. For Yeinira, CPS needed to ensure the issues at home had been addressed, said Bill Grimm, senior counsel at the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, who reviewed the child's file at The Bee's request.
"Given all that was going on before, there was a pretty high threshold for them to resume care," Grimm said.
The lack of documentation calls the agency's decisions into question, said Grimm, adding that returning Yeinira home without doing a risk assessment would have been a serious error, if that's what happened.
Without care
After Yeinira returned, she did not see a doctor for about a year because the family didn't have insurance, her father told Sacramento police investigators in 2009.
During that time, Yeinira had a seizure, her mother told police. She said she put rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and placed it under Yeinira's nose to revive her.
A couple of months later, Yeinira had another seizure. Yeinira "fell back, arched her back, and her feet twisted" as she fell onto concrete, her mother said, according to the investigative report. She again used rubbing alcohol and an onion to revive Yeinira.
The problem returned the next day, as Yeinira "fell forward, and her head hit the wall and her eyes went up," her mother said.
Again, Melchor turned to an onion and rubbing alcohol to revive her daughter. Her father was holding Yeinira in his lap when the mother noticed Yeinira wasn't breathing, she told investigators.
The father brought her to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, south Sacramento, minutes away from their home. Two days later, April 20, 2009, Yeinira died at Kaiser's Roseville hospital because of a lack of oxygen in the brain, an autopsy found.
The Coroner's Office said physical abuse also may have contributed to her death, noting that she'd had a broken arm and other recent injuries.
In court documents, Dr. Michael Myette of Kaiser said he could say with "95 percent to 99 percent certainty that if the parents had accessed care when she began seizing, she would still be alive."
One of the Melchors' attorneys, Lori Calvert, said the couple grew up without doctors and that Elizabeth Melchor had been taught to revive her mother, who also suffered from seizures, as she had revived Yeinira.
The Melchors faced a number of obstacles, their attorneys said. They were illiterate in their native Spanish, couldn't speak English and were poor.
The prosecutor handling their neglect case agreed and cited those factors when explaining to a judge why she sought approval for a plea agreement resulting in a two-year jail sentence for the Melchors, the lowest under sentencing guidelines.
The judge agreed to the sentencing recommendation. The Melchors had served about a year in jail awaiting trial and, with various credits, were released in July after pleading no contest to the charges. They were deported to Mexico shortly afterward, without any of their children. Their attorneys said the children were put up for adoption by the county.
Source http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/26/4145705/reasons-unclear-for-fatal-cps.html
Monday, December 12, 2011
Social workers fired in Marlboro County CPS case - concerning Edna Hunt
by Tonya Brown
NewsChannel 15 has learned two Marlboro County Department of Social Services employees were fired in connection with the child abuse case of Edna Hunt.
State DSS officials will only say they let the employees go after an evaluation of their work in the Hunt investigation and other cases they've handled.
Last week, we learned DSS was conducting a child protective services investigation prior to Hunt's death.
We have requested more information through the Freedom of Information Act to find out if the employees violated any procedures, according to state and federal policy, for child protective investigations.
In October, Hunt died following cardiac arrest in Bennettsville.
Hunt's mother and her mother's boyfriend are charged with homicide by child abuse.
Police say Hunt had bruises and burns all over her body.
Officers say a post mortem examination showed she had been abused for some time.
DSS officials say the Director of the Marlboro County DSS resigned shortly after the child's death, but they aren't saying if his resignation had anything to do with their internal investigation.
Marlboro County Coroner, Tim Brown, says he's expecting final autopsy results on Hunt to be in sometime this week.
He will release those results when they come in.
Source http://www.carolinalive.com/news/story.aspx?id=696491
NewsChannel 15 has learned two Marlboro County Department of Social Services employees were fired in connection with the child abuse case of Edna Hunt.
State DSS officials will only say they let the employees go after an evaluation of their work in the Hunt investigation and other cases they've handled.
Last week, we learned DSS was conducting a child protective services investigation prior to Hunt's death.
We have requested more information through the Freedom of Information Act to find out if the employees violated any procedures, according to state and federal policy, for child protective investigations.
In October, Hunt died following cardiac arrest in Bennettsville.
Hunt's mother and her mother's boyfriend are charged with homicide by child abuse.
Police say Hunt had bruises and burns all over her body.
Officers say a post mortem examination showed she had been abused for some time.
DSS officials say the Director of the Marlboro County DSS resigned shortly after the child's death, but they aren't saying if his resignation had anything to do with their internal investigation.
Marlboro County Coroner, Tim Brown, says he's expecting final autopsy results on Hunt to be in sometime this week.
He will release those results when they come in.
Source http://www.carolinalive.com/news/story.aspx?id=696491
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Court upholds termination of soldier’s parental rights - Arkansas
By John Lyon
LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Court of Appeals today upheld the state Department of Human Services’ decision to terminate the parental rights of an Arkansas man who was serving in the Army in Iraq when his wife’s boyfriend severely injured his 5-month-old son.
A six-judge panel of the court ruled 5-1 that Edward Glover’s appeal of the ruling was without merit. The dissenting judge said the appeal did have merit because Pulaski County circuit judges exceeded their authority in requiring Glover to “jump through various hoops” to retain custody of his son even though he had done nothing wrong.
According to the judges’ opinions, it was discovered in April 2009 that Glover’s son had been the victim of severe abuse. The boy had bruising to his scalp and around his eyes, retinal hemorrhages, perforation of his stomach, a liver contusion, a possible lung contusion, three rib fractures and burns in several places.
Glover was serving in Iraq at the time. DHS and the circuit court determined that the abuser was Glover’s wife’s lover and that Glover’s wife knew that her boyfriend had a history of domestic violence but chose to discount it. The parental rights of Glover’s wife were terminated.
Glover obtained emergency leave and returned to Arkansas in May 2009. He attended a series of hearings, presided over by a series of judges, and was given a long list of orders to comply with, including obtaining a psychological examination, attending parenting classes, attending anger-management classes and submitting to DNA tests and random drug and alcohol screenings, among other things.
Glover’s parental rights were terminated in February of this year for failing to comply with the orders. His lawyer filed a “no merit” appeal — meaning the lawyer believed the appeal was without merit but filed it at Glover’s insistence — and asked to be allowed to withdraw from the case.
Today, the Court of Appeals granted the lawyer’s request and affirmed the order terminating Glover’s parental rights, finding that the appeal was “wholly without merit.”
Judge John Pittman wrote the majority opinion, with Judges Robert Gladwin, John Robbins, Robin Wynne and David Glover concurring.
Judge Josephine Hart wrote in the dissent that the circuit judges had no authority to impose the requirements on Glover.
“The reason (for the judges’ orders) was the criminal battery of the child by a person who was engaged in an adulterous relationship with the child’s mother while Mr. Glover was deployed more than 4,000 miles away in the armed forces of his country,” Hart wrote.
Pittman said in the majority opinion that “the dissenting judge’s passionate outrage is noteworthy,” but he said the issues she raised were not raised in any of the circuit court hearings and could not be considered for the first time on appeal.
Source http://arkansasnews.com/2011/12/07/court-upholds-termination-of-soldier%E2%80%99s-parental-rights/
LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Court of Appeals today upheld the state Department of Human Services’ decision to terminate the parental rights of an Arkansas man who was serving in the Army in Iraq when his wife’s boyfriend severely injured his 5-month-old son.
A six-judge panel of the court ruled 5-1 that Edward Glover’s appeal of the ruling was without merit. The dissenting judge said the appeal did have merit because Pulaski County circuit judges exceeded their authority in requiring Glover to “jump through various hoops” to retain custody of his son even though he had done nothing wrong.
According to the judges’ opinions, it was discovered in April 2009 that Glover’s son had been the victim of severe abuse. The boy had bruising to his scalp and around his eyes, retinal hemorrhages, perforation of his stomach, a liver contusion, a possible lung contusion, three rib fractures and burns in several places.
Glover was serving in Iraq at the time. DHS and the circuit court determined that the abuser was Glover’s wife’s lover and that Glover’s wife knew that her boyfriend had a history of domestic violence but chose to discount it. The parental rights of Glover’s wife were terminated.
Glover obtained emergency leave and returned to Arkansas in May 2009. He attended a series of hearings, presided over by a series of judges, and was given a long list of orders to comply with, including obtaining a psychological examination, attending parenting classes, attending anger-management classes and submitting to DNA tests and random drug and alcohol screenings, among other things.
Glover’s parental rights were terminated in February of this year for failing to comply with the orders. His lawyer filed a “no merit” appeal — meaning the lawyer believed the appeal was without merit but filed it at Glover’s insistence — and asked to be allowed to withdraw from the case.
Today, the Court of Appeals granted the lawyer’s request and affirmed the order terminating Glover’s parental rights, finding that the appeal was “wholly without merit.”
Judge John Pittman wrote the majority opinion, with Judges Robert Gladwin, John Robbins, Robin Wynne and David Glover concurring.
Judge Josephine Hart wrote in the dissent that the circuit judges had no authority to impose the requirements on Glover.
“The reason (for the judges’ orders) was the criminal battery of the child by a person who was engaged in an adulterous relationship with the child’s mother while Mr. Glover was deployed more than 4,000 miles away in the armed forces of his country,” Hart wrote.
Pittman said in the majority opinion that “the dissenting judge’s passionate outrage is noteworthy,” but he said the issues she raised were not raised in any of the circuit court hearings and could not be considered for the first time on appeal.
Source http://arkansasnews.com/2011/12/07/court-upholds-termination-of-soldier%E2%80%99s-parental-rights/
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