|
|
|
help
collapse
Press one of the expand buttons to see the full text of an
article. Later press collapse to revert to the original form. The
buttons below expand or collapse all articles.
expand
collapse
More recent news
Richmond Smith R.I.P.
April 30, 2007
Ronald E Smith is an organizer of a family rights
demonstration planned for Washington DC this August 18.
His son Richmond was forced to take Ritalin, a drug which
has been associated with cancer. On April 27 Richmond died
of cancer at age 20. There will be a funeral at the Carter
Funeral Home in Chicago on May 4.
The father's message:
At 8:33pm on April 27th my son Richmond Elihu Smith passed. He made a peaceful transition and has added fervor to my fight to put an end to the senseless medication of our children and parental alienation. I thank you all for your prayers and it is now time to stop asking for our rights as parents to be recognized and begin demanding that our God given fundamental rights as parents to be recognized at all cost. His death will not be in vain.
Minister Ronald E. Smith, CEO
Children Need Both Parents, Inc.
www.cnbpinc.org
Addendum: Here is the
preliminary title for the rally led by Minister Ronald
Smith:
IS TODAY THE LAST DAY YOU WILL EVER SEE YOUR CHILDREN?
RALLY IN WASHINGTON, DC AUGUST 18 TO ENSURE THE ANSWER IS NO!
Watch a small part of a speech by
Ronald Smith on YouTube. Families finally have a leader
with real charisma.
Tayler Gets Better
April 27, 2007
The maltreatment of Tayler Diamond by doctors at McMaster has been
remedied by transfer of the girl to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.
The CAS is no longer menacing the family. Earlier stories
January 6,
January 2 and
October 11, 2006.
expand
collapse
Tayler 'happy' her chemo scaled back
By Susan Gamble, expositor staff - Thursday, April 26, 2007 @ 01:00
The young girl who was forced by the Children’s Aid Society to take chemotherapy treatment now has a new set of doctors and treatment regimen in Toronto.
Tayler Diamond, 9, is still undergoing chemotherapy, but at lighter doses which make her mother more comfortable.
The girl was at the centre of a controversy last year when her mother, Lisa Diamond, ended Tayler’s chemo treatments at McMaster hospital, opting to pursue alternative treatments while Tayler’s acute lymphoblastic leukemia was in remission.
The girl had about a year of chemo, which left her burned and blistered and — at one point — she went into septic shock when the medical procedures almost killed her.
When Tayler was removed from the treatments, doctors at McMaster insisted that another year of treatments was needed in order to ensure the leukemia didn’t return. The doctors threatened to call the Children’s Aid Society and then did so.
Tayler was ordered back into treatment despite studies turned up by her mother showing many pediatric cancer patients die of secondary illnesses, often caused by the chemotherapy.
The local CAS used a judge-issued protection order under the Child and Family Service Act that allows the organization to step in if it feels a child needs medical treatment.
While the girl tolerated the next few months of chemo relatively well, Diamond said doctors continued to yell at her for her views, often in front of her daughter.
“I finally demanded a transfer to Toronto,” Diamond said this week.
At an assessment at Sick Kids Hospital, doctors opted for a break from the chemo because Tayler’s condition was too fragile. She had been susceptible to infections for several months and her mother said Tayler’s mouth was full of large canker sores that made it difficult for her to eat.
“Now she’s slowly gaining weight back,” Diamond said. “Toronto also knocked the level of her chemo down by two notches.”
She is delighted with the different attitude she’s found at Sick Kids although she still insists that if it were up to her alone, she’d opt out of the chemo.
The best news Diamond has had in a while is the closure of Tayler’s file by the Children’s Aid Society. The file was closed within about a month of Tayler’s transfer to Sick Kids.
“I’m more comfortable now because Sick Kids seems so committed to double and triple checking everything. They involve me in the process and show us exactly what she’s being given.”
Today, Tayler is less anxious about the chemo protocol and the setting.
She and her mother have to rise at 4 a.m. each week on chemo morning and are on the road at 5:30 a.m. but Diamond said the extra effort is worthwhile.
“She’s happy. She thinks Sick Kids is like a mall where you can shop. You do what’s in her best interests.”
Diamond said Tayler continues to look forward to her alternative treatments of reflexology and reiki (a Japanese holistic touch technique) and continues to take nutritional supplements.
Runaways
April 26, 2007
Two more girls, who seem to prefer life with their
families to CAS care, are wanted by Sudbury Children's
Aid.
expand
collapse
Northern Life
Two children missing in Sudbury area
Date Published | Apr. 26, 2007
The Children's Aid Society of the Districts of Sudbury and Manitoulin is requesting the public's assistance in locating two female children.
1) Sara Linklater is an 11-year-old First Nation youth. She is approximately 5'3” and wighs approximately 137 lbs. She has straight, shoulder length black hair, brown eyes and a dark complexion. She has a scar on her left pinky toe.
Linklater is believed to be in downtown Sudbury and may be with her sister.
2) Allanah Michelle Harvey is15 years old. She has been seen only on two occasions since December 16, 2006. The last time Alanah was seen was February 28, 2007.
Harvey is 4'9” and weighs 100 lbs. She has blue eyes, shoulder length coloured blonde/brown hair and a light complexion.
If you have any information with regards to the whereabouts of this child, please contact your local police department or Children's Services at (705) 521-7375.
Addendum: From the same
source: Published: Apr. 27, 2007. Sara Linklater has
been found but assistance is still required with locating
Allanah Harvey.
Cole Norris in CAS Custody
April 26, 2007
Cole Norris is back in CAS custody. This time it is in a Brantford
foster home, and he is not subject to the harsh conditions of the Kingston
Gulag. The family agreed to this as the only way to get Cole prepared for
high school next year. The family financial decline continues. Cathy can
no longer make long-distance phone calls. She expects all phone and
internet service to end soon.
Junk Science Research
April 26, 2007
The following post from a survey participant shows how CAS gets its
research results favoring more services. The formal name for this technique
is advocacy research.
expand
collapse
posted by Barb, Wed Apr 25, 2007 10:45 am
warning CAS conducting new study
I was contacted by the CAS and asked if I would like to participate in a study by McMaster University and answer questions of the 'services' provided by the CAS. So I jumped at the chance to tell how they can improve and how much they actually damaged our life. I thought I could contribute to a good study that could make changes.
Boy am I brain damaged. I would think that by now I would know how they would run their studies. This of course is being paid by the CAS.
The questions were such: How much money do I have? Am I able to provide food clothing needs? Do I work? Do I get any enjoyment in life? How is my mood now? Any problems feeling happy lately?
OK. I am in poverty now BECAUSE of the CAS. No room for that answer. True or false?
No I don't work because I have to spend all my time getting ready for court and making affidavits. No room for that answer either. I worked BEFORE CAS intervention.
Am I sad, overwhelmed, feeling helpless? YES, BECAUSE OF CAS intervention. Nope no room for that answer.
There were no questions as to how I like the services from the CAS. There were no questions of how it has affected me. Nope. This questionnaire kept stating that I have received services from the CAS and by participating I could receive more services. I have never received services. If they service me anymore I will be homeless.
I see from this questionnaire that in three years when this is done that the CAS will state that all the families they HELP are stressed, overwhelmed, depressed and impoverished. They will use this to give more 'services.'
Dunn Follows Up
April 25, 2007
The tenacious John Dunn continues his efforts to get the membership list
of his local children's aid society. Following the refusal of CAS to
provide the list in conformance with the law, he has followed up with a
complaint to the Ministry of Government Services. Whatever the outcome, he
has already demonstrated the futility of efforts to reform children's aid
from within.
expand
collapse
John Dunn
12-1160 Meadowlands Drive East
Ottawa, ON
K2E 6J2
Phone: 613-228-2178
Ministry of Government Services
Companies and Personal Property Securities Branch
Compliance Section
200-393 University Avenue
Toronto, ON, M5G 2M2
Date: March 25, 2007
RE:
Ontario Corporation No. 37637
Incorporation Date: 1933-05-27
The Children's Aid Society of Ottawa
La Societe de L'aide a L'enfance d'Ottawa
1602 Telesat Court
Ottawa, ON
K1B 1B1
Non-Compliance Report:
I am filing a non-compliance report with the Ministry of Government Services, Companies and Personal Property Securities Branch, Compliance Section regarding Ontario Corporation Number 37637, c.o.b. as The Children's Aid Society of Ottawa / La Societe de L'aide a L'enfance d'Ottawa, a non-share capital corporation registered with the Province under the Corporations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C.38, as amended (herein referred to as the Act) and its Board of Directors who together as both a corporate body and as directing minds of the corporation, committed the Offence of contravening section 307 (5) of the Corporations Act by respectively, not furnishing a list of the members of the corporation and by allowing, permitting, or acquiescing to such Offence.
Background:
On February, 05, 2007, John Dunn, a citizen of Ontario, filed in-person with Ontario Corporation Number 37637 a request for a list of the members of the corporation in accordance with section 307 (1) of the Act including the required sworn affidavit and a reasonable fee of $20.00.
The corporation retained the services of a Lawyer, Robert C. Morrow, of Burke-Robertson Barristers & Solicitors who wrote a letter to John Dunn, on behalf of the Board of Directors of the corporation, stating that they were not going to provide a list of the members of the corporation, which according to section 307 (5) of the Act is an Offence and returned the original request package without retaining a copy for their own records.
The letter included opinions of the Board members and false presumptions that John Dunn would not use the list or the information contained therein for purposes connected with the corporation, contrary to his sworn affidavit, and asserted that to furnish the list of members would be in violation of provisions of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).
These presumptions and assertions are not valid since the sworn affidavit ensures that the requesting party only uses the list and the information contained therein for purposes connected with the corporation, and since the PIPEDA only applies to a Federal Work, Undertaking or Business, and not to a non-share capital corporation which is exclusively legislated by a Legislature of a province according to ss. 2(1)(i) & (j) of PEPEDA, which in this matter, the corporation clearly is.
John Dunn made several attempts with the Society through letters and emails to resolve the matter, and even went to far as to try and contact the Board of Directors so that he could file the request with them personally but the Society refused to accept deliveries for the Board members.
Instead, John Dunn had to find the contact information of the Vice President and the Treasurer on his own via extensive Internet research so that he could file the request with the Board members personally.
Rick O'Connor, the Vice President of the corporation, and a Lawyer, (City Solicitor for the Cit of Ottawa) told John Dunn to cease and desist from communicating with him at his place of employment, even though he had previously been informed by John Dunn that the corporation was not accepting deliveries for Board members at their offices.
All attempts to communicate with the corporation have been ignored and no action has been taken by the corporation on this matter. This all appears to be in bad faith and it is a strict liability matter, which accordingly only gives them the defences of Due Diligence and Mistake of Fact. Neither of which can be used in this case since they did not do anything to attempt to comply with the request, nor were they reasonably mistaken as to their duty to furnish the list within ten days from the date of the filing of the request with the corporation.
Action Request:
I would like to ask the Compliance Section of the Ministry to please inform me of what steps will be taken to ensure the corporation complies with their obligation to furnish a list of the members of the corporation in accordance with section 307 (1) of the Act.
Sincerely,
John Dunn
Relevant Legislation Below: ss. 307 (1) & (5), Corporations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C. 38, as amended.
Where list of shareholders to be furnished
307.(1) Any person, upon payment of a reasonable charge therefor and upon filing with the corporation or its agent the affidavit referred to in subsection (2), may require a corporation, other than a private company, or its transfer agent to furnish within ten days from the filing of such affidavit a list setting out the names alphabetically arranged of all persons who are shareholders or members of the corporation, the number of shares owned by each such person and the address of each such person as shown on the books of the corporation made up to a date not more than ten days prior to the date of filing the affidavit.
Offence
307.(5)Every corporation or transfer agent that fails to furnish a list in accordance with subsection (1) when so required is guilty of an offence and on conviction is liable to a fine of not more than $1,000, and every director or officer of such corporation or transfer agent who authorized, permitted or acquiesced in such offence is also guilty of an offence and on conviction is liable to a like fine.
Car Seat Clinic
April 25, 2007
More kids die in traffic accidents than from child abuse. Car seats
sound like a remedy but are useless in practice since they are rarely
installed properly. We reported last year on a tragedy that struck the family of
professional child protectors.
A clinic to correctly install car seats could be a big
help. But who would be the best person to fix your car
seat? A mechanic with wrenches, or a cop with handcuffs?
Gullible parents are invited to participate in a car seat
clinic hosted by the Dufferin OPP on Friday. Bring along
you child, so the cops can send him directly to foster care
without going to your home to pick him up.
A clinic of this kind might work if hosted by Canadian
Tire or Walmart.
expand
collapse
Orangeville Banner
Dufferin OPP host car seat clinic, Friday
Helping parents to keep their young children safe, Dufferin OPP is hosting a free child seat clinic Friday afternoon. Officers will take a look at how the seats are installed and make any corrections.
According to field statistics, nine out of 10 child seats are used improperly, a press release states. When used properly, the seats reduce the risk of injury by 70 per cent and the risk of death by 90 per cent.
To book an appointment, call Dufferin OPP at 519-925-3838. Participants are asked to bring their vehicle manual, car seat manual and, if possible, their child.
Ombudsman Still Needed
April 25, 2007
Ontario's ombudsman André Marin reminds us that a child advocate is no
substitute for the ombudsman. Read the press release below or André Marin's submission to the standing committee(pdf)
expand
collapse
PRESS RELEASE
APRIL 24, 2007 - 15:49 ET
Child Advocate is no Substitute for Ombudsman
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(CCNMatthews - April 24, 2007) -
ATTENTION NEWS EDITORS:
Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin today praised the province's proposed new Child Advocate legislation but cautioned that it will still leave a dangerous gap in the system that is supposed to protect vulnerable children.
Bill 165, the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth Act, takes only "baby steps" toward an effective system of child protection, Mr. Marin says in his submission to the Standing Committee on Justice Policy, which is holding hearings on the bill this week. The Advocate may speak for children but, unlike an ombudsman, will have no investigative powers: "An advocate is as much an ombudsman as an apple is an orange."
Yet Ontario's Ombudsman is unable to investigate the hundreds of complaints to his office about children's aid societies each year (more than 600 in 2006-07), because they remain outside of his jurisdiction. Cases that should be investigated are effectively thrown away, Mr. Marin says: "Despite all the government rhetoric that 'children are our future,' we in Ontario are choosing to rid ourselves of hundreds of these serious allegations every year by taking a trip to the dumpster and looking the other way." Ontario is the only province in Canada where children's aid societies escape such scrutiny, he notes. "However you slice, chop or spin it, there is no contest as to which province finishes dead last in investigating children's complaints. Ontario does."
Mr. Marin's submission calls on the government to act, in addition to establishing the Provincial Advocate, to amend the Ombudsman Act to include jurisdiction over children's aid societies. Unlike the provincial coroner and other bodies, the Ombudsman can investigate complaints by parents and children "before tragedy strikes," he points out.
Mr. Marin has advocated for the Ombudsman's mandate to be modernized to allow for oversight of such bodies as children's aid societies since his appointment in April 2005 - following a quest begun by Ontario's first Ombudsman, Arthur Maloney, in 1975.
Aussi disponible en francais
Read the full submission under What's New at www.ombudsman.on.ca
CONTACT INFORMATION
For more information or to arrange interviews with the Ombudsman contact:
Linda Williamson, Communications and Media Relations Manager
(416) 586-3426
Email: lwilliamson@ombudsman.on.ca
Website: www.ombudsman.on.ca
Addendum: Even the Toronto Star
has printed an article advocating ombudsman oversight for
children's aid.
expand
collapse
Deaths spur dad to action
Daughters died after children's aid society downplayed pleas; now father backs ombudsman in bid for powers to investigate
April 25, 2007, Moira Welsh, Staff Reporter
Every time he sees a child on a swing, Leo Campione thinks of his dead little girls.
Every minute of every day, there is something that reminds him of 3-year-old Serena and 1-year-old Sophia, tousle-haired and grinning.
They were found drowned in their mother's Barrie apartment in October 2006.
Despite numerous red flags and several occasions where the Simcoe County Children's Aid Society removed the children from her care, social workers downplayed his pleas for intervention until it was too late.
"If I am in a mall and there are other children running and I hear a baby call out `Daddy,' it is just a torment to my heart," Campione said yesterday. "It is indescribable. This happened to me. I am going to do everything possible to make sure it doesn't happen to anybody else."
To that end, Campione, 35, who works with the Universal Workers Union, Local 183, is now publicly supporting the efforts of Ontario ombudsman André Marin, who wants the government to give him the power to investigate the province's 53 children's aid societies.
"I have already lost all that is most precious and valuable to me. I really don't have anything to gain, except that their deaths were not in vain," Campione said.
"My greatest resolve now is that this does not happen to any other children. It is what gives me the strength to keep going."
Marin has sent a written submission to the Standing Committee on Justice Policy at Queen's Park asking for investigative powers for the ombudsman's office. The committee is holding hearings this week on Bill 165, the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth Act, which will give greater independence to Ontario's child advocate, Judy Finlay.
But Marin says that an advocate cannot investigate the way an ombudsman can – a power to scrutinize that he says is enshrined in all other provinces.
"The system is virtually entirely funded by the government to a tune of $1.4 billion a year," Marin said. "But it is a system without checks and balances, where people who have issues about the children's aid have no place to turn unless there is a dead body, in which case the coroner can get involved."
The Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies says there's no need for Marin's oversight. Spokesperson Marcelo Gomez-Wiuckstern said the agencies are subject to numerous accountability reviews. The Child and Family Services Review Board, created last year, already hears complaints from families, he said.
But Marin, who said his office received over 600 complaints on the societies last year, contends the board does not have strong investigative powers.
Campione lost custody of his daughters after his estranged wife, Frances, accused him of assaulting her and their eldest daughter, Serena.
He was allowed supervised access to his daughters from the Simcoe County Children's Aid Society, and records showed that social workers gave him positive reviews – an issue that angered his wife, who railed against his access.
In January, a judge stayed the assault charges against Campione because the Crown's chief witness against him was his wife. She now faces a trial, after being charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
After their deaths, a family court file was made public. It detailed years of family troubles. It contained a sworn statement from her father-in-law, saying she appeared at their home unexpectedly, behaving in an erratic manner, asking that they care for the girls because someone wanted to kill her.
There were numerous warnings that her mental health was deteriorating. She was hospitalized for her mental instability, losing care of her children each time, although they were always returned.
Despite this, and repeated warnings from Campione that the girls were in danger, the social workers said that the mother was best suited to provide their care.
"It was extremely frustrating," he said.
"I felt like my hands were tied at all times. I felt the children's aid society was an organization that ran independently, that their actions or inactions or whatever decision they made, was unilateral.
"I just felt like David and Goliath."
The Simcoe children's aid society said last fall it was going to conduct an internal review of the decisions leading up to Serena and Sophia's deaths.
So far, says Campione, those investigators have yet to call him.
Virginia Tech Massacre
April 24, 2007
Following the 33 deaths in the Virginia Tech massacre of April 16, many
interested parties have seized the opportunity to advocate for their pet
reform. More restrictive immigration. Better gun control. Fewer gun
controls (so victims could shoot back). Control violent video games. More
(involuntary) mental health services.
In all the high school shootings of the past decade, we have noticed one
of the following factors (sometimes both) in just about every case:
- The shooter was separated from his father by force of
arms
- The shooter was on psychotropic drugs
So far there is no indication killer Cho Seung-Hui was
separated from his father but he was on psychiatric drugs.
The exact drug is unknown since his medical records are
being suppressed on grounds of confidentiality.
Psychotropic drugs suppress the generation of chemicals
in the brain, usually neuro-transmitters. The brain
compensates by becoming more sensitive to what little of the
chemical is still being produced. Withdrawal from the drug
results in restoring production of the neuro-transmitter to
normal levels in a brain made hyper-sensitive to it. This
produces the behavior oppositite to that intended for the
drug.
A multi-media package Cho mailed to NBC news during a
break in his killing spree shows a severely disturbed man,
not really coherent or rational. This from a man who must
have been in the intellectual upper crust to gain admission
to the school. Reporters noted the similarity to the rants
of the Columbine killers, also on psychotropic medication.
The mainstream press has not dealt with the drug
connection to the massacre. The article below is from the
internet press, WorldNetDaily.
expand
collapse
Monday, April 23, 2007
VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE
Are meds to blame for Cho's rampage?
Experts say psychiatric drugs linked to long list of school shooting sprees
By Bob Unruh, WorldNetDaily.com
Cho Seung-Hui
Cho Seung-Hui's murderous rampage – during which he killed 32 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech – is prompting research into gun laws, resident aliens and graphically violent writings. Investigators also may want to check his medicine cabinet, because psychiatric drugs have been linked to hundreds of violent episodes, including most of the school shootings in the last two decades.
The New York Times has reported the killer was on a prescription medication, and authorities have said he was confined briefly several years ago for a mental episode. They also have confirmed that the "prescription drugs" found among his effects related to the treatment of psychological problems.
Dr. Peter Breggin, a prominent critic of psychiatric drugs and founder of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, said even if Cho wasn't taking psychiatric drugs the day of the shooting, "he might have been tipped over into violent madness weeks or months earlier by a drug like Prozac, Paxil, or Zoloft."
While media reports have focused on guns and gun laws, Cho's violent writings and autistic behavior at Virginia Tech and the delay in notifying students and faculty of the beginnings of the shootings, there are those who say the focus should be on his medical history.
"In my book 'Reclaiming Our Children,' I analyzed the clinical and scientific reasons for believing that Eric Harris's violence was caused by prescribed Luvox and I've also testified to the same under oath in depositions in a case related to Columbine," Breggin wrote, referring to the 1999 tragedy when Harris and classmate Dylan Klebold shot and bombed students at the Colorado school until a dozen were dead.
"In my book "The Antidepressant Fact Book," I also warned that stopping antidepressants can be as dangerous as starting them, since they can cause very disturbing and painful withdrawal reactions," he added.
The TeenScreenTruth website, dealing with the campaign to "screen" children for "problems" and then prescribe drugs, has documented an extended list of violent episodes believed connected to the use of psychiatric drugs.
They range as far back as 1985, when Atlanta postal worker Steven W. Brownlee, who had been getting psychotropic drugs, pulled a gun and shot and killed a supervisor and a clerk.
Among the specifically school-related attacks the site documents are:
- In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann, who had been taking Anafranil and Lithium, walked into a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, Ill., and began shooting. One child was killed and six wounded.
- Later that same year, 19-year-old James Wilson went on a shooting rampage at the Greenwood, S.C., Elementary School and killed two 8-year-old girls and wounded seven others. He'd been on Xanax, Valium and five other drugs.
- Kip Kinkel, a 15-year-old of Springfield, Ore., in 1998 murdered his parents and proceeded to his high school where he went on a rampage killing two students and wounding 22 others. Kinkel had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.
- Patrick Purdy, 25, in 1989 opened fire on a school yard filled with children in Stockton, Calif. Five kids were killed and 30 wounded. He been treated with Thorazine and Amitriptyline.
- Steve Lieth of Chelsea, Mich., in 1993 walked into a school meeting and shot and killed the school superintendent, wounding two others, while on Prozac.
- 10-year-old Tommy Becton in 1996 grabbed his 3-year-old niece as a shield and aimed a shotgun at a sheriff's deputy who accompanied a truant officer to his Florida home. He'd been put on Prozac.
- Michael Carneal, 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in Heath High in West Paducah, Ky. Three died and one was paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin.
- In 1998, 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 14-year-old Mitchell Johnson apparently faked a fire alarm at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., and shot at students as they left the building. Four students and a teacher were killed. The boys were believed to be on Ritalin.
- In 1999, Shawn Cooper, 15, of Notus, Idaho, took a shotgun to school and injured one student. He had been taking Ritalin.
- April 20, 1999, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 24 others. Harris had been taking Luvox.
- Todd Smith walked into as high school in Taber, Alberta, Canada in 1999 with a shotgun and killed one and injured a second student. He has been given a drug after a five-minute phone consultation with a psychiatrist.
- Steven Abrams drove his car into a preschool playground in 1999 in Costa Mesa., Calif., killing two. He was on probation with a requirement to take Lithium.
- In 2000, T.J. Solomon, 15, opened fire at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga., while on a mix of antidepressants. Six were wounded.
- The same year Seth Trickey of Gibson, Okla., 13, was on a variety of prescriptions when he opened fire on his middle-school class, injuring five.
- Elizabeth Bush, 14, was on Prozac. She shot and wounded another student at Bishop Neumann High in Williamsport, Pa.
- Jason Hoffman, 18, in 2001 was on Effexor and Celexa, both antidepressants, when he wounded two teachers at California's Granite Hills High School.
- In Wahluke, Wash., Cory Baadsgaard, 16, took a rifle to his high schooland held 23 classmates hostage in 2001. He has been taking Paxil and Effexor.
- In Tokyo in 2001, Mamoru Takuma, 37, went into a second-grade classroom and started stabbing students. He killed eight. He had taken 10 times his normal dosage of an antidepressant.
- Duane Morrison, 53, shot and killed a girl at Platte Canyon High School in Colorado in 2006. Antidepressants later were found in his vehicle.
- In 2005, 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac when he shot and killed nine people and wounding five before committing suicide.
Another case involving a school-age youth – although not at a school – happened in 1986, when 14-year-old Rod Mathews of Canton, Mass., beat a classmate to death with a baseball bat while on Ritalin.
And just a few among the dozens of incidents cited, but not apparently related to schools:
- William Cruse in 1987 was charged with killing six people in Palm Bay, Fla., after taking psychiatric drugs for "several years."
- The same year, Bartley James Dobben killed his two young sons by throwing them into a 1,300-degree foundry ladle. He been on a "regimen" of psychiatric drugs.
- Joseph T. WesBecker, 47, just a month after he began taking Prozac, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Ky., killing nine. Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac, later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors.
- In 1991, 61-year-old Barbara Mortenson, on Prozac for two weeks, "cannibalized her 87-year-old mother …"
- In 1992, Lynnwood Drake III, shot and killed six in San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay. Prozac and Valium were found in his system.
- Sixteen-year-old Victor Brancaccio attacked and killed an 81-year-old woman, covered her corpse with red spray-paint. He was two months into a Zoloft regimen.
- While on four medications including Prozac, Dr. Debora Green in 1995 set her Prairie Village, Mo., home on fire, killing her children, ages 6 and 13.
- Kurt Danysh, 18, shot and killed his father in 1996, 17 days after his first dose of Prozac. "I didn't realize I did it until after it was done. … This might sound weird, but it felt like I had no control of what I was doing, like I was left there just holding a gun."
- In 1998, GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Paxil, was ordered to pay $6.4 million to surviving family members after Donald Schnell, 60, just 48 hours after taking Paxil, flew into a rage and killed his wife, daughter and granddaughter.
The website also cites psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce, in a speech advocating for the treatment of children and youth.
"Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, towards our elected officials, towards his parents, towards a belief in a supernatural being, and towards the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It's up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well – by creating the international child of the future," Pierce told a 1973 childhood seminar.
Breggin's conclusion that whatever mental manifestations were causing Cho's dangerous behavior, resulting in a professor asking for him to be removed from her class and two complaints of stalking, there was a solution.
"The answer to vengeful, violent people is not more mental health screening or more potent mental health interventions. Reliance on the whole range of this system from counseling to involuntary treatment failed. There is not a shred of scientific evidence that locking people up against their will or otherwise 'treating' them reduces violence. As we'll see, quite the opposite is true," he wrote. "So what was needed? Police intervention."
He wrote that "it's not politically correct to bring criminal charges against someone who is 'mentally ill' and it's not politically correct to prosecute him or to remove him from the campus. Yet that's what was needed to protect the students. Two known episodes of stalking, setting a fire, and his threatening behavior in class should have been more than enough for the university administration to bring charges against him and to send him off campus."
He continued with a warning, "And what about drugs for the treatment of violence? The FDA has not approved any medications for the control of violence because there are no such medications. Yes, it is possible to temporarily immobilize mind and body alike with a shot of an 'antipsychotic' drug like Haldol; but that only works as long as the person is virtually paralyzed and confined – and forced drugging invariably breeds more resentment.
"Instead of offering the promise of reducing violence, all psychiatric drugs carry the potential risk of driving the individual into violent madness. For example, both the newer antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Celexa, and the antipsychotic drugs such as Risperdal and Zyprexa, cause a disorder caused akathisia – a terrible inner sensation of agitation accompanied by a compulsion to move about. Akathisia is known to drive people to suicide and to aggression."
He said he's been writing for more than 15 years about the capacity for psychiatric drugs to cause mayhem, murder and suicide, but it wasn't until 2005 when the FDA issued a warning that such drugs produce "anxiety, agitation, panic attacks …"
He said in the Columbine case, Harris "looks the most like Cho. Both were very emotionally disturbed in an extremely violent fashion for a prolonged period of time."
Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of Virginia Tech's English department, said Cho's writings were so disturbing he was referred to the school's counselors.
"Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be," she said. "But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."
In a statement posted on the TeenScreen opposition site, Sidney Taurel of Eli Lilly noted that it would be "unreasonable" to expect "that there is such a thing as a risk-free drug."
Another website concerning the psychiatric drugs, called RitalinDeath, also documents some of these cases, as well as additional ones.
Dr. John Breeding concluded in a report shortly after Columbine that there were about five million school children now being given psychiatric drugs, and the number had been doubling every 10 years since the 1970s.
"This has got to be a cause for major alarm in all adults," he said. "The bottom line is that we are giving stronger and stronger psychiatric drugs to more and more children. Many of our children are taking more than one of these drugs at a time, and many of these drugs were never even tested and approved for children."
Bob Unruh is a news editor for WorldNetDaily.com.
Plea of the Day
April 23, 2007
The exchange below occurred today on Sarnia's Smoking
Gun. A teenager using screen name foster kid
posted a plea for help. It is repeated below without
spelling or grammar correction. Following that are two
replies by the webmaster Dean Robinson.
expand
collapse
I just want to go home
foster kid 12:26pm
Im 13 years old and live in a group home I was put here by a lady from children aid. and I want to go home. I have been here for 6 weeks and have only got to see my mother once, when I seen her she was crying and sad because I was taken away. my mother is not a bad mother the lady that took me said she needed help because she had a hard time taking care of me. she came to my school one day and took me to McDonalds then took me to get some new jeans, I may be only 13 but im not stupid I know she was trying to get me to say that my mother was mean to me and thats not true. she ask if my mother hit me I said that she has slaped me but its because I swore at her. now I feel like im being punished because of something I did. if I didnt swear would I be here. I just want to go home.
they will not let me call my mom and I know she has called here because i heard them tell her not to call here any more or the will call the police. when i went to see her at the visiting place they said she never came but i seen her car in the parking lot. i know they are lieing to me. and they are lieing to the police to. I miss my mom and my dog. please let me go home I love you mom
Stacy.
Dean Robinson
Stacy I removed your last and your email name because I know that the CAS watches this board. If they catch you they will try to keep you away from the computers in your school. I have your email. I will write to you and pass along messages to your mom. I know at 13 you know your home number. Pass it back to me in an email and I'll call your mom and give her your email address. Be careful not to let anyone see you emailing or posting. And don't talk to anyone from the CAS unless you have a lawyer with you, if you don't have a lawyer yet, tell them you want one now. Stacy you have legal rights too.
If there is anyone, other kids that want to post messages to their folks, let me know. I'll set up a private email server for you and call your parents and give them the email addresses. The thing is the CAS is trying to pump lies into your head or spin the truth so you go against your mom and dads. Don't let them mislead you.
Addendum: The next day Dean
Robinson added:
expand
collapse
Well here's the update. I talked to the mother last night and her daughter is to be placed back in her care this week. It seems that her ex-boyfriend is a cop with a grudge. The CAS became involved with this family after she dumped him for being an over-aggressive goof. The funny part of this story is this lady's brother is a lawyer. When she and her brother went to the office to file the plan of care yesterday, the CAS decided it was in the best interest of the child to be reunited with her mother and the case closed. I'm assuming that they figured that this was a family bond that could not be broken.
I'm going to say this again. If you stand your ground, don't take shit from this bunch of idiots, they will back down. The public is becoming more aware of how they manipulate the law and how morally incorrect this society really is.
No Questions Allowed
April 22, 2007
Canada Court Watch started a discussion on the subject: Being a
foster parent does have risks. Below is a posting under screen name
former foster parent.
expand
collapse
Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 3:12 pm
subject: Being a foster parent does have risks
I just read the article on the Court Watch website about the risks associated with being a foster parent.
How very true it is.
My wife and I once had a child in our care from the CAS. The CAS started telling us that we were to stop the girl who was almost 12 from communicating with her parents and that we were to listen in on her phone conversations. We were never told why she should not speak to her parents.
They had this girl on Ritalin as well.
As we got to know the girl we could see how much she just wanted to talk to her parents and her siblings who still lived at their parents home. The girl also got sick on the Ritalin.
When we started to ask questions about the Ritalin and why this girl could not speak to her family, we were told by the CAS worker that it was none of our business and due to confidentiality, they could not say anything to us.
Suddenly about a week later, we got a call from the CAS worker who said that our foster child would not be coming home from school and that they were transferring her somewhere else. No explanation. This girl liked our place and we enjoyed her being here.
As far as my wife and I were concerned, the reason why they took her away was because we started to ask questions out of concern for her best interests.
We've never been asked to take in another foster child since even though we hear that there is a shortage of foster homes in our area. Its clear that the CAS workers do not want people questioning what they do.
Strip, or else!
April 21, 2007
Florida DCF has a job opening for a young man looking for an opportunity
to meet members of the opposite sex. It is to replace William Williams, who
tried to use his powers to get a mother's clothes off. He joins the ranks
of Eric M Ferber and Brandon
Ware.
expand
collapse
Abuse investigator quits over lap-dance request
By Kathleen Chapman
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 21, 2007
A Palm Beach County child abuse investigator lost his job this week after a mother he was supposed to be helping said he asked her for a private lap dance.
Former Department of Children and Families investigator William Williams was assigned to the family's case Dec. 30 after a report to the state that the children were being neglected.
As part of his investigation, he asked the mother what she did for a living. She told him that she worked as an exotic dancer.
According to the mother, Williams then asked whether she gave private lap dances and whether she would come to his home to dance for him.
When she turned him down, she said, he suggested that maybe he could just pay her to cook and clean his house.
The children's grandmother, who agreed to take in the youngsters and their mother, called DCF on Jan. 11 to ask whether the agency could help with rent and groceries. She also reported Williams' behavior with her daughter.
When questioned about the allegations by the DCF inspector general, Williams submitted a sworn statement admitting that he asked the mother if "she did anything else beside dance, if she work in VIP Room, also if she did anything else in the VIP Room, if she gave private lap dances. ...
"This was an error in judgment on my part," Williams wrote, "and can understand how my questioning could be misconstrued."
He said he asked the questions out of personal curiosity, according to the inspector general's report, and that they did not pertain to his investigation.
The mother said Williams made her "very uncomfortable," the report stated.
Williams, 48, was removed from his cases when supervisors heard about the allegations, DCF spokeswoman Laura Tingo said Friday.
He resigned from his job in DCF's Riviera Beach office Monday after his supervisor told him he would be fired, Tingo said.
Williams was hired by the agency in 2005 to take benefit applications. He had worked as an investigator since June 2006.
Discussion of other scandals omitted.
Mother Sentenced, Erased
April 21, 2007
Deborah Farrell has been sentenced for kidnapping her own children.
Following the practice of Stalinist historians, her name has been expunged
from the public consciousness, though it was published last year.
expand
collapse
House arrest for mom who abducted her own kids
SCOTT TRACEY
GUELPH (Apr 20, 2007)
A woman who abducted her children from their foster mother in the parking lot of a city store was placed under house arrest yesterday for two years less a day.
The 45-year-old earlier pleaded guilty to two counts of child abduction. She cannot be named under the Child and Family Services Act, which prohibits the identification of children in foster care.
Court heard that in the spring of 2006, the local office of Family and Children's Services entered a supervision agreement with the woman that included several conditions, including abstention from drug use and open access by agency staff to the children.
On June 9, an agency worker went to the woman's apartment where he found the children unattended because the woman was asleep. The six-year-old had soiled himself. An earlier test had proven positive for drug use, so the children were taken and placed in foster care.
The next day, court heard, the foster parent was confronted as she put the children into her van in the parking lot of the Zellers store on Stone Road. She was approached by the mother and a female friend, who grabbed the 45-year-old's two kids and put them into a car before speeding away.
Police reported the accomplice turned herself in the following day. Subsequent investigation led police to the Valens Conservation Area where the woman and her two children were located.
Yesterday, Guelph Superior Court Justice Bruce Durno agreed to impose a term of two years less a day, the maximum sentence allowed before someone is placed in a federal penitentiary.
The judge agreed to let the woman, who has a minor criminal record including theft and obstructing police, serve her time in the community under house arrest. She was also banned from possessing weapons for 10 years.
stracey@guelphmercury.com
Addendum: A reader points out
that a mother sleeping is now considered to be abandonment,
and cause for taking the kids.
More on F21/03
April 21, 2007
Anne Marsden reports more on the family known only as F21/03. First, a letter to the editor:
expand
collapse
St Catherine's Standard
Child protection in Ontario ignores the child's needs
Letters to the Editor - Friday, April 20, 2007 Updated @ 9:50:15 AM
The problems with the Children's Aid Society and their association would have been fixed at least a decade ago if the responsible ministers had upheld the requirements of the Child and Family Services Act as they have committed to do.
There have been many opportunities for various ministers to step in and do the right thing. For example, the present minister has refused to appoint a judge and undertake a review of Section 67 of the Child and Family Services Act that our audits show has seen two little girls isolated from their family in Brantford since 2001, at public expense with not one scrap of evidence that these children are in need of protection from their family members.
Audit results in the hands of our politicians show judges, lawyers (both private and legal aid) and CAS workers have all ignored best interests, legislation and a responsibility to uphold the law as set out in the Child and Family Services Act. Isolation is abuse. NDP MPP Andrea Horwath and the ombudsman are both well informed on the situation, yet I hear nothing of their efforts to force the government's hand and have the review which would show the CAS is using our child protection dollars improperly - and certainly not in the best interests of our children.
Our position is they are all afraid that such review would be the first domino that would see the end of child protection being used as a means to an end that has nothing to do with best interests of children.
Anne Marsden
Ghent Avenue
Burlington
Anne will be appearing before the Justice Policy
Committee Queen's Park on April 25.
expand
collapse
URGENT PERSONAL ATTENTION ANDRE MARIN AND ATTORNEY GENERAL BRYANT
April 20, 2007
Now that the whole of Canada understands the value of an expert witness' opinion associated with the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children (The Dr. Charles Smith fiasco) rather than just me utilizing my McMaster Post-Graduate Course Critical Appraisal of Data credentials, perhaps the Ombudsman and Attorney General might pay some attention to the Brantford CAS issue that I have been pushing for at least a year now.
Our audits showed there was not one scrap of evidence that one would refer to as evidence if one checked it with the evidence standards that lawyers and judges are taught in law school, in the Brantford CAS case that has seen two sisters isolated from their brothers, mother, fathers, grandparents and each other, one for most of her life, she was born October, 2000 and the other all of her life she was born July, 2006.
The expert witness in this case whose "opinion" was relied on to "convict" a mother and grandmother of not being capable of parenting, despite them doing a grand job with the brothers of the two little Brantford girls, also happens to be from the Hospital for Sick Children (perhaps it should be called Sick Staff and not Sick Kids). He is the head of the Dept. of Pediatrics, or was last time I checked, and sells his opinions to the Brantford CAS so when they are low on evidence for a child they have in their care through fair means or foul, he is available to present his expert opinion in the form of a public monies paid for parenting capacity assessment that will say whatever it is that the CAS need him to say. Since when did we have the law of opinions used to convict... I am well credentialed in analysing such reports and my "expert testimony" about Dr. Wittenberg's two parenting capacity assessments that we, yes we, paid a very, very, large chunk of change for and as a consequence of, is that it is purely and simply non-evidenced character assassination that gave Judge Edward an opportunity to say..." see I was right" rather than what he should have said ... "the court apologizes for its actions that were improper and have cast a cloud of suspicion over all child protection cases in the Brantford court".
Judge Edward I am sure you both will agree acted completely outside of judicial standards when he strongly suggested to the CAS in a written endorsement that they bring in a protection application for a child, whose father was before him pleading for the court to return his child, who was in temporary care without the consent of her father and the judge, the CAS, all the lawyers involved knew that this was contrary to rule of law. If you look it up in the Criminal Code it is called abduction (taking a child out of a parent's supervision without lawful justification). Judge Edward then went on to sit in judgment on the child protection case he strongly suggested in his order the CAS bring in ... now how's that for impartiality...
The audit has been reviewed by a lawyer who says:
" if you are talking/emailing to Anne Marsden, let her know .. A LOT of the Society material consists of speculation, innuendo, gossip, double, triple and quadruple hearsay, opinions from people not qualified to make them and character assassination, plain and simple. In many cases, the affidavits are laughable. I think Anne's audit pointed out some very noteworthy deficiencies in the court process... Also a good lesson to the lawyers involved. "
One of those lawyers should be the Attorney General given he has a job to do with regard to do ensuring rule of law is upheld in the Ontario Courts and the best interests of children are protected and they are not taken out of their parent's protection without just cause. And, the Attorney General's job description would, as I understand it, also lend itself to ensuring a crown attorney looks at charges being laid when a child, sorry two children, are taken out of the supervision of their parents without any lawful justification. Further, when Senior Regional Justice, Timothy Culver, has been provided with the audit results, for almost a year now, and has ignored that at least one of his judges is affecting the best interests of children by acting outside rule of law, (not to mention the public purse) I believe that should also be the business of the Attorney General. Perhaps Justice Culver needs to sit down and watch Judgment at Nuremberg again, it may well have been a while since he saw it... the 1961 version I mean.
As you both know the Minister responsible has been asked on several occasions to undertake a Section 67 CFSA Review of this matter by appointing a judge. My letter in the St. Catherine's Standard today refers to my request which the Ombudsman was asked to support through a letter hand delivered to him by Andrea Horwath after my presentation at Queens Park where I was congratulated by my MPP now my Mayor, Cam Jackson, for my advocacy for children's best interests and my tenacity with regard to working for the best interests of children regardless of who they are and where they live... Until last Easter I had never heard of this Brantford family who now are like my own ... the kids call me Grannie Annie. It should not be a very large job for the judge appointed by the Minister given the audit documents are well organized and should be easy for him or her to follow. Mr. Marin, I would ask that you do everything you need to do to get the Attorney General and Minister to appropriately respond to this matter and undertake a Section 67 review at the very minimum.
I will be in Queens Park to appear before the Justice Policy Committee at 10:45 a.m. on April 25, 2007, I would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you both after my presentation to hand over the audit documents for this matter so you can both do what it is that you need to do to ensure our child protection agencies, judges and lawyers act in the best interests of children and only in the best interests of children when funded by our child protection dollars. .... I have more than done my job ..and my husband's responsibility for the expenses associated with this Brantford child protection audit should have ended several thousand dollars ago!
Anne Marsden (Mrs.)
Audit Manager
The Auditors
The Canadian Family Watchdog
308-1425 Ghent Avenue'
Burlington Ontario L7S 1X5
Tel. 905-639-5684
Dr Charles Smith Inquest
April 20, 2007
Ontario's Coroner, Barry A McLellan, issued a report yesterday saying
there had been mistakes in numerous autopsies conducted by Dr Charles Smith
leading to false criminal convictions, some of parents for killing their own
children. The public outcry has induced Premier Dalton McGuinty to call an
inquest into Dr Smith. For the full story on this matter, refer to the
website Association in Defence of the
Wrongly Convicted, and look through their news archives.
Addendum: Here is a copy of the backgrounder (pdf) from Ontario Coroner Barry McLellan.
Rally for USA
April 19, 2007
A rally aiming to protect families from courts will take place in
Washington DC on August 18. The prime organizer is Minister Ronald E Smith,
whose son has a cancer that is a side-effect of his forced treatment for
ADHD.
expand
collapse
American Family Rights Association
Sacramento -Fair Oaks, California
William O. Tower, President
wm.tower@sbcglobal.net
4934 San Juan Ave #50
Fair Oaks, California 95628
(916) 342-1700
(916) 966-8578
Promoting the Fundamental Liberty Rights & Privileges of Families
All right everybody the RALLY is on and the Date to set your plans on is August 18th 2007. This rally will start at 9:00 a.m. est. and be on going all day. So pack a lunch bring water to drink and join us to get the word to Congress that we are not satisfied with the way that the Health and Human services Department and the Family Courts are running the system that was supposed to protect children and Families “all involved in the family”. The Courts were supposed to be the safety net and they have failed the PEOPLE.
Bring your story done in 20 (twenty) pages or less and take it to one of the tents to register in and get it on the Official Record with Congress. Also review the dcrally2007.com web site for updates. There will also be a format for your story to be put into posted on that website.
We have many Great organizations from all across the United States getting together for this event. And also have planned to have Officials there to talk to the People (us). We need a great show of support on this event and I am sure that all that can attend will be there. This is the next big CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT so get on board and help out, show your support and do your part after all it is really for the children (yours and your grandchildren) so as Larry the cable guy says “GIT IT DONE” we will see you all there.
Bill Tower
President AFRA
Extortion
April 19, 2007
Canada Court Watch is tracking down one instance of a
common CAS practice. In many cases reported to Dufferin
VOCA a social worker threatened a parent with a statement of
the form: "We are going to take your children unless you
... ".
expand
collapse
EXTORTION by CAS!
(April 17, 2007) - Court Watch received a call today from parents who report that they have gathered solid evidence which shows that CAS attempted to extort them to sign legal documents without a lawyer and against their better judgement. Extortion is an offence under the Criminal Code of Canada. Keep an eye on this site for further updates. The name of the worker involved will be disclosed once evidence has been properly organized and prepared for police investigators.
Bill 165
April 18, 2007
A pending bill 88 introduced by Andrea Horwath would give the power to
investigate children's aid societies to the provincial ombudsman. That
office is occupied by the hard-hitting André Marin, who is
aware of the extent of the problems with children's aid. A report from him
could precipitate a scandal leading to real reform. In an effort to protect
themselves, social services spokesman Mary Anne Chambers introduced a
neutered bill 165 to withhold investigatory power from the obudsman, but to
modify the powers of the child advocate, currently career social worker Judy
Finlay. The advocate would not have subpoena power, so it is unlikely
she could do anything that would cause a public outcry.
There is a website, Child Advocacy
Renewal in Ontario, supporting bill 165. We believe it
is a creation of the social services system, since it shares
their graphic design (all smiling faces) and has the same
street address, 25 Spadina Road Toronto, as the Children's Aid
Foundation.
Whether or not bill 165 is an improvement, hearings could
be an opportunity for victims of the current regime and
advocates of true reform to get their objections on record.
Those wishing to do so through the social services system
can use Child Advocacy Renewal in Ontario; John Dunn suggests
asking for Matthew Geigen-Miller. For less biased help, we
can suggest:
Addendum: Another website
allied with social services, Voices for Children, says the hearings will
take place on April 25 and 26.
Another Chambers Boondoggle
April 18, 2007
As a result of children's aid intervention, orthodontic treatment for T
Norris was canceled, and he cannot get his needed braces. Yesterday Mary
Anne Chambers made another one of her routine announcements of a grant for some project in
the name of children. This one begins: McGuinty government helping
children. Providing $250,000 To University of Toronto For Children's Dental
Services. The project will do nothing to help Mr Norris. Mrs Chambers
should concentrate on leaving children with parents willing to care for
them.
CCW Message Board Returns
April 17, 2007
Canada Court Watch opened a new Public
Discussion Forum on April 10. The new board requires registration to
post, but not to read, messages. A posting on April 11 describes an effort
by the Office of the Children's Lawyer to muzzle Canada Court Watch by
forcing unfavorable documents off its website. There is nothing to indicate
the result of the hearing scheduled for last Thursday.
expand
collapse
Children's Lawyer's Office attempts to silence complaints
posted by justice
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 9:38 pm
This is right off the Fathers Battling Injustice site Call we need all those that are close to show support. Lets let them know this was a big mistake. If they lose we will get national attention now and it should!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear Court Watch Supporters
The Office of the Children's Lawyer has filed a motion against Canada Court Watch and Mr. Vern Beck to remove documents from the Court Watch Website which cast the the Children's Aid Society and the Office of the Children's Lawyer in a bad light.
This is an attempt to remove criticizm of their organizations and to set a dangerous precident to erode the freedom of the press in order to prevent individuals and organizations from saying bad things about them in the future.
The presence of supporters of Court Watch would be helpful and their presence at court would be appreciated. The presence of members of the public in the court sends a strong message to the court that people are concerned and that the Judge must be just.
Mr. Vern Beck will be presenting arguments to the court in defence of Court Watch and members of the public (you) who have been adversly affected by these organizations. To those who have received help or information from Mr. Beck or Court Watch in the past, it is time to return the favour by showing your support in court.
Time: 9:30 am (sharp) on Thursday April 12, 2007
Family Cut in Half
April 15, 2007
Remember the two women who appeared before King Solomon, both claiming to
be mothers of the same baby? The king ordered the baby cut in half, with
half given to each woman. The real mother chickened, begging Solomon to
give it all to the other woman, rather than see it harmed.
Here is a current case of a mother compelled to give up her baby to save
it from harm.
expand
collapse
April 14, 2007
Desperate mom denied
Children's Aid refuses to hold baby in child protection when single woman is deported to China
By TOM GODFREY, SUN MEDIA
(Mark O'Neil/Sun Media)
MISSISSAUGA -- Single mom Hong Zhang cried a river of tears yesterday after learning she can't leave her baby daughter in Canada with Children's Aid when she is deported to her native China.
Zhang, 39, broke down after leaving the agency's Peel offices, where she had tried to place her only child.
She was told 1-year-old Sherry will be put up for adoption as an abandoned child if left behind, but Zhang wants the girl to sponsor her back to Canada some day.
"I feel very sad right now," Zhang said. "I do not want Sherry to go to China. I want her to have a better life in Canada."
As Zhang wept, the baby started crying and had to be cradled.
"My child will not have much of a future in China," she said through interpreter Jane Lou. "At least here she has some kind of future."
Roy Kellogg, Zhang's immigration consultant, said it can take more than 20 years for Zhang to be sponsored back to Canada by Sherry, who must first reach age 18.
Kellogg said the Canadian-born child will be treated as a second-class citizen if sent to China, where laws ban children out of wedlock. He said Sherry will be stigmatized and will not get health coverage, be allowed to attend school or to obtain Chinese citizenship.
As a single mom, Zhang also faces a fine of $140,000 a child for returning to China with children, Kellogg said.
Zhang came to Canada in 1997 and filed an unsuccessful refugee claim and appeals. She is to report to immigration next Wednesday to make deportation arrangements.
Lucie Baistrocchi, a Peel Children's Aid spokesman, said yesterday each child has to be assessed as requiring protection before they're accepted as wards.
"We are not aware of any child protection issues in this case," Baistrocchi said. "There has to be a child protection issue."
Anna Pape, of the Canada Border Services Agency, said her officers must deport those who have exhausted all avenues for staying here.
"Our job is to enforce the laws of the land," Pape said. "We don't decide who gets to stay in Canada."
Wrong Rights
April 14, 2007
The Citizen has published a proposed Children's Charter of Rights. It
requires an understanding of the difference between positive and
negative rights. The proposed rights are all positive, requiring for
their implementation intervention by someone outside the family. For
example, protection from exposure to family violence requires cops to
look inside the family to control it. Families are reduced to one of a set
of alternative role models. For more on this issue, refer to the book
What's Wrong with Children's Rights by Martin Guggenheim. What
children desperately need is a charter of negative rights, granting them the
right to remain with mom and dad, unless mom and dad have failed in their
responsibilities.
The group producing the proposal is described only as a number of
child-centred committees and organizations, a working group of the
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Report Card Coalition on the Wellbeing of
Children. No members are mentioned, but it sounds like a coalition of
social services agencies such as Family Transition Place and Dufferin
Children's Aid.
expand
collapse
Orangeville, Ont
Orangeville Citizen
Local News — April 12, 2007
Working group produces Children's Charter
With input from a number of child-centred committees and organizations, a working group of the Wellington- Dufferin-Guelph Report Card Coalition on the Wellbeing of Children has developed a Children's Charter of Rights.
Based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, it is a document that outlines a vision to make Wellington- Dufferin-Guelph a better place for children and families. The Charter includes a series of statements that outline what our communities need to do in order to ensure healthy development and bright futures for all of our children.
In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations has proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. It sets forth a wide range of provisions that encompass civil rights and freedoms, family environment, basic health and welfare, education, leisure and cultural activities, and special protection measures.
The group's goal is to have the Children's Charter adopted and endorsed by political councils, community organizations and local businesses in an effort to make a compelling statement about our collective intent to support, and advocate for, the rights of children.
The Children's Charter will be launched in the spring with an official signing.
Following is the Charter's text:
All children deserve basic rights and freedoms. A fair share of society's resources must be devoted to ensuring this. While families are responsible for raising their children, all levels of government, in partnership with communities, have a duty to support families by putting the health and well-being of children first.
All children in Wellington Dufferin-Guelph have a right to:
- A quality of life that meets their physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and social needs.
- Have basic needs met including nutritious food, a healthy environment and a safe and comfortable place to live.
- Access quality and affordable child care, early education programs and/or parenting support.
- Safe places and time to play, and access to affordable recreational activities.
- Quality education to enable them to reach their full potential.
- Quality time with their families and/or other nurturing and positive role models throughout their childhood.
- Protection from neglect, abuse and exposure to family violence.
- Be accepted for who they are, and believe what they want without being discriminated against.
Mom Sentenced
April 14, 2007
In August 2005 we reported the story of the girl Emily Lake maced by
police in Oregon and rushed back to foster care in Michigan. Most recently,
she was visited by her mother in July
2006. Here is the latest report from Ann Durand on the mother being
sentenced for kidnapping her own daughter.
expand
collapse
Mother Sentenced to 30 days
On April 5, 2007 Lynnae Lake was sentenced to 30 days in Jail in the Midland Michigan County Jail for custodial kidnapping of her own daughter from the Department of Human Services on May 28 2004.
She was tried and convicted under MCL 750.350a .
If you are parent and your spouse refuses you parenting time for 24 hours, a weekend or a week or for whatever period just try to get a police officer to take a police report. Just try to get a prosecutor to file charges. It is not going to happen in this state. Believe me I know several people who have tried. The police officer will tell you "it is a civil matter you will have to hire an attorney and go to court". Upon contacting the legislature and requesting and receiving a copy of the legislative intent of this statute it is quite apparent it was not meant to be used by the Michigan DHS in a case like this especially when DHS worker is the one who is deemed to have been the custodian, committed numerous illegal and unconstitutional acts that precipitated the mother's actions.
The DHS says the verbal order to a DHS worker of a referee is a legal order. They say an order with a judge's forged signature is a lawful order. They say it is ok that the worker entered a private Christian School after being challenged by the principal as to his right to demand entry and to interrogate another child of this mother and threatening the principal with calling the police. The worker had no court order in his hands, no warrant to search when he did this. (blatant violation of the 4th amendment) Workers in this state MAY enter a PUBLIC school and interview your children without a warrant or court order. But no state actor, police officer or DHS worker has the right to enter on to any private property without a warrant or exigent circumstances. The worker in this case lied to the principal and told him he had a court order. He did not. He has admitted in court he did not. He held her 17 ½ yr-old daughter behind locked doors in a room in the school physically restrained her and told her not to talk to her mother. This is illegal seizure under the law. Ms Lake was ordered by the principal to take her younger daughter and leave the school. She did.
Also if you will read the statute below you will see the actual statute.
For the complete story go to www.fcr4kids.org/
Emily is still to this day in the custody of DHS and the same adult sister who helped plan this travesty. She is not allowed to see her mother except in a tiny room with a 2 way mirror with a DHS worker in the room. They see each other for 1 hour sporadically at the whim of DHS. This is 20 months after the brutal taking and pepper spraying in the face of this child by police officers and being threatened with attack dogs. She watched the officers beat her mother in front of her as she begged them not to hurt her mother.
Here is the link to the Michigan Custodial Kidnapping statute.
Keep in mind there was NO (lawful) giving the DHS worker custody of this child.
Keep in mind if you are a parent the state will not charge your ex spouse or significant other with this statute which was written to protect your rights as a parent.
This mother was never served with a summons nor did anyone from DHS even so much as call her to appear for hearings of that day or subsequent days. They held a trial 2 months later without proper notification, no attorney for mother, and took unlawful hearsay evidence as fact. The so-called victim, the 17 ½ year old daughter did not testify in the dependency hearings in the probate court. Only the DHS worker did.
Dr Phil Interviews Allison Quets
April 14, 2007
Allison Quets, who fled to Canada in December with her
toddler twins, was interviewed in jail by Dr Phil. During
her pregnancy she developed the life-threatening condition
hyperemesis gravidarum. While still weakened from the
disease after the birth of the twins, she was subject to two
all-day psychological warfare sessions in the office of an
adoption lawyer, who induced her to sign the necessary
documents. During one she called 911 in a frantic and
unsuccessful effort to get help. Florida provides no
cooling-off period for this kind of document, so Allison
legally lost her children.
The video is not online, but three slide shows of Twin Tug of
War are available on the Dr Phil website.
Previous articles:
January 4 and
December 29.
Lawsuit Ends
April 13, 2007
The Supreme Court of Canada has ended a lawsuit seeking funding for the
treatment of autistic children. If successful, the suit would have removed
the power to appropriate tax funds from the legislature and given it to the
courts, and would have increased the amount of money and power for social
services, further diminishing the role of parents in the lives of children.
Correction: In an earlier version of this item, we
mistakenly said this was the Anne
Larcade suit. That is another pending matter.
expand
collapse
Posted AT 10:25 AM EDT ON 12/04/07
Supreme Court spurns autism appeal
Canadian Press
OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear an appeal from a group of Ontario families seeking money for specialized treatment for autistic children.
Robin Wynberg, front, with her legal team in a civil suit over special education for autistic children, from left, Pheroze Jeejeebhoy, Jonathan Strug and Mary Eberts. (Tibor Kolley/Globe and Mail files)
The 28 families initially won a court ruling over government financing for costly intensive behavioural therapy, but that was overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal.
As is usual in leave-to-appeal rulings, the court gave no reasons for its decision.
A Senate committee last month recommended that Canada develop a national plan to deal with autism, including new measures to help families saddled with huge bills for therapy.
Putman Retiring
April 13, 2007
Gary Putman will retire from Dufferin Child and Family Services in
November. The article below, based on information provided by Mr Putman
himself, puts a positive light on his accomplishments. In our experience,
during his tenure he has terrorized Dufferin County. We have spoken to
parents, newspaper editors and his own employees who live in fear of Mr
Putman.
expand
collapse
Orangeville, Ont — Orangeville Citizen
Local News April 12, 2007
Putman retiring from Dufferin Child and Family Services
Tom Murray, President of Dufferin Child and Family Services, has announced the planned retirement next November of the agency's executive director, Gary Putman.
Mr. Putman began his social Work career in 1971 after graduating from the University of Toronto's School of Social Work. He developed his skills and gained valuable experience working with the Hamilton Children's Aid Society, the Lynwood Hall Treatment Center and the Peel Children's Aid Society.
In 1978 he began his tenure with Dufferin Child and Family Services. At that time the agency dealt only with child welfare and operated with a staff of eight employees.
"Throughout the following 29 years, Gary developed and demonstrated his skills as a leader not only within the agency, but also within the community that he proudly served," Mr. Murray said in a press release recently.
"Gary participated and helped in the development of many local community planning bodies.
He was instrumental in the early development of Family Transition Place and Community First in Dufferin County. He participated on the Boards of Community Living Dufferin, Big Brothers of Orangeville and District, North Peel-Dufferin Community Legal Clinic and served two terms on the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies."
Mr. Putman was described as having nurtured and guided the agency through significant growth within Dufferin. "There have been many ups and downs, but Gary continually planned and developed for the future of Dufferin County," Mr. Murray said. "Through Gary's vision and guidance, Dufferin Child and Family Services has now developed into a multi-service agency, providing child protection, children's mental health services, developmental support services and the supervised visitation program."
He said the director's 36 years of dedication to child welfare is greatly appreciated by the communities he has served in, "and by the children's lives he has touched directly and indirectly. He has always been optimistic with a vision to developing children and families to their full potential."
In informing the agency's directors of his plan to retire, Mr. Putman praised the staff as "immensely dedicated and talented professionals who I will very much miss."
He plans to retire on November 30. The Board of Directors will begin a search for a new executive director immediately.
Tracy Cain R.I.P.
April 12, 2007
John Dunn reports the death of a mother who was in regular contact with
her daughter in foster care until CAS hardball tactics separated them. The
despair of permanently losing her daughter drove her drug abuse, leading to
her death.
In separation cases like this, it is easy to overlook the fact that
uniting mothers and daughters can improve the mother as well as the
daughter.
expand
collapse
| Date: | Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:39:58 -0400
| | From: | John Dunn
afterfostercare@hotmail.com
| | Subject: | Sad News
|
Dear List Members,
I have been informed recently that a person I used to work with, who was an excellent fighter for her daughter, but who at the time was subject to the restrictive CFSA, has passed away. Her daugther was placed in a foster home while the mother was involved in a rather unfavourable situation ending up in a two year prison situation.
As a result of her two years in prison, her daughter went into foster care, and was in a good home. After her sentence, she worked, stayed in Narcotics Anonymous and became very deeply involved in running the program, organizing dances and other activities in NA.
She kept clean, worked full time and was doing well for herself while dealing with personal matters but keeping clean. She had ongoing visits with her daughter who was in a good foster home for four years when the CAS started to reduce her visits.
The visits were being reduced in order to promote adoption. (Still unsure of who was seeking adoption at the time) but the foster home was excellent at keeping the family in touch. Then, the CAS told the little nine year old girl at the time that she would be seeing her mother for the last time.
The mother was trying to get a visit around Christmas a few years ago when the CAS was refusing to allow it. We went on a campaign to attempt to stop the CAS from preventing a Christmas visit with her siblings and mother. The campaign involved a poster which, if they did not allow the visit, was going to be spread far and wide and postered all over downtown. The Poster read "CAS Keeps nine year old girl from her mother and siblings at Christmas against her will" and provided numbers to call at the CAS to have the public privide their opinion on the matter.
Fortunately, the notice to the Society was effective, we did not have to go on the campaign. The CAS offered her on the phone "Just this time". They had the visit, which resulted in a great picture on a site I will link to later.
Sadly, after that, the pressure of permanently losing her daughter pushed her back into the underground and there she stayed until January 2007, where she unfortunately passed away from a blood disease, I think caused by drug use.
If the mother and daughter had of at least been able to keep in touch, especialy since the mother was supportive of the foster home and the open relationship they all had maintained between each other, this now thirteen year old girl would still have a mother who loved her unconditionally.
We are not even sure if the girl has been made aware of the fact that her mother has passed, but I will be updating the list on the events as they come to be. This girl is now adopted, so is no longer the subject of a court proceeding or hearing, therefore making the following link to her web site made by her mother three years ago exempt from the secrecy legislation in the CFSA.
More will follow, since the mother's parents have informed me of the fact that her ashes have yet to be burried and I will discuss options of who might be able to visit or not during this ceremony, and if we will be making it a public affair or not.
Also these grandparents have not been able to maintain contact with the girl since her adoption. (3 years?) The CAS is even blocking Christmas cards etc. and are going to contact Kim Craitor, an Ontario MPP who has Bill 8 2005 in first reading status. This bill is to give grandparents a right of access to grand kids during custodial matters. (CAS as well I think)
I will follow up with more, this is just an emotional response letter to the list, more detailed and organized information will be provided on the web site later.
The internment ceremony willl be held this month some time we believe.
You can see how happy the girl was to be with her mother (front row on Mom's lap smiling widely in obvious happiness at being with her mother on her last visit at the CAS of which the mom fought for and won) tracycain.tripod.com
I would like to ask everyone to please take a moment to remember this image, for it is important that we realize how much their relationship meant to each other.
Sincerely,
John Dunn
The Foster Care Council of Canada
www.afterfostercare.ca
Michelle, Eric and Melissa with mother Tracy Cain
Foster Boy Becomes Vegetable
April 11, 2007
Three-year-old James Bradley Jr was injured in foster care in Belleville
Michigan, and is now fighting for his life in an Ann Arbor hospital after
doctors had to remove parts of his skull and brain. The story from Fox news in Detroit may disappear soon.
Addendum: James Earl Bradley Jr died from his
injuries on April 13. A Michigan reader commented on his newspaper's board:
*monotone voice
There is no problem here.... there is no problem with the system.... Everything is fine... We are doing our best... there is no problem here....
riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Foster Company Loses Business
April 11, 2007
In case there was any doubt that foster care is run for profit, a foster
care company, Lifeway For Youth Inc., is suing the state of Ohio for loss of
business. It seems the state is unfairly punishing them for placing a boy
with a family that murdered him, burned his body and threw his remains in
the Ohio River.
expand
collapse
Last Updated: 7:44 pm | Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Lifeway sues state agency
BY SHEILA MCLAUGHLIN | SMCLAUGHLIN@ENQUIRER.COM
The company that placed 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel in a deadly foster home sued the state for $1 million Tuesday, saying the state spread lies that cost it business.
Lifeway For Youth, Inc., of New Carlisle, filed suit against the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services in the Ohio Court of Claims in Columbus, saying the agency’s motives were “purely political.”
The 13-year-old private foster care company accuses the state of libeling the company in the press, interfering with business relationships with foster families and referring agencies and abusing the state licensing process.
It claims the state launched its campaign to revoke Lifeway’s license even before it finished an investigation into Marcus’ death.
“(The state) has been more concerned about shifting blame than about the welfare of Ohio’s foster kids,” said Mike Berner, Lifeway’s founder and executive director.
Berner nurtured Lifeway from a ministry to a $15 million business that operates in six states, including Kentucky and Indiana.
The court filing comes a day after lawyers for the company and the state met to set nearly two weeks of hearings in June so Lifeway can challenge the state’s effort to take away its operating license in Ohio.
Lifeway still plans to go forward with those hearings. Those proceedings won’t affect Lifeway’s licenses elsewhere.
Berner claims he’s lost about one-third of his business in Ohio.
“The department, by being so thorough and relentless in its public statement about the inferior quality of Lifeway, effectively ruined their business,” said Melissa Mitchell, a Columbus attorney representing Lifeway.
“It affected their business in a very serious way, so much so that they might not be in business by the time of the hearings.”
State officials did not have an immediate comment, but are expecting to issue a statement later this evening.
The lawsuit alleges that the state:
- Issued a press release saying it had advised all counties to check on children in Lifeway homes even before starting its investigation into Marcus’ death.
- Repeatedly and publicly stated that it would revoke Lifeway’s certification three months before it notified Lifeway of its intentions.
- Altered reports from state field investigators who were involved in licensing Lifeway.
- Made false and misleading statements to the media, including that it had found 147 violations when 55 of them were actually related to the revocation proceedings.
Lifeway also has asked a judge to place a gag order on state officials to keep them from making any further false statements to the media or saying anything negative about Lifeway to its referring agencies and foster families.
Lifeway officials said they’ve watched its Ohio business fizzle since August in the wake of Marcus’ death.
The developmentally delayed Middletown boy was bound and left in a closet for two days while his Clermont County foster parents went to a family reunion. Liz and David Carroll Jr. are serving life terms after being convicted in February of Marcus’ murder.
Since then, foster placements have fallen off from 600 to about 360 children because county children services agencies quit placing foster kids with Lifeway, Mitchell said.
Foster families have jumped to other agencies or quit and about one-third of Lifeway’s staff has resigned since the state began revocation proceedings in January, Berner said earlier.
Advocating Reform is Criminal
April 9, 2007
When the State of Arizona threatened Robin Scoins with prosecution for asking the legislature to change
child protection laws, Richard Wexler tried to get press coverage:
Weeks after I let NCCPR’s “Arizona List” of journalists know what Hershberger was doing, only New Times reported the story. I’ve found not a word in any major daily; certainly not the state’s largest daily, The Arizona Republic. It was encouraging when the Republic columnist who most strongly supports using CPS to tear apart impoverished families briefly expressed an interest in the story – but nothing came of it.
— from today's entry in Richard Wexler's blog
The two articles below describe Robin Scoins child
protection case, and the effort to prosecute her.
expand
collapse
Suffer the Children
By Sarah Fenske, Published: October 26, 2006
Portions of this article not relating to Robin Scoins have been deleted by Dufferin VOCA
Robin Scoins admits that her case, too, had its complications. She knows it was ridiculous not to realize she was pregnant until just weeks before giving birth.
But what happened after that wasn't just ridiculous, it was a nightmare: a classic example of how faulty evidence — pushed by a caseworker without the time to do her homework — can trump the facts.
It started after the birth of Scoins' third child, a boy. Then 35, Scoins was seriously depressed. She had good reason: Her then-boyfriend was an alcoholic, she says, and had been abusive in the past. The relationship was on its last legs. And Scoins' oldest son, then 14, had been diagnosed with a host of mental-health problems.
The doctor at Southwest Behavioral Health Services put Scoins on heavy-duty antidepressants, according to records provided to New Times by Scoins' lawyer, Scott Ambrose.
For the seven months that Scoins saw counselors at Southwest, her doctors reported that she was anxious, worried about her older boy, and depressed about her relationship ending, records show.
But they never once suggested that she was a bad parent. And they never noted a suspicion of drug use.
Then Scoins found out she was pregnant again. Very, very pregnant.
She'd gained weight with her previous pregnancy, so she was already heavier than usual. She complained to her doctors about nausea, and irregular periods, but records show that she assumed it was a side effect from the meds.
So in early September 2003, Scoins found out she was pregnant, and on September 27 her little boy was born — two months early, weighing only three and a half pounds.
And that's when Scoins, who insists she'd never used illegal drugs, tested positive for amphetamines.
Even the hospital's own test results warn that antidepressants, like the ones Scoins was using, can create a "false positive" for amphetamines. So can cold medicine, which she'd also been on.
Not only did the baby test negative for everything, but Scoins subsequently passed two more drug tests.
No matter. When Scoins' boy (called C.Q. in court papers to protect his privacy) was big enough to leave the hospital in November, Scoins didn't get a call to pick him up. Instead, a CPS worker left her a note.
CPS had taken the baby.
The reason: According to the caseworker, Scoins had "tested positive for methamphetamines."
Amphetamines are present in any number of drugs, not just crystal meth. But while CPS caseworkers deal with thousands of meth-related cases in the course of a year, the staffer on Scoins' case didn't seem to realize that. Nor did she acknowledge that Scoins' amphetamine "positive" was in dispute.
Instead, CPS's report claimed that Scoins was a drug addict. The caseworker wrote that she'd "abused substances for a long period of time" — an absurd claim for which the worker offered no supporting documentation. The report also claimed that Scoins had been homeless and living in a car. Again, completely false.
Even worse, in the same report, the caseworker claimed that Scoins' baby had yet to be tested for drugs.
That wasn't true. C.Q.'s tests were complete within days of his birth, two months before. He was negative for all drugs.
Taking C.Q. amounted to a rush to judgment that may have been triggered by good intentions — but doesn't hold up to scrutiny today.
Scoins was devastated at losing her baby.
"I was just a mess," Scoins says. "I kept thinking, there's some mistake. I've never used drugs; they must have me confused with someone else. When they find out, this will all be over. But that never happened."
Instead, CPS only let Scoins see C.Q. during supervised visits. And Scoins' caseworker filed paperwork to take away her other three children, too.
Ultimately, the agency dropped its threat; when C.Q. was nine months old, CPS finally returned him to his mother. But that was only thanks to an attorney friend who handled Scoins' case for free.
"I probably would not have my son back today without that," she says.
Throughout a three-hour interview with New Times at the public library in Surprise, Scoins' two youngest boys interrupt frequently to show their mother books, pester for her library card, and ask for help with the computer. They have a warm rapport; Scoins is affectionate with them, and they clearly adore her in return.
Since her battle for C.Q., Scoins founded the Arizona Family Rights Advocacy Institute and devotes much of her time to helping families across the state fighting CPS. She doesn't get paid, yet she estimates she easily spends more than 60 hours a week taking their calls, helping them with paperwork, even showing up in court to offer an assist.
She knows the dark side of Napolitano's push for safety first. She's lived it.
"This wasn't even a case where they took the kid and asked questions later," says her attorney, Ambrose, disgusted. "In this case, they didn't even ask questions."
expand
collapse
Public Enemy Number One
She went after CPS -- but now the state may be coming after her
By Sarah Fenske, Published: March 22, 2007
Robin Scoins is the perfect face for the argument against Arizona Child Protective Services. And she believes that's exactly why she's drawn the ire of state representative Pete Hershberger.
Robin Scoins got involved fighting CPS after her son was taken from her in 2003.
Martha Strachan
Three years ago, Scoins lost her newborn son to CPS custody. The agency claimed, falsely, that she'd tested positive for crystal meth; it took nine months to sort out what proved to be a sloppy mistake and get her little boy out of foster care.
Today, Scoins devotes her time to parenting her four kids — and to fighting CPS. As the founder, executive director, and sole staffer of the Arizona Family Rights Advocacy Institute, she helps families with their custody battles, inveighs against legislative efforts to increase CPS funding, and pushes for laws that increase parental rights.
She's had some victories. Typically, the Legislature will renew an agency's mandate for 10 years; with Scoins on the attack last year, CPS's parent agency, the Department of Economic Security, was renewed for only two. She was also able to draw attention to social workers who raised complaints about the agency's operations in Kingman (see "Suffer the Children," October 26, 2006).
And Scoins knows how to work the bully pulpit. If nothing else, her story provides great political cover for CPS critics like Senator Karen Johnson, a Mesa Republican. It can be difficult, politically, to criticize an agency that fights child abuse. It's a lot easier when you have an example of a non-abusive mom, like Scoins, caught in its bureaucratic net.
But despite her success at the Capitol, and despite the fancy title, Robin Scoins is no Jack Abramoff. She lives on Social Security and does her advocacy work from the bedroom of her Section 8 apartment — because, as she explains, "I don't even have a kitchen table." She has no funding, not even from the families she advocates for, although sometimes they'll help out by babysitting. She's never wined or dined a legislator in her life.
But is she a lobbyist? That's the question that could cost her up to $1,000 or even a misdemeanor conviction.
Under Arizona law, lobbyists must register every two years and pay a $25 registration fee. They must also file annual reports.
Scoins never did any of that. And last month, Representative Pete Hershberger, a Republican from Tucson, wrote the secretary of state to request that the office investigate whether Scoins is "properly registered for the activities she is undertaking." He then forwarded the letter to the attorney general and Maricopa County attorney.
Hershberger chairs the House's Human Services Committee and is one of the Legislature's most outspoken CPS supporters. While many Republicans harshly criticized the agency's Napolitano-era mandate to prioritize child safety above family preservation, Hershberger applauded it. When Napolitano asked for $34 million for the agency in 2003's landmark "CPS reform" special session, House Republicans countered with $1.7 million. Hershberger crafted the compromise that got CPS $17 million instead.
As Hershberger pointed out in his letter, Scoins has signed in at committee meetings as a representative of her family rights institute. The secretary of state's "lobbyist handbook" suggests that could be enough, in and of itself, to trigger a violation, although an actual penalty would require Scoins to have "knowingly" failed to follow the rules.
Joseph Kanefield, the state election director for Secretary of State Jan Brewer, acknowledges that complaints like Hershberger's are highly unusual. "I can tell you that it's the first one we've gotten this session," he says. It'll be up to his office to determine whether there's "reasonable cause" to suspect that a violation occurred. If there is, he says, the case would go to Goddard.
Kanefield sent a letter to Scoins on March 8 with two questions: Was she paid by the family advocacy institute to lobby the Legislature? And had she spent any money to woo legislators — say, buying them lunch?
Scoins has done neither, as she explained in her reply to Kanefield last week.
"At no time have I ever presented myself as a lobbyist, and in fact stated in public hearings, that I am NOT a lobbyist and I am not paid by anyone to speak in support of or in opposition of any bill," she wrote. "I have not been paid to provide testimony at the request of a legislator as a citizen expert on CPS issues. I am a mother, who volunteers time to help others exercising my right to participate in government processes."
Kanefield says it's too early to say whether Scoins must register just because she represents a group. The law is complicated; Kanefield doesn't want to comment on the merits of the complaint until his office's investigation is done.
But others are crying foul on Hershberger.
Dan Pochoda, legal director of the Arizona chapter of the ACLU, says he's waiting for the secretary of state's decision before he gets involved. But if lobbying laws are used to stop a citizen from speaking in front of a committee, even if that citizen is part of a bigger group, he believes it "would raise significant First Amendment issues."
And Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform and an outspoken critic of CPS, calls Hershberger's complaint "absolutely unheard of."
"Most legislators," Wexler says, "at least pick on someone their own size. I've never heard of anyone going after a grassroots activist like this."
Even if Hershberger is right about the law, it doesn't help that he and Scoins disagree so vehemently on the issues. If nothing else, this looks like an attempt to harass a dissenting voice, and one of a low-income single mom at that.
Nor does it help that, in the private sector, Hershberger is getting paid by a company with strong ties to CPS. Before he was elected to the House, Hershberger was a full-time employee at a Tucson social service agency called Open Inn. Tax records show that Open Inn gets the bulk of its funding — more than $3 million annually — from government contracts. As Hershberger acknowledges, some of those contracts are with CPS's parent agency.
It's not clear just how much he's being paid. The personal disclosure form that Hershberger has on file with the secretary of state shows only that the total is over $1,000. He claims he hasn't billed Open Inn in months and that the company's ties don't factor into how he feels about CPS. (And what he's doing is not a legal conflict of interest, according to Arizona's rather lax laws regarding legislators.)
Hershberger insists that his letter wasn't intended to silence a critic.
"I was just curious," he says. "My understanding is if she's representing someone other than just herself, paid or unpaid, she has to register. That's to protect the public and let them know who's representing who. . . . Now it's up to them. If she didn't do anything wrong, okay, I'm done with it."
Richard Wexler, for one, doesn't buy it. If Hershberger was just "curious," he asks, why not just talk to Scoins and ask about her funding?
"That's what he would do if he was curious," Wexler says. "But if he wanted to bully her, he'd send a letter to the secretary of state — and then he'd forward it to the county attorney."
Details: E-mail sarah.fenske@newtimes.com, or call 602-440-1130.
Addendum: Richard Wexler reports
on some help for Robin.
expand
collapse
April 16, 2007
THE ARIZONA ACLU STEPS IN
The Legal Director of the ACLU of Arizona has written to the Attorney General’s office on behalf of Robin Scoins in connection with the controversy discussed in the previous post to this blog. In the letter, ACLU of Arizona Legal Director Daniel Pochoda writes:
“We are troubled by the manner and results of this process and are assisting Ms. Scoins at this stage. Application of the lobbying registration requirements in this context has First Amendment implications and will likely result in chilling rights of speech and to petition the government.”
Fake Social Workers
April 9, 2007
Among the dangers for parents we now have impostors claiming to be social
workers. It is an easy way to spy inside homes or for pedophiles to see
some skin or just to terrify neighbors. The current article is from
Wyoming. We include an older case of the same scam from Nova Scotia.
expand
collapse
Riverton officials looking into alleged
DFS impostor
RIVERTON (AP) -- Authorities are investigating reports
of a woman posing as a Department of Family Services case
worker, entering people's homes and asking questions about
their children.
Sada Selvig, supervisor of the DFS social work
department in Riverton, said she got a call March 27 from
a couple suspicious about such a visit.
"I've just never seen or heard anything like this,"
Selvig said.
According to Selvig, a tall, middle-aged woman wearing
jeans and a blue sweater knocked on the couple's door in
northeast Riverton and said she was there to conduct an
inspection. The 23-year old woman who answered the door
let her in, but became suspicious when the woman began
asking about her young children.
The victim and her husband reported the incident to
Selvig and to police later that day.
Riverton Police Capt. Milan Vinich said after the
couple's complaint circulated around the department,
another local woman filed a similar complaint.
"Turns out that the daughter of a police department
employee experienced a similar encounter three weeks prior
and didn't think much of it until hearing about this
account," Vinich said.
Selvig said she knew something was amiss as soon as she
heard how the impostor was dressed.
"That was my first tip off," Selvig said. "The woman
was wearing jeans. Case workers are not allowed to wear
jeans."
Selvig said most DFS employees on home visits are
accompanied by a police officer. And although DFS
employees don't wear uniforms, they should wear a DFS
badge in a visible location and should be driving a state
vehicle with an "S" on the license plate.
Selvig also said DFS does not have the authority to
remove children from a home, and that anyone who says they
have that authority through DFS should be treated with
suspicion.
"So if there is a caseworker alone that comes to your
home and says they will be taking your child into
protective custody and placing them in foster care, you
should call law enforcement immediately," she said.
Vinich called the whole situation "disturbing."
"We don't know what the motivation would be," he said.
The Nova Scotia case from 2004:
expand
collapse
Thursday, July 15, 2004
The Halifax Herald Limited
Social worker hoax odd, puzzling
Women posing as staffers stripped kids;
2nd such scam in six months
By DAN ARSENAULT / Crime Reporter
Halifax RCMP have released composite sketches of two
women who falsely claimed to be social workers in order to
enter a house, undress children and examine them.
On Wednesday, police issued the drawings put together
with help from an Eastern Passage woman who let the two
women into her home in late May.
"We're trying to see if the public can recognize these
two individuals," RCMP spokesman Sgt. Joe Taplin said
Wednesday.
"We tried every other avenue in the investigation and
right now we're releasing the composite." RCMP say two
women pulled a similar stunt in Timberlea in November, but
police aren't sure the two incidents involve the same
people.
The police also hope to alert others about the women so
no one else is duped into letting the impostors into their
home.
In the most recent incident, two women went to a Main
Road house on May 28. Claiming to be child protection
workers, they identified themselves as Mrs. Walker and
Mrs. Geddys. They wore business clothes, carried
briefcases and told the woman in the house that they
wanted to check the two children there. She let them in.
"They went over and took the clothes off the two
children," said Sgt. Taplin. "They checked the children
for bruising."
"They played the role right to a T."
The children's mother stood by while the kids were
undressed.
The phoney child protection workers eventually left.
Afterward, the woman's husband came home and called the
Community Services Department after hearing of the
situation.
"It was determined at that time that no social workers
were sent to the residence and that's when we entered into
an investigation," Sgt. Taplin said.
The Eastern Passage woman described one intruder as
short and heavy-set, with shoulder-length black hair. The
other is taller and thin, with shoulder-length hair.
Sgt. Taplin would not reveal the name of the Eastern
Passage woman or the age of her children.
Police are puzzled by the women's motives.
"It's the same as the incident that happened in
Timberlea," Sgt. Taplin said.
In both instances, the children's clothes were removed
but no pictures were taken, nothing disappeared from the
house and the children were not inappropriately touched.
The Timberlea incident took place at the home of Dana
Curtis.
In an interview Wednesday, she said she has no idea
what the pair were up to, although she found their
behaviour to be a little odd.
"They just seemed kind of uppity, snotty, very
aggressive.
"They said they wanted to check them (her children)
over because they received a complaint about my daughter.
"They asked me to strip them down."
Shocked by the horrible accusation, she readily set out
to prove them wrong by disrobing her two toddlers.
After that, the two women went through some closets in
the house.
Ms. Curtis has seen the RCMP sketches and said "there
were definite similarities" to the two women who came to
her home, though she noted one of the suspects looked much
thinner than she remembered.
In her case, one of the fake social workers wore a tag
identifying herself as Kathy Miller. A subsequent call to
the Children's Aid Society showed no one by that name
worked there.
Ms. Curtis said her intruders knew beforehand how many
children she had.
The ordeal has made her more suspicious. She's
reluctant to answer the door and won't let her older child
play outside.
She's also curious about the women's intentions.
"There's so many different things they could have
wanted. It's just odd."
Terri Green, a Community Services spokeswoman, said
people with concerns about visiting social workers should
make sure they see some identification that can be checked
out before allowing anyone to enter their home.
"All child welfare workers are required to have an
identification badge," Ms. Green said.
Although such workers can belong to different agencies,
all staff carry cards with their name and that of the
agency they work for, she said.
She said parents who aren't sure of the validity of
such cards should phone the agency the people claim to
work for.
Sgt. Taplin said people can phone police in such a
situation, too.
Anyone with information about the incidents is asked to
call Halifax RCMP, Halifax Regional Police or Crime
Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
Senior Shrink Arrested
April 7, 2007
Those child psychiatrists who prescribe mind-numbing drugs to your kids
and write reports justifying separation of kids from their parents are not
all saints. Here is one arrested for multiple instances of child sexual
abuse. The article claims the real tragedy is that parents entrusted their
children to him. An even bigger tragedy is that at his level of seniority,
he could set standards for child care throughout the country, and ever
internationally.
expand
collapse
Respected child psychiatrist arrested on
molestation charges
San Mateo doctor investigated in cases
dating back to '60s
John Coté, Chronicle Staff Writer, Friday, April 6,
2007
A highly regarded child psychiatrist from San Mateo who
once headed the American Academy of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry was arrested Thursday on 14 felony counts of
child molestation, police said.
Dr. William Ayres, 75, was arrested at his San Mateo
home at about 6 p.m. after a four-year investigation into
allegations he molested boy patients dating back to the
late 1960s.
"The real tragedy here is that parents entrusted their
children to this doctor for help and they were victimized
while in his care," San Mateo police Capt. Mike Callagy
said after the arrest. "That's so tragic."
For decades, the psychiatrist with the ruddy face and
reddish beard was a fixture in San Mateo County mental
health and political circles.
He served with San Mateo County District Attorney Jim
Fox and Supervisor Richard Gordon on the county's Children
and Families First Commission, and in 2002, he was honored
by the county board of supervisors with a lifetime
achievement award for "his tireless effort to improve the
lives of children and adolescents."
During his long and distinguished career as a local
child psychiatrist, he received patient referrals from the
San Mateo County juvenile justice system.
From 1993 to 1995, he served as president of the
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the
leading professional medical association for child
psychiatrists with more than 7,500 members nationwide.
Callagy said the doctor did not resist arrest and was
"very stoic" when officers arrived at his home Thursday
night.
Prosecutors Thursday filed 14 counts of lewd and
lascivious acts with a child under 14 years old against
Ayres, Callagy said. He said the charges involved
multiple victims, but he declined to give a specific
number.
Ayres is being held in San Mateo County jail on $1.5
million bail and is expected to be arraigned today in a
Redwood City courtroom.
The arrest follows years of accusations against the
doctor that raised red flags but never amounted to a
criminal case. It was only after San Mateo police
received a complaint in 2002 that authorities obtained a
search warrant in March 2006 for Ayers' medical records,
police said.
The records produced a list of 800 names of former
patients whose contact with Ayres could fall within
current statutes of limitations, police said. Police
interviewed the patients and identified alleged victims
that led to the current prosecution, Callagy said.
Among some of the other accusations that are documented
in public records but never led to criminal charges are
the following:
- At least five men -- none of them the alleged victims
in the criminal case -- claim in police reports, civil
depositions and a Child Protective Services report
that Ayres molested them in their youth.
- One of those former patients sued Ayres in December
2003, accusing the psychiatrist of masturbating him
under the guise of a medical exam on multiple
occasions in the late 1970s when the patient was 13
years old. The case was settled confidentially in
2005.
- Police investigated at least two other molestation
reports against Ayres before the 2003 lawsuit, records
and deposition transcripts show. One was determined
to be "unfounded" in 1987, and the alleged victim in
the other didn't cooperate with police, according to
those records and statements.
- At least two other men came forward separately in 2005
saying Ayres had also molested them as teens in the
1960s and 1970s, but the cases could not be prosecuted
because the statute of limitations had expired, police
reports show.
One of those former patients, whose name was redacted
from the report, told police he arrived early for an
appointment one day and saw another teenage boy emerge
from Ayres' office.
"The victim said the look on the other boy's face was
like, 'He's going to do it to you too,' " the report read.
In the 2003 lawsuit, filed against Ayres and his
medical group, Peninsula Psychiatric Associates, attorneys
for the former patient accused the psychiatrist of
exploiting his position of power and trust to prey upon
young boys who were patients.
The lawsuit contended the alleged victim, referred to
in court documents as James Doe, was not Ayres' first
molestation victim. The lawsuit alleged "there were at
least four others, and possibly more."
The two sides reached a confidential settlement in July
2005, after which Ayres' attorney said the psychiatrist
did not concede any wrongdoing.
Ayres said under oath he didn't remember the alleged
victim and denied molesting him, according to a transcript
of his deposition in the lawsuit.
"It is very common that I'll be having lunch and a
person in their 30s will come up to me and say, 'Aren't
you Dr. Ayres? I wanted to thank you again for the
help,' " Ayres said in his deposition. "I'll look at
them, and I won't know who the hell they are. It turns
out I saw them when they were in seventh grade."
Ayres also acknowledged he sometimes conducted physical
examinations of juvenile patients, according to the
transcript.
"I do not think there is any standard of care that says
it's inappropriate for a physician who is a child
psychiatrist, that they should not do physical
examinations," Ayres said, according to the transcript.
He said the county's juvenile justice system, its
court-appointed attorney program, pediatricians and social
workers all referred patients to him for years, and he
estimated in 2004 that he had seen about 2,000 patients in
40 years of practice in the county.
He evaluated a patient referred by juvenile court Judge
Marta Diaz as recently as March 2003, even though San
Mateo police or the county social services department had
received at least three complaints of molestation by that
time, records show.
E-mail John Coté at jcote@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San
Francisco Chronicle
No Real Reform
April 7, 2007
Who can best assess the needs of a child:
- mom
- dad
- a computer
If you chose c, you think like a Children's Aid reformer. In a complex
press release, the OACAS announces policy changes responsive to the
Auditor General's report. The most needed reform is not mentioned —
independent oversight. The proposed changes are diversionary. The news
article below simplifies the matter.
expand
collapse
Changes to come at Children's Aid after
auditor's report
Last Updated: Friday, April 6, 2007 | 5:25 PM ET, CBC
News
Ontario's Children's Aid Societies vow to bring about
major administrative changes after a hard-hitting auditor
general's investigation revealed serious problems
regarding the agency's spending habits.
Auditor General Jim McCarter tabled his report at the
Ontario legislature last December, detailing expense
abuses at several family and youth services agencies,
including incidents where luxury vehicles, gym memberships
and personal travel costs were charged to the province.
The investigation also reviewed the risk assessment
system used by Children's Aid Societies (CAS), and new
cases were delayed by weeks because of red tape.
McCarter made a series of recommendations that
Children's Aid is now ready to implement, said Jeannette
Lewis, executive director of the Ontario Association of
Children's Aid Societies.
Those recommendations include:
- New policies for international travel, credit card and
company vehicle use.
- New policies for staff spending.
- New computer system for assessing abuse and neglect
risk in reported cases.
Lewis acknowledges the agencies' reputation took a hit
after the auditor's report, but said employees are
committed to protecting children.
"Investigations will be completed professionally and in
a timely manner, and I think that's what the public needs
to know and understand," Lewis told CBC.
She wouldn't say when the policies would be in place.
Bounty for Cole Norris!
April 2, 2007
In the latest development in the Norris case, Brantford CAS wants the
case transferred to them, but Frontenac (Kingston) CAS still wants to keep
the case in their hands.
Want to know the real reason Kingston CAS wants to get Cole Norris
returned? Forget all the psychiatric reports. When Cole's brother Tyson
spent two weeks in CAS care the bill was $8260.56, $590.04 per day. If they
can put Cole in those accommodations for a year, that is $215,364.60 steered
from the taxpayers to CAS associates. Here is a link to the special rate agreement, (photocopy). Your browser may
require another click to see the full-sized image. The document is part of
an incomplete file disclosure given to Cathy Norris. A few parts were
blotted out by CAS, not Cathy. To facilitate searching, here is the special rate agreement as a text file.
Note: We hereby offer to provide Cole Norris with
food and shelter for an entire year for only $115,364.60, saving the
taxpayers $100,000!
Addendum: justiceseeker has
posted another YouTube video, The family Separated by the
Kingston Children's Aid, showing the Norris family from babies to
teenagers just before CAS intervention.
Addendum: Here is the pap children's aid and the
police feed to the press. They make it look like Cole ran away from mom and
dad, but has been happily returned after a major investigation. Sure.
expand
collapse
The Whig-Standard
Local News - Tuesday, April 03, 2007 Updated @ 11:21:50
PM
Missing boy found in Brantford area
A 13-year-old Deseronto boy who went missing in August
has been found, provincial police said yesterday. Napanee
OPP said Cole Norris has been located in the Brantford
area.
Norris sparked a major investigation when he went
missing Aug. 17, after telling his family he was going
downtown or to the town library.
Serial Killer Strikes Again
March 31, 2007
Matt and Jennifer Lethbridge have had nine children taken
by the State of Michigan. The state's score so far: two
dead and seven to go. No, make that eight to go. Jennifer
is pregnant again. In the latest development, the state has
finalized the removal of two more children.
expand
collapse
Detroit Free Press
Lethbridges and youngest children won't
reunite
March 30, 2007
By JACK KRESNAK
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
A Washtenaw County judge decided today that Matt and
Jennifer Lethbridge, whose nine children all have landed
in foster care, will not be reunited with their two
youngest children.
Family Court Judge Darlene O’Brien ordered the
couple’s parental rights to their 11-month-old daughter
terminated, but she did not end their rights to their
4-year-old daughter, saying it would not be in the
child’s best interest. Instead, the judge ordered the
child’s current foster parents in Washtenaw County to
consider becoming her permanent guardians.
O’Brien said the girl “would have the benefit of
continuing to have her parents in her life, but she
wouldn’t leave the foster parents’ home. She would be
raised by them.”
The Washtenaw County foster parents have expressed an
interest in adopting the girl’s 11-month-old sister.
The 4-year-old was in foster care in Detroit with her
2-year-old brother Isaac when he was killed in his foster
mother’s home last August.
On hearing the ruling, Matt Lethbridge, 33, initially
broke down and then appeared confused about the
implications. He said he and his wife would try to keep a
relationship with the 4-year-old through her foster
parents.
Six of the Lethbridges’ older children were removed
from their care after complaints involving neglect. All
were later adopted. Isaac and the 4-year-old landed in
foster care in 2005, and an infant daughter born last
April was placed in foster care almost immediately. The
couple’s 10th child is due next month. Washtenaw County
authorities plan to file a petition to remove that child
after its birth.
The Lethbridges, who now live in Canton, had contended
that they have matured as parents and recognize why their
children were removed from their care. Among the past
problems: Their homes were filthy and there were signs of
emotional and medical neglect of the children.
Washtenaw County Assistant Prosecutor Stacie Shaw told
the court that the couple’s living conditions get worse
when authorities are no longer involved with the family.
“Their history and their actions speak louder than their
words,” Shaw said, adding, “I don’t doubt in my
heart that the parents truly love both of these girls,”
but the risk is too great to entrust the children to their
care.
The children’s attorney, S. Joy Gaines, also asked
O’Brien to terminate the Lethbridges’ parental rights.
“I’m clear that they love their children and that
they want to be parents,” Gaines said, but “with the
extensive protective services history, there are more
issues than just cleanliness. There are real mental
health issues.” She also said it would not be good to
move the 4-year-old, who is in her fourth foster home,
again.
Earlier today, O’Brien heard testimony from Washtenaw
County Protective Services worker Joseph Lanczki who said,
despite the family’s long history of involvement with
protective services and the juvenile court dating to 1997,
things had not improved by September 2005, when Isaac and
his 4-year-old sister were removed from the Lethbridges’
filthy Westland home.
“When conditions of the home reach a level of
criminality, it’s pretty severe,” Lanczki said. The
couple were charged with misdemeanor child neglect after
the children were removed. Jennifer Lethbridge, now 30,
served 45 days in jail; Matt Lethbridge, now 33, received
probation.
Matt Lethbridge, given one last chance to convince the
judge to return his daughters to their care today, said,
“We are fanatic cleaners at this point. We don’t even
think the old way any more. We are not those people any
more.”
Jennifer Lethbridge attended today’s hearing by
phone. Matt Lethbridge said he and Jennifer quit smoking
last Friday, though he said he cheated twice after having
a vasectomy on Tuesday.
Isaac’s foster mother has been charged with
involuntary manslaughter and second-degree child abuse in
connection with his death, but no one has been charged
with the fatal beating. His death was the subject of a
three-day series in the Free Press in January that
detailed the failings of the Lula Belle Stewart Center,
the Detroit foster care agency that handled Isaac’s
care, and the state Department of Human Services, which
supervised the agency.
Contact JACK KRESNAK at 313-223-4544 or
jkresnak@freepress.com.
Addendum: The State of Michigan
wants the Lethbridges' next child was taken as well.
expand
collapse
Detroit Free Press
Parents of Isaac Lethbridge fight to keep
newborn
Couple has lost custody of 7 other kids
April 27, 2007, by JACK KRESNAK, FREE PRESS STAFF
WRITER, UPDATED AT 3:05 p.m.
Wayne County Child Protective Services on Friday filed
a petition to terminate the parental rights of Matt and
Jennifer Lethbridge after removing their 15-day-old baby
boy from their Canton Township home.
The Lethbridges -- whose 2-year-old son Isaac was
beaten to death in a Detroit foster home last summer --
said they will try to regain custody of their newborn even
though judges in Washtenaw County have terminated their
parental rights to seven of their nine previous children.
The couple appeared at a preliminary hearing in Wayne
County juvenile court this afternoon. Referee Peter
Schummer Jr. authorized the petition and said the case
would be transferred to Washtenaw County unless that
county rejected it for some reason. If that happened, the
case would be returned to Wayne County.
Schummer also suspended the Lethbridges' visitation
rights.
The baby, named Xavier Isaac Lethbridge, was removed by
CPS, a division of the Wayne County Department of Human
Services, about 4 p.m. Thursday with the assistance of
Canton Township police, officials said.
The DHS' permanent custody petition sought to transfer
jurisdiction of the boy to Washtenaw County DHS because of
the family's history there. Judges in Washtenaw ended
their rights to the other seven children on the grounds
that the couple neglected them and did not benefit from
counseling and other programs to improve their parenting
skills.
Matt Lethbridge, 33, said the baby's seizure by CPS was
improper because Xavier was not at risk of any harm under
his parents care, despite the past history.
"This is absolutely ridiculous," Lethbridge said before
the court hearing. "There is no danger to him whatsoever
because there are so many monitors in place right now."
Lethbridge said he and his wife, 30, did not keep the
baby's birth a secret from anyone and would have told DHS
about Xavier's birth at home on April 12 if they had
asked. He said the couple told their private therapist,
Celeste Brown, who saw the child herself on Tuesday.
Lethbridge said their townhouse in Canton is clean.
The couple lost custody of Isaac and his then 3-year-old
sister in September 2005 when police found the children in
their filthy home in Westland. Both Matt and Jennifer
Lethbridge later were convicted of misdemeanor child
neglect in that case.
On March 30, Washtenaw County Family Court Judge
Darlene O'Brien terminated their parental rights to an
11-month-old daughter, but declined to terminate rights on
the now 4-year-old daughter who allegedly was abused in
the same foster homes as her brother Isaac.
Last December, Matt Lethbridge initially denied to the
court that his wife was pregnant, but quickly recanted and
said he was afraid authorities would again take their
newborn away. Washtenaw County officials said they would
seek to remove that baby from the Lethbridges and
terminate their parental rights. That county's DHS was
waiting for a birth, though it was Wayne County officials
who removed the child.
"I knew the second they knew he was born they were
going to come and take him," Lethbridge said. "We didn't
run. We didn't hide. We were right there. We opened the
door and were cooperative."
Charlsie Adams-Rogers, 59, of Detroit is scheduled to
be tried June 4 on involuntary manslaughter and child
abuse charges in Isaac Lethbridge's death last summer in
her foster home.
Contact JACK KRESNAK at 313-223-4544 or
jkresnak@freepress.com.
Isaac Lethbridge, age 2 1/2, photographed during a
supervised visit with his parents in June 2006 at a
McDonald's. Isaac was beaten to death in August while
in foster care.
Matthew Lethbridge and wife Jennifer Lethbridge, the
biological parents of 2-year-old Isaac Lethbridge who
was beaten to death in a Detroit foster home, were
photographed at their home in Whitmore Lake on
Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2006. (ROMAIN BLANQUART/Detroit
Free Press). Display this image for more resolution.
Norris Videos Purged
March 29, 2007
Most of the videos of the police manhunt for Cole Norris are gone from
YouTube. Here is a statement posted in explanation. We have confirmed that
it comes from Cathy Norris.
expand
collapse
Hello
I did take down the video’s from ‘youtube’. One
of the reasons for this is a disturbed individual has
posted a video response using a gun. I consider myself a
social activist , but I will not ever be associated with
anyone who uses threats or violence or hate language. I
believe from the messages I received that the message from
this disturbing video was directed towards me, not the CAS
worker. I am glad of that as I would not want to
compromise anyone else’s sense of safety and
security.
I want to thank you all for the support you have shown
my family and I.
Cathy.
Addendum: Children's Aid has
provided Cathy Norris with a food voucher for $100. This is
compensation for loss of her farm, a year's legal bills,
moving her family from Kingston to Brantford, the stress of
several police raids on her home and halting the orthodontic
treatment of her son Tyson.
Chambers Announces Nirvana for Children
March 28, 2007
Following Mary Anne Chambers' announcement of a new era
of plenty for Ontario's children, we give some comments.
expand
collapse
CHILD POVERTY
Hon. Mary Anne V. Chambers (Minister of
Children and Youth Services): It gives me great
pleasure to speak about the Ontario child benefit, which
Finance Minister Greg Sorbara unveiled last Thursday. We
know the future depends on the type of start that we give
our children in life. The $2.1-billion Ontario child
benefit is a historic investment that will help to give
our vulnerable children the opportunity they deserve.
It’s at the heart of our government’s 2007 budget
because our government believes that Ontario’s future
depends on giving our children the best possible start in
life.
Unfortunately, many children come from families who are
struggling to make ends meet. If only they had some of
the opportunities that so many of us have been fortunate
to have been afforded, they could move beyond the poverty
they struggle against. Our society pays a heavy price
when our children grow up in poverty. That heavy price is
the cost of failed opportunities, lost hopes and forgotten
dreams.
Let me share with you a sampling of statements on
poverty from grade 4 and 5 children in North Bay, taken
from excerpts from Our Neighbours’ Voices: Will We
Listen?
- “Poverty is being afraid to tell your mom you need
new gym shoes.”
- “Poverty is feeling ashamed when my dad can’t get
a job.”
- “Poverty is not getting a hot dog on hot dog day.”
- “Poverty is pretending that you forgot your
lunch.”
- “Poverty is hiding your feet so the teacher won’t
get cross when you don’t have boots.”
- “Poverty is not buying books at the book
fair.”
- “Poverty is not getting to go on school
trips.”
- “Poverty is being teased for the way you are
dressed.”
What is perhaps even more discouraging is to hear from
members of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’
Association, who say, “Poverty in my classroom is
students who have no hope for the future because the
future costs money.”
An Ontario where children and youth have no hope for
the future is not the kind of Ontario that our government
wishes for its children and youth. Our government has
been tackling the issue of poverty from many angles, and
we are determined to do more. That is why we are
championing strong, progressive initiatives that will make
a difference in the lives of 1.3 million Ontario children
in 600,000 lower-income families.
The Ontario child benefit is about opportunity. It is
about making that opportunity available to everyone. Our
government has taken a giant leap forward to expand
opportunities for all Ontario’s children and families so
no one is left behind because of a lack of
opportunity.
We cannot separate social and economic priorities if we
want to have an inclusive society. So we went one step
further than just simply ending the clawback of the
national child benefit supplement. We are providing
assistance to every lower-income family in Ontario. The
Ontario child benefit is about increasing opportunity to
help people get out of poverty and get on with building a
better future for their children.
The Ontario child benefit is also about giving parents
the opportunity to move off social assistance without
worrying about losing support for their children. It is
about enabling families to make real choices for the
betterment of their children and, more importantly, to see
the realization of the hopes and dreams they have for
their children.
The Ontario child benefit will fundamentally change how
our children receive the benefits they need, benefits that
our government believes children deserve.
Most income support is provided through social
assistance, and that excludes the majority of low-income
working families. The Ontario child benefit provides help
to all children in lower income families. In the first
five years, these families will receive an additional $2.1
billion. Ontario children and their families will be
better off.
The experts agree that our government has made the
right investment for the right reasons. Gail Nyberg,
executive director of the Daily Bread Food Bank, says,
“It’s been a long time since poverty reduction
measures were at the forefront of a provincial budget in
Ontario. We congratulate the government for having the
courage to take on this significant issue, and we expect
to see a reduction in food bank use in the coming years as
a result…. The Ontario child benefit will reduce
barriers faced by families with children who are trying to
leave welfare for work.”
Finally, an editorial from the Globe and Mail last
Friday said the McGuinty government has “devised an
Ontario child benefit that, when fully implemented in …
2011, would be on the cutting edge of 21st-century social
policy reform.”
Our budget clearly demonstrates that Ontario is
well-positioned to take on the challenges of the 21st
century. But in order to ensure our province’s
prosperity, we will need every person in Ontario to
achieve his or her individual potential. The Ontario
child benefit will help to make this a reality. Helping
children in lower income families to succeed is the right
thing to do, and it is the smart thing to do for our
society—a society that enables all children a real
chance at success in life.
I ask all members of this Legislature to join me in
supporting the Ontario child benefit. We owe it to the
1.3 million children of Ontario who will benefit; we owe
it to the 600,000 families who will benefit. This is an
investment in our children, an investment in Ontario
families and an investment in the future.
Politicians cannot always use complete condor, but Mrs
Chambers speaks without connection to reality. Look at the
list of poverty symptoms from the North Bay children. In
most areas of Ontario, showing even one of the symptoms
would get a kid snatched by children's aid. How many
children still living with their parents are that poor?
Well, there is Cole Norris. His mom could provide all the
things he needed until Kingston Children's Aid intervened.
As for the financial benefits for families, they will not
fully be implemented for four years, long after the tenure
of the current government. Below is an analysis by a
journalist who has studied the details.
expand
collapse
No end to Ontario's child tax benefit
clawback
People on social assistance are still
having their federal child tax benefit taken away from
them by the Ontario government. The Liberals have broken
yet another promise.
>by Michelle Langlois, March 23, 2007
There appears to be some confusion over whether the
federal child tax benefit clawback from Ontario social
assistance cheques has been ended by the Dalton McGuinty
government this week. Allow me to clear up the confusion:
the clawback is still in full force.
On Thursday, Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara
announced a new Ontario Child Benefit for low income
families. This means that in Ontario, there will be both
a federal and a provincial benefit for low income families
with children.
People on social assistance will continue to have the
federal benefit clawed back from their welfare cheques.
The new provincial benefit will not be clawed back.
Ontario families who are not on social assistance will get
both benefits. Ontario families on social assistance will
receive the Ontario benefit (which is much smaller than
the federal benefit), but the McGuinty Liberals will
continue to clawback the federal child tax benefit from
them.
Seems like a pretty clear and easy-to-understand
policy, right?
Then why is the McGuinty government trying to confuse
people by claiming that the new Ontario Child Benefit will
“effectively end the current clawback of up to $122 per
child per month from the National Child Benefit
Supplement” according to “government officials”
quoted in the Toronto Star on Friday?
The answer is simple. The Liberal government promised
during the 2003 election campaign to end the child tax
benefit clawback from the families who need it most
desperately: social assistance recipients. As with many
of their other promises, they did not follow through.
The Ontario Child Benefit is a very small but welcome
addition to the social safety net in Ontario for low
income families. But it's a pretty big stretch to claim,
as Greg Sorbara does, that this $50 per month benefit,
which doesn't even start until July of 2008, “takes
children off welfare.” This July, families will receive
a lump sum payment of $250 per child. For those of us
with calculators at home, this works out to $20.83 per
month. This, Sorbara claims, “transforms the system.”
Doesn't sound all that revolutionary to me.
It does not address the fact that people on social
assistance are still having their federal child tax
benefit taken away from them by the Ontario government.
It also does not address the fact that the McGuinty
Liberals have broken yet another promise.
Don't let Dalton McGuinty or Greg Sorbara try to tell
you otherwise.
Michelle Langlois is on the staff of rabble.ca.
Jury Verdict Against California CPS
March 26, 2007
A California mother has won a $4.9 million jury verdict against her local
child protectors for taking her children without cause, and fabricating
evidence while withholding exculpatory evidence. For those not familiar
with litigation, this requires more than just convincing a jury. Before
getting a jury, the lawyers have to navigate a legal minefield of motions
and discovery, during which child protectors usually avoid liability by
pleading one of their statutory immunities. Contrary to what the lawyers
say in the press release below, this verdict may not get Orange County to
implement procedures to prevent future abuses. Their first move may be to
get the legislature to strengthen their immunity.
expand
collapse
March 26, 2007
Orange County Jury Awards Mom $4.9 Million Against Department of Social Services and its CPS Workers; Punitive Damages to Follow
Download this press release as an Adobe PDF document.
Orange County Jury finds Orange County, its CPS workers and the Department of Social Services agency liable to mother for $4.9 million in compensatory damages for constitutional rights violations arising from interference with association with children. Punitive damages to be determined against the individual CPS workers.
San Diego, CA (PRWeb) March 25, 2007 --
| RE: :
| Fogarty-Hardwick v. County of Orange, et al.
Superior Court of California, County of Orange
Case No. 01CC02379 (Trial before Hon. Ronald L.
Bauer, Dept. CX103)
|
On March 23, 2007, the Orange County Social Services Agency and two of its Social Workers, Marcie Vreeken and Helen Dwojak were found liable for violating the parental rights of Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick, as guaranteed under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The jury found 10-2 in favor of the Plaintiff and awarded $4.9 million in economic and non-economic damages. The punitive damages phase of the trial will begin on Tuesday, March 27, 2007.
The verdict follows the filing of a civil suit for civil rights violations by Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick, a mother of two minor children, against the Orange County Department of Social Services and three of its social workers. The Plaintiff Deanna Fogarty-Harwick sued defendants County of Orange, Orange County Social Services Agency, Marcie Vreeken, Elaine Wilkins, and Helen Dwojak.
The Jury found against the Plaintiff and for Defendant Elaine Wilkins, by a 10-2 jury vote.
This case was brought by Plaintiff against Defendants to recover damages arising from Defendants alleged violations of Ms. Fogarty's constitutional rights to raise and associate with her children, free from governmental interference.
Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick alleged that social workers Marcie Vreeken, Elaine Wilkins, and Helen Dwojak caused Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick's children to be removed from her custody without cause, and continued to detain them without cause, violating Ms. Fogarty-Harwick's Constitutional right to familial association. Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick alleged that these defendants, while working as social workers for Orange County Social Services, intentionally fabricated evidence to obtain a court order to detain Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick's two young daughters on February 17, 2000. Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick also alleged that Orange County Social Services, Marcie Vreeken, Elaine Wilkins, and Helen Dwojak maliciously failed to provide the court with exculpatory information, and filed false reports in furtherance of the effort to keep Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick separated from her children.
The second civil rights claim alleged that the policies, practices, or procedures employed by Orange County Social Services and the County of Orange in the removal of Plaintiff's children from her care also violated Ms. Fogarty-Harwick's constitutional rights, under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and to raise and associate with her children free from governmental interference. The unlawful policies, practices or procedures pertained to the detention of children without a finding of imminent danger or serious physical injury; interviewing children without a parent present; continuing detention after learning there was no basis to do so; using trickery and fabricated evidence; and failing to adequately train employees regarding the Constitutional rights of parents.
Lead trial attorney Shawn A. McMillan states "My client Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick, is satisfied by the Jury's recognition of the harm that the defendants caused her. But, obviously, no amount of money can ever undo the damage inflicted upon Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick or her children. We expect the Jury's 4.9 million dollar verdict will cause the County of Orange and its Department of Social Services to implement procedures to prevent future abuses by County social workers and protect other families."
San Diego Lawyer Shawn A. McMillan, of the Law Offices of Shawn A. McMillan, was trial counsel in the case. Attorney Sondra S. Sutherland was co-counsel.
For additional information, contact:
Shawn A. McMillan, Esq.
THE LAW OFFICES OF SHAWN A. McMILLAN, A.P.C.
4955 Via Lapiz
San Diego, California 92122
Telephone: (858) 646-0069
Facsimile: (206) 600-4582
Website: www.mcmillan-law.com
PRESS RELEASE DISTRIBUTED BY WWW.FEARNOTLAW.COM
Family Saved by Recordings
March 25, 2007
Here is some good news from Canada Court Watch, which as usual withholds
the names of the family.
expand
collapse
Tape recording CAS workers pays off for
one family
(March 24, 2007) A family called Court Watch today to
thank them for the advice about how to covertly record CAS
workers. CAS workers had made promises they did not keep
and refused to close the family's file even when the
parents had met all conditions laid out by CAS workers.
At first, CAS workers tried to jerk the family around and
said that they were not going to close the file. When the
parents showed the workers the hidden video and audio
surveillance recording devices and advised workers that
everything that workers had said since the day the file
the file opened had been recorded, including previous
commitments by workers, the CAS workers left the home with
their tails between their legs. The parents were then
advised the next day that their file would be quietly and
immediately closed. Of course, the CAS workers involved
did not want the evidence of their unprofessional actions
to be found out. The parents plan to personally sue to
workers involved using video and audio recordings as their
evidence.
Court Watch receives many complaints from children and
parents about CAS workers fabricating false information
and lying in court documents. Electronically recording
CAS workers will help put to a stop to this. All families
dealing with CAS are highly encouraged to covertly record
all of their conversations with CAS workers. If CAS
workers are honest and doing their jobs professionally,
the workers should have nothing to worry about. Recording
will make people accountable for their actions and
words.
Experiment on Girls
March 24, 2007
This week's federal budget includes $300 million for a vaccine, Gardasil,
against HPV.
Budget pledges billions for provinces,
environment
Kady O'Malley, Macleans.ca | Mar 19, 2007 | 6:42 pm
EST
other budget items omitted
Slightly more contentious may be the $300-million
earmarked for the provinces to vaccinate girls and women
against HPV - the sexually-transmitted virus responsible
for 70% of cervical cancers. In recent weeks, several
American states have been forced to back down from making
the vaccine mandatory after social conservatives objected
to it on the grounds that it could promote
promiscuity.
In the days when contagious disease killed half of all
children before age of majority, vaccines, even dangerous
ones, were a godsend. For Gardasil, the benefit is not so
clear. It helps only sexually promiscuous women and even
among them, only a small proportion die of HPV induced
cancer. Gardasil is new, and long-term dangers are unknown.
If it causes some hitherto unknown pathology, it could do
more harm than good. Canadians will have no choice in the
matter. The presence of CAS alleging "medical neglect" will
make Gardasil mandatory for all Canadian girls.
Gardasil is not cheap. Vaccination for one girl costs
several hundred dollars just for the drug. In this case the
drug company, Merck, has aimed its promotional efforts at
legislators instead of consumers. The Conservative
government led by Stephen Harper, which started out on the
right foot by cutting public funding for daycare in favor of
more money for parents, now seems to have shifted back to
the old policies of strengthening the medical and social
services systems at the expense of families.
Girl Killed with Drugs
March 24, 2007
The death of Rebecca Riley has been in the news for three months, finally
there is a thoughtful article dealing with her case. She died from
prescribed psychiatric drugs. The parents were the kind who took advice
from doctors uncritically, and may even have tried to help their child by
giving her more than the doctor ordered. Rather than deal with the failings
of the drug-pushing system, prosecutors have taken the easy route and blamed
the hapless parents.
expand
collapse
Girl's overdose death raises questions
By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press WriterFri Mar 23,
7:02 PM ET
AP Photo: Michael Riley, 34, left, and his wife,
Carolyn Riley, 32, are shown in Hingham District...
In the final months of Rebecca Riley's life, a school
nurse said the little girl was so weak she was like a
"floppy doll." The preschool principal had to help Rebecca
off the bus because the 4-year-old was shaking so badly.
And a pharmacist complained that Rebecca's mother kept
coming up with excuses for why her daughter needed more
and more medication. None of their concerns was enough to
save Rebecca.
Rebecca — who had been diagnosed with attention
deficit hyperactivity and bipolar disorder, or what used
to be called manic depression — died Dec. 13 of an
overdose of prescribed drugs, and her parents have been
arrested on murder charges, accused of intentionally
overmedicating their daughter to keep her quiet and out of
their hair.
Interviews and a review of court documents by The
Associated Press make it clear that many of those who were
supposed to protect Rebecca — teachers, social workers,
other professionals — suspected something was wrong, but
never went quite far enough.
But the tragic case is more than a story about one
child. It raises troubling, larger questions about the
state of child psychiatry, namely: Can children as young
as Rebecca be accurately diagnosed with mental illnesses?
Are rambunctious youngsters being medicated for their
parents' convenience? And should children so young be
prescribed powerful psychotropic drugs meant for adults?
Dispensing drugs to children diagnosed with mood or
behavior problems is "the easiest thing to do, but it's
not always the best thing to do," said Dr. Jon McClellan,
medical director of the Child Study and Treatment Center
in Lakewood, Wash. "At some level, I would hope that
you'd also be teaching kids ways to control their
behavior."
According to the medical examiner, Rebecca died of a
combination of Clonidine, a blood pressure medication
Rebecca had been prescribed for ADHD; Depakote, an
antiseizure and mood-stabilizing drug prescribed for the
little girl's bipolar disorder; a cough suppressant; and
an antihistamine. The amount of Clonidine alone in
Rebecca's system was enough to be fatal, the medical
examiner said.
The two brand-name prescription drugs are approved by
the Food and Drug Administration for use in adults only,
though doctors can legally prescribe them to youngsters
and do so frequently.
Rebecca's parents, Michael and Carolyn Riley, say they
were only following doctor's orders. Rebecca, they told
police, had been diagnosed when she was just 2 1/2, and
Rebecca's psychiatrist prescribed the same potent drugs
that had been prescribed for her older brother and sister
when she diagnosed them with the same illnesses several
years earlier.
But Rebecca's teachers, the school nurse and her
therapist all told police they never saw behavior in
Rebecca that fit her diagnoses, such as aggression, sharp
mood swings or hyperactivity.
Prosecutors say the Rileys intentionally tried to quiet
their daughter with high doses of Clonidine. Relatives
told police the Rileys called Clonidine the "happy
medicine" and the "sleep medicine."
Through their attorneys, Michael Riley, 34, and Carolyn
Riley, 32, have accused Rebecca's psychiatrist, Dr.
Kayoko Kifuji, of over-prescribing medication.
Kifuji did not return calls for comment and declined to
be interviewed. But Kifuji has vehemently denied any role
in Rebecca's death. She has agreed to a suspension of her
license while the state's medical board investigates.
Kifuji told police Rebecca had been her patient since
August 2004, when she was 2. She said she based her
diagnoses of ADHD and bipolar disorder on the family's
mental health history, as described by Carolyn Riley, and
Rebecca's behavior, as described by Carolyn and briefly
observed by her during office visits.
Kifuji told police she became alarmed in October 2005
when Carolyn Riley told her she had increased Rebecca's
nighttime dose of Clonidine from 2 to 2 1/2 tablets, and
warned Carolyn the increased dose could kill Rebecca.
But Carolyn told investigators Kifuji told her she
could give Rebecca and her sister extra Clonidine at night
to help them sleep.
Tufts-New England Medical Center, where Kifuji worked,
issued a statement supporting Kifuji, saying her care of
Rebecca "was appropriate and within responsible
professional standards."
In the months leading up to Rebecca's death, others
noticed there was something wrong.
Teachers and staff members at the Johnson Early
Childhood Center in Weymouth, about 20 miles south of
Boston, say they called Rebecca's mother repeatedly to
tell her that Rebecca was "out of it," but her mother said
the girl was tired because she wasn't sleeping well.
A neighbor who lived next door to the family in the
last month of Rebecca's life said Rebecca and her siblings
seemed listless.
"They looked like little robots. They looked very
lethargic," Phyllis Lipton said. "I said, `Wow, they
don't look right,' but who knew?"
Pharmacists at Walgreens in Weymouth called Kifuji
twice to complain that Carolyn Riley was asking for more
Clonidine, even though her prescription was not due to be
refilled yet, according to state police.
Once, Riley said she had lost a bottle of pills, and
another time, she said water had gotten into her
prescription bottle and ruined the pills, according to
police.
Kifuji authorized refills, but after the second
incident, she began prescribing Clonidine in 10-day
refills instead of 30-day supplies, investigators said.
On Aug. 16, a prescription for 35 Clonidine tablets
— a 10-day supply — was filled at Walgreens, even
though the Rileys had obtained a 10-day refill only the
day before, investigators said.
Walgreens spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce said: "The scrip
was filled as written, as it was prescribed by the doctor,
and all the appropriate information on the medications was
given to the family."
After Rebecca's death, police found only seven
Clonidine tablets in the family's medicine tray; the
pharmacist said there should have been 75. All together,
prosecutors say, Carolyn Riley got 200 more pills in one
year than she should have.
The Rileys' lawyers call them unsophisticated people
who did not question their children's doctors.
Both were unemployed; they collected welfare and
disabilty benefits and lived in subsidized housing.
Michael Riley, who is also awaiting trial on charges of
molesting a stepdaughter in 2005, claimed to suffer from
bipolar disorder and a rage disorder; his wife told
police she suffered from depression and anxiety.
"They are not the sort of people who go on the Internet
and look on WebMD. These are the sort of people who, when
they go to a doctor, the doctor is God and they do what
the doctor says," said John Darrell, Michael's lawyer.
Carolyn's lawyer, Michael Bourbeau, said that because
the Rileys' three children were all taking Clonidine,
Rebecca's prescription may have come up short at times
when her siblings were given some of her pills. And some
of the pills may have been lost when they were split in
half, he said.
In July, after a therapist filed a complaint with the
state Department of Social Services, social workers met
with the family's doctors and other medical professionals
and were assured that the medications Rebecca was taking
were within medical guidelines.
"There were lots of medical eyes on this case and none
of them seemed to say there was an issue of
over-medication in this case," said Social Services
Commissioner Harry Spence, who has come under fire for the
agency's handling of the case.
Still, there were lingering concerns. When social
workers tried to make a home visit in November, Carolyn
"resisted and evaded," Spence said. Weeks later, workers
resolved to make a surprise check, but Rebecca died the
very next day, before they could visit.
Rebecca was found dead on the floor of her parents'
bedroom wearing only a pink pull-up diaper and gold-stud
earrings, on top of a pile of clothes, magazines and a
stuffed brown bear.
Rebecca's uncle, James McGonnell, and his girlfriend,
Kelly Williams, who lived with the Rileys, told police
that the Rileys would put their kids to bed as early as 5
p.m. Rebecca, they said, often slept through the day and
got up only to eat.
When Michael Riley decided the kids were "acting up,"
he told Carolyn to give them pills, McGonnell and Williams
told police.
According to McGonnell and Williams, Rebecca spent the
last days of her life wandering around the house, sick and
disoriented. But the Rileys told police they were not
alarmed. "It was just a cold," Carolyn repeatedly said
during police interviews.
The medical examiner said Rebecca died a slow and
painful death. She said the overdose of Clonidine caused
her organs to shut down, filling her lungs with fluid and
causing congestive heart failure.
Williams told police that the night before she died,
Rebecca was pale and seemed "out of it." At one point, the
little girl knocked weakly on her parents' bedroom door
and softly called for her mommy, but Michael Riley opened
the door a crack and yelled at her to go back to her room,
Williams said.
Later that night, McGonnell told police, he heard
someone struggling to breathe and found Rebecca gurgling
as if something was stuck in her throat. McGonnell told
police he wiped vomit from his niece's face, then kicked
in the door to her parents' room and yelled at the Rileys
to take Rebecca to the emergency room.
Instead, Carolyn Riley said, she gave her daughter a
half-tablet of Clonidine.
Carolyn's mother, Valerie Berio, said that when she
visited the kids the night of Dec. 11, Rebecca seemed
congested but not seriously ill. In a photograph Berio
said she took that night, Rebecca is smiling slightly as
her mother holds a new green velvet dress in front of her.
Berio said that shows that her daughter and son-in-law
could not have known how sick Rebecca was.
Rebecca's death has inflamed a long-running debate in
psychiatry. Some psychiatrists believe bipolar disorder,
which was traditionally diagnosed in adolescence or early
adulthood, has become a trendy diagnosis in young
children.
"As a clinician, I can tell you it's just very
difficult to say whether someone is just throwing tantrums
or has bipolar disorder," said Dr. Oscar B. Bukstein, a
child psychiatrist and associate professor at the
University of Pittsburgh.
A study of mentally ill children discharged from
community hospitals, published in January in the Archives
of General Psychiatry, found the proportion of children
diagnosed with bipolar disorders jumped from 2.9 percent
in 1990 to 15.1 percent in 2000.
A report released by the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention in 2002 estimated that about 7 percent of
elementary school-age children — or approximately 1.6
million youngsters ages 6 to 11 — have been diagnosed
with ADHD.
The annual number of U.S. children prescribed
anti-psychotic drugs jumped fivefold between 1995 and
2002, to an estimated 2.5 million, according to a study
published last year by researchers at Vanderbilt
Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tenn.
Some child psychiatrists say bipolar disorder may have
been under-diagnosed in children for years, partly because
several key symptoms are also symptoms of ADHD, including
hyperactivity, distractibility and talkativeness.
Dr. Janet Wozniak, director of the Pediatric Bipolar
Disorder Research Program at Massachusetts General
Hospital, said early diagnosis and treatment are critical
because the illness can cause social and academic
problems, and lead to drug abuse, crime and suicide.
"What's commonly overlooked when considering diagnosing
and treating children at such an early age is the risk of
not treating and not intervening," Wozniak said.
Addendum: A comment published in
the Boston Globe suggests that the power of the
phamacological establishment is so great it is a threat to
the career of any of its critics.
expand
collapse
The Boston Globe
Misguided standards of care
By Lawrence Diller | June 19, 2007
AS A doctor, I did the nearly unthinkable at a recent
conference on bipoloar disorder in children. I charged
another doctor with moral responsibility in the death last
December of Rebecca Riley, a 4 -year-old girl from Hull.
Naming names in medicine is just not done very often --
and I knew the personal and professional risks I was
taking. Yet I felt compelled to name Joseph Biederman,
head of the Massachusetts General Hospital's Pediatric
Psychopharmacology clinic, as morally culpable in
providing the "science" that allowed Rebecca to die.
Rebecca's parents have been jailed and charged in her
death. They are accused of intentionally overdosing her
with clonidine, an anti hypertensive and sedative drug --
one of three psychiatric medications prescribed by a
Tufts-New England Medical Center child psychiatrist.
Rebecca had been treated with these medications since the
age of 2 1/2 for the purported diagnosis of bipolar
disorder -- the new name for manic-depression.
While the psychiatrist involved has withheld comment on
the case, both her lawyer and the medical center have
defended her actions as "within the standards of care."
Biederman and his colleagues at Harvard are the
professionals most responsible for developing and
promoting those standards of care -- which include
diagnosing preschool children as young as 2 with bipolar
disorder and treating them with multiple medications.
Biederman shocked the child psychiatric world in 1996
by announcing that nearly a quarter of the children he was
treating for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder also
met his criteria for bipolar disorder. Up until then
bipolar disorder was rarely diagnosed in teenagers and
unheard of in prepubertal children. Biederman could
justify his findings by simply broadening the semantic
definitions of a previously more circumscribed condition
contained within American psychiatry's bible -- the
"Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders."
Biederman has produced a number of studies and papers
purporting to demonstrate the validity of his diagnosis
and treatment. His research has always epitomized the
best of what the DSM model of psychiatry could expect.
But the diagnoses in the manual, in concept, are closely
linked to the medical model of biologically based
psychiatric disorders and focus exclusively on the
individual.
While the manual provides helpful clinical guidance in
adults, it begins to unravel with its assumptions about
discrete and specific disorders in children and ignores
the families and environments in which children live. The
ultimate absurdity of this scientific model is diagnosing
bipolar disorder in 2 year olds and linking it to the
adult disorder with the same name -- in the process
saddling young children as chronic mental patients
condemned to a lifetime of psychiatric drugs.
Even the American Academy of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry -- in its recent parameters on the diagnosis in
children -- eschews the bipolar diagnosis and its
consequent medical treatment in children under 6. Still
there are thousands of potential Rebecca Rileys being
treated with multiple psychiatric drugs because Biederman
has said it's OK and necessary. Supported by millions of
dollars of drug industry promotional funding, Biederman
and his colleagues circle the globe offering professional
medical "education" for their singular point of view.
Finally, it's sad but true -- the field of child
psychiatry is afraid of Biederman. One can hear the
worries and fears whispered in the academic halls and
clinics over where Biederman has taken the profession.
Yet to politely challenge Biederman in public is to risk
public retribution and ridicule from him and his team.
Also academic researchers in child psychiatry risk losing
their funding if they criticize this darling of the
pharmaceutical industry, which provides most of the money
these days for psychiatric research.
The silence was deafening -- and Rebecca's death pushed
me over the edge -- because for over a decade I've have
been uncomfortable about these practices in young
children. I am not against psychiatric drugs for
children. I've written prescriptions for children for 30
years in a clinical practice not tied to the drug
industry.
I risk personal censure and loss of credibility in an
advocacy for a broader concept and treatment for children
with behavior problems in naming this doctor. But this
time, Dr. Biederman, you have gone far.
Dr. Lawrence Diller practices behavioral/developmental
pediatrics in Walnut Creek, Calif., and is the author of
"The Last Normal Child: Essays on the Intersection of
Kids, Culture and Psychiatric Drugs."
Addendum: The judicial system has run its course,
convicting mother Carolyn Riley, and not even touching the pharmacological
establishment that armed the mother with the deadly drugs. The jury was
probably not told that once a doctor prescribed medications, failure to
administer the drugs was medical neglect, justification for taking custody
away from the mother. Charges are still pending against the father, who was
court-enjoined from living with his doomed daughter.
expand
collapse
The Boston Globe
Mother convicted in girl’s drug death
Gets life sentence, possibility of parole
By Patricia Wen, Globe Staff / February 10, 2010
A South Shore mother was found guilty yesterday of second-degree murder in the death of her 4-year-old daughter, Rebecca, who went to sleep one night after being given toxic levels of psychotropic drugs and never woke up.
Carolyn Riley, 35, showed no visible emotion when the 12-member jury returned the verdict after 19 hours of deliberations in Plymouth Superior Court. Riley, her upper chest displaying a “Rebecca 12-13-06’’ tattoo that reflected her daughter’s date of death, was handcuffed as soon as the word guilty was uttered by the jury forewoman.
Before sentencing, Judge Charles Hely permitted the reading of a letter from Ashley Davidson, 17, Riley’s first biological daughter, who as a toddler was removed from her mother’s care, placed in a foster home, and eventually adopted. The teenager condemned her mother for the cruel fate she delivered Rebecca, as well as the tormenting memories left for her and Rebecca’s two other siblings, ages 14 and 9, now both in foster homes.
“When I think that you are my biological mother, I sometimes wonder if it is in my blood. Will I grow up to be a mother like you?’’ said the letter, read by her adoptive father, Bob Davidson.
Riley, who has an additional tattoo on her arm with the name Ashley, listened and stared at the floor.
The judge sentenced her to life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole after 15 years, the mandatory punishment for a second-degree murder conviction. It was one of the lesser offenses that the jury of eight women and four men was allowed to consider in this first-degree murder case.
As officers led Riley out of the courtroom, she looked at her mother, Valerie Berio, a constant presence in the 3 1/2-week trial who was sobbing among the spectators. Riley quietly wept as she was taken our to be transported to MCI-Framingham.
While Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz praised the verdict as “a small measure of justice for Rebecca,’’ the mother’s defense lawyer, Michael Bourbeau, said the decision, which he plans to appeal, reflects the jury’s judgment of “what kind of a mother she was,’’ as opposed to the evidence in the case.
He had argued to jurors that medical evidence showed that Rebecca died of fast-acting pneumonia, not drugs, and that the mother gave medications based on the sometimes-flexible instructions of her child’s psychiatrist.
Riley’s husband - Michael Riley, 37 - will be tried separately on the same charges, and his case is scheduled to go to trial next month unless yesterday’s result leads to a plea bargain.
Rebecca’s case attracted national attention to the expanding use and potential abuse of giving psychotropic drugs to very young children. When Rebecca died, she and her two older siblings, Gerard and Kaitlynne Riley, were each on three potent psychiatric medications for bipolar and hyperactivity disorders. Each of them went on the drugs at age 2.
Prosecutors say Carolyn and Michael Riley, Weymouth High School graduates who had been living briefly in Hull when Rebecca died, deliberately sought the psychiatric drugs for their three children to scam their local Social Security office into approving disability benefits.
But behind the twists of the case is the all-too-familiar tale of a deeply troubled, financially strapped couple whose capacity to harm their children became catastrophically evident - to their many doctors, psychiatrists, teachers, and social workers - only when it was too late.
The prosecutors, Frank J. Middleton Jr. and Heather Bradley, depicted Carolyn Riley as an unusual form of child abuser, a woman who used three sedating medications, including Depakote, Seroquel, and clonidine, to control her energetic toddlers and induce sleep.
Remarkably, prosecutors said, Carolyn Riley managed to obtain the drugs routinely through prescriptions from Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, a Tufts Medical Center psychiatrist who faces a medical malpractice lawsuit in the death and agreed to testify only after being granted immunity from prosecution.
On the night Rebecca received her fatal overdose, her father, who had been prone to violent outbursts, became irate about the child’s pleas to be with her mother. Rebecca had been battling a respiratory illness for days, and that night, according to housemates, Rebecca kept trying to enter her parents’ bedroom, moaning, “Mommy, Mommy.’’
Prosecutors said that the mother, whom they portrayed as routinely putting her husband’s needs above her children’s, went to the pill dispensers in their Hull home. That night, the state said, Carolyn Riley gave the coughing and feverish child as much as twice the girl’s daily dosages of clonidine at once, the equivalent of seven tablets of .1 milligram each.
Rebecca’s lifeless body, clad only in a pull-up diaper with a teddy bear beneath her head, was discovered by her mother around 6 a.m. on Dec. 13, 2006, next to her parents’ bed.
Her defense lawyers, however, portrayed Carolyn Riley as an overwhelmed mother deserving of sympathy, a former foster child who was doing her best to raise a family in which the adults and children all had mental health problems.
If the mother had some lapses, her lawyers said, they had to be viewed in light of the difficult choices of a woman struggling with poverty and a domineering husband.
In the year before Rebecca died, Michael Riley saw the children sporadically. He was barred from living with the family in a Weymouth housing development because he had been charged with trying to sexually assault and show pornographic pictures to Ashley during one of her visits with the family.
The father, who was convicted of only the pornography charge and served a 2 1/2-year prison term that ended this year, remains behind bars awaiting his trial in the death of Rebecca.
The attachment of Carolyn Riley to her husband was a recurring theme in the lengthy trial. As the mother waited over three days for a verdict, sitting on a bench reading a romance novel and playing games on her cellphone, she responded readily to reporters’ questions.
When asked about the prosecutor’s argument that she and her husband wanted only to maximize their disability benefits, the mother, who speaks with a soft, girlish voice, disputed that point. She said that Social Security awards more money in total to a couple who file as unmarried singles.
But, she said that she and Michael, together for more than 15 years, chose to remain true to their status as a wedded couple.
“We would have gotten more money if we weren’t married,’’ she said.
Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.
Addendum: The father gets convicted also.
expand
collapse
Father convicted of 1st-degree murder in death of Rebecca Riley
March 26, 2010 04:21 PM, By Patricia Wen, Globe Staff
BROCKTON – A South Shore father of three was convicted today of first-degree murder for killing his 4-year-old daughter with an overdose of a psychotropic drug that he and his wife had nicknamed "happy medicine."
Rebecca Riley (Family photo)
Michael Riley, 37, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole for the murder of his daughter Rebecca. In a separate trial in the same case, his wife, Carolyn, 35, was convicted Feb. 9 of second-degree murder.
The preschooler's body, clad only in a pull-up diaper, was found lifeless on the floor next to her parents' bed during the early morning hours of Dec. 13, 2006. Prosecutors said the girl was given a lethal overdose of clonidine the night before when the child kept crying out “Mommy! Mommy!" while battling a severe respiratory illness.
The jury rejected the father’s defense that he and his wife simply followed the dosage advice of Rebecca’s child psychiatrist and that the girl’s death was due to a fast-acting pneumonia.
After the verdict, Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said he believes the psychiatrist, Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, who prescribed the drugs to Rebecca, should not be allowed to practice medicine in Massachusetts, and he will ask the Board of Registration to reopen an investigation into her medical care.
"Dr. Kifuji is unfit to have a medical license," he said after the verdict was announced. "If what Dr. Kifuji did in this case is the acceptable standard of care for children in Massachusetts, then there is something very wrong in this state."
Shortly after Rebecca died, Kifuji had entered into a voluntary agreement with the board to halt her practice. But two years later, after a grand jury declined to indict her and the board conducted its own inquiry, the board last fall allowed her to return to practice. She is currently seeing patients at Tufts Medical Center.
Cruz said he will collect all the information involving Kifuji that surfaced during both trials -- she was called as a witness in both cases -- and forward it to the state board in hopes they will act against the doctor.
The case drew national attention to the use of psychotropic drugs in young children, and the way parents can exploit the medical and social service system designed to help indigent families.
When Rebecca died, she and her two siblings, then 11 and 6, were each diagnosed by Kifuji with bipolar and hyperactivity disorders and put on three mood-altering drugs.
Prosecutors said Rebecca’s parents wanted the children prescribed psychiatric drugs so the children could be quieted down at will, and to help them qualify for federal benefits to help low-income families with mentally or physically disabled children. Neither of the parents worked, and they also qualified for adult disability benefits.
While she faces a medical malpractice suit filed by the administrator of Rebecca’s estate, Kifuji has resumed practicing at Tufts Medical Center with no restrictions.
In closing arguments in Michael Riley’s trial, both sides lambasted Kifuji for her careless attention to Rebecca. The father's attorney, John Darrell, said that Kifuji “authorized every piece of that poison” that killed Rebecca; and prosecutor Frank J. Middleton referred to her as a “quack” and a “disgrace” to the medical profession.
Darrell declined comment after the verdict.
Michael Riley
(Globe file photo)
But prosecutors emphasized to jurors that it was the parents who actually delivered the lethal dosage of medication to Rebecca, acting as a team devoted more to each other than to their children.
In both trials, the medical examiner and other toxicology experts said the girl’s dead body contained a toxic level of clonidine – a blood-pressure medication that is also used as a sedating drug for children with hyperactivity disorder. Other medical experts did testify that the girl also had an aggressive pneumonia at the time of her death.
Both parents, who graduated from Weymouth High School around the same time and last lived in Hull, have alleged that they simply followed Kifuji's instructions in dispensing medications, and that the doctor allowed some flexibility in dosages.
They said the science of measuring clonidine in a dead body is unreliable. Their lawyers have also argued that the girl died of a fast-acting pneumonia, and her death could not have been anticipated by any reasonable parent.
But the prosecutor told jurors that Michael and Carolyn Riley were far from loving parents and instead were callous individuals who turned to psychiatric pills to silence their children when they made inconvenient requests.
“It’s such an outrageous case of child abuse,” Middleton said.
Before the father was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Charles Hely, Ashley Davidson, a high school student and the half-sister of Rebecca, delivered a victim impact statement, faulting both parents.
"Knowing I will never see Rebecca again – you don't know how much that hurts,'' she said.
Michael Riley's conviction will automatically be reviewed by the Supreme Judicial Court.
Cole Norris Busted
March 24, 2007
justiceseeker has posted several videos on YouTube of the
harassment of Cole Norris by police. An attempt to enroll Cole in school
resulted in a call to the police. A later video "Police search for Cole
Norris", shows five police cars surrounding the family home.
On the video Cathy Norris says that, when visiting the CAS office the day
before, she went out for a cigarette and she and Cole were locked out of the
building. Cole did not want to wait to go back in. Cathy describes what
happened next with the clear words: "He took off". Twice the policeman
misquoted her, claiming she said "We took off".
Addendum: Three more videos were
added the next day. In part 1, 15
year old tells cops, the police find out that
Tyson missed a year of school and orthodontic treatment on
account of CAS intervention. In Part
Two. Police harass 15 year old boy. Want to
fingerprint, police accuse Tyson of being an
impostor, and try to get fingerprints or a DNA sample. In
part three after police question
passers-by on the street, a Brantford CAS worker confirms
Tyson's identity. As of now, Cole has no known roof over
his head, and subject to harm by exposure. All in the best
interest of the child.
Complaint on Membership List
March 21, 2007
John Dunn, earlier denied the membership list for his local children's
aid society, has filed a complaint with the Law Society of Upper Canada.
Getting the membership list was an adjunct to an application for membership,
also denied. The members elect the board of directors, who operate the
society. Whether he succeeds or fails, he has already demonstrated that
membership is futile as a means of bringing about reform from within.
Claims by CAS proponents that the board of directors is a control over the
agency are baseless.
expand
collapse
Ottawa, ON, March 20, 2007: CAS Ottawa committed the
offence of violating section 307 (5) of the Corporations
Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C-38 by not providing a list of the
Society's members upon request in accordance with section
307 (1) of the Act..
Complaints have been filed under Rule 2 of the Rules of
Professional Conduct with the Law Society of Upper Canada
against the following Lawyers in connection with the
offence. (documents)
Robert C. Morrow, a Lawyer working with
Burke-Robertson Barristers & Solicitors in Ottawa who
appears to have acted as retained lawyer by CAS in this
matter and particpated in the committing of the offence.
Tracey Engelking, a Lawyer employed by the offending
Children's Aid Society of Ottawa who was made aware of the
Society's decision to commit the offence.
Rick O'Connor, a Lawyer who acted as the Children's Aid
Society's Board of Directors' Vice President who also
actively and aggressively participated in the Society's
offence.
Monster of the Month
March 21, 2007
In the case below, Marie-Emilie Chartier was convicted of kidnapping for
taking her children to Sweden in defiance of a family court order. This
makes sense to anyone who believes the legal system is a better guardian of
children than mom and dad.
expand
collapse
Mother found guilty of abducting own
children
Paula McCooey, The Ottawa Citizen, Tuesday, March 20,
2007
A jury has found a 36-year-old woman guilty of child
abduction related to an incident when the mother took her
four children on a trip to Sweden in March 2005, contrary
to a custody order.
Marie-Emilie Chartier was wanted on a Canada-wide
warrant and she sparked international police alerts after
boarding an international flight from Montreal to Sweden
on March 15, while the children were legally in the care
of their grandmother, who lives in Ottawa.
A date for her sentencing hearing was to be set Tuesday
afternoon.
Marie-Emilie Chartier was found guilty of child
abduction.
CREDIT: Nicki Corrigall, The Ottawa Citizen
Last October, another jury found the
woman guilty of four counts of making false statements on
a passport application.
They found that on Jan. 28, 2005, Ms. Chartier
applied for passports for herself and the children,
disregarding the section of the passport application that
requires applicants to say whether they are involved in
any legal proceedings related to custody or access to
children.
Ms. Chartier will be sentenced on April 25 for those
offences.
Addendum: Here is the news of
the sentencing:
expand
collapse
April 3, 2007
Child-abduction mom given conditional
sentence
By SEAN MCKIBBON, COURT BUREAU
A mother convicted of child abduction and making false
statements on a passport application will spend the next
15 months on a conditional sentence.
"Merci," said Marie Chartier, 36, meekly after
receiving her sentence from Justice Robert Maranger.
Chartier was convicted last month of child abduction in
her third trial relating to an March 2005 incident in
which she took her kids to Sweden to seek political asylum
in contravention of a custody arrangement.
Maranger ordered Chartier to seek employment, not be in
possession of passports or passport applications and to
perform 100 hours of community service if she can't hold
down work.
Maranger also imposed two years of probation following
the conditional sentence.
The sentence doesn't quite put a final chapter on
Chartier's odyssey through the courts. She's back in
court on April 25 to be sentenced on the passport
offences.
Chartier's first trial in April 2006 ended in a
mistrial when she fired her lawyer and complained that the
jury was not representative of the Canadian population.
A second trial in October 2006 ended with a conviction
on all four counts of making a false statement on a
passport application.
Addendum: That wasn't enough for
caring for your own kids. Here is more sentencing.
expand
collapse
Mother in abduction case sentenced to 6
more months for false passport statements
Paula McCooey, Ottawa Citizen, Wednesday, April 25,
2007
A mother who was handed a 15-month conditional sentence
earlier this month on child abduction charges, was given a
consecutive six-month sentence Wednesday for making false
statements on a passport when she took her four children
overseas in contravention of a court order.
Marie-Emilie Chartier, convicted of child abduction in
March, was wanted on a Canadawide warrant after boarding a
flight from Montreal to Sweden on March 15, 2005.
At the time, her children were legally in their
grandmother’s care.
She surrendered to Swedish authorities in early May
2005 and returned with her children to Canada a week
later.
Last October, another jury found her guilty on four
counts of making false statements on a passport
application.
When she applied for passports for herself and her
children on Jan. 28, 2005, she disregarded a section in
the forms requiring applicants to say whether they are
involved in legal proceedings related to custody or access
to children.
The Crown suggested four to six months in jail, while
the defence asked for a suspended sentence with probation
or a conditional sentence.
While Justice Albert Roy did not impose a curfew for
Ms. Chartier’s first conditional sentence, he did so
Wednesday.
She will be required to stay inside her home from 10
p.m. to 6 a.m. for the first three months of her second
sentence, which will be followed by one year’s
probation. She is also ordered to follow whatever
counselling her probation officer suggests to help her
understand how to make better choices with regard to her
children.
Addendum: October 2007. The courts finally seem
to be through with punishing this mother.
expand
collapse
October 19, 2007
No change in mom's sentence
By MEGAN GILLIS, SUN MEDIA
The province's appeal court has agreed that a judge didn't punish an
Ottawa woman who abducted her four kids enough when he gave her a
conditional sentence without even a curfew.
But the judges still dismissed an appeal of Marie Emilie Chartier's
sentence by the Attorney General of Ontario, arguing justice wouldn't be
served by changing the sentence because she's already served much of it.
"There is no doubt that Parliament intended the imposition of a
conditional sentence to be more punitive than probation, and to be more
restrictive of the offender's liberty," the judges wrote.
"Thus, except in rare cases, a conditional sentence must carry with it
some form of punitive terms, such as house arrest and/or a curfew."
The appeal court judges agreed that the judge erred but noted that
Chartier had served six weeks in jail before her trial and was sentenced
to more punitive terms for lying on an application for her children's
passports.
FLED IN 2005
"We are not persuaded that justice would not be served by interfering
with the sentence imposed," the justices concluded.
A Canada-wide arrest warrant was issued for Chartier in March of 2005
when she fled with her children, aged 5, 6, 8 and 12, of whom she'd lost
custody in November 2004. Her mother was their guardian.
Chartier surrendered after surfacing in Sweden in May of that year and
returned to Canada.
A jury convicted Chartier, 36, of four counts of child abduction in
March. She was given a 15-month conditional sentence and two years of
probation.
She was also later given a six-month sentence and a year of probation
for the passport offences, which included a curfew between 10 a.m. and 6
p.m. for the first three months.
Mom of the Month
March 21, 2007
Can you tell the brand of dishwasher detergent by taste? One of the
foster kids in this story can. Another was confined to a wheel chair so the
foster mom could get more pay. It is unusual for foster moms to be as
sadistic as Eunice Spry, but common for foster moms to be meaner than the
natural moms the children came from. Foster homes do not deserve the
moniker "place of safety".
expand
collapse
Sadistic foster mother's 19-year reign of
terror
20.03.07
Eunice Spry regularly beat and starved children in
her care
A foster mother was found guilty today of subjecting
three young children to a "horrifying catalogue of cruel
and sadistic treatment".
Eunice Spry, 62, routinely beat, abused and starved the
youngsters in her care over a 19 year period.
The devout Jehovah's Witness forced sticks down their
throats and made them eat their own vomit and rat
excrement.
As punishment for misbehaving, she would beat them on
the soles of their feet and force them to drink washing up
liquid and bleach.
Spry, a pillar of her local community in
Gloucestershire, staunchly denied all the claims made
against her and insisted the only physical punishment she
ever used was "a smack on the bottom".
But a jury at Bristol Crown Court convicted of a series
of charges.
During the four-week trial the jury heard some
harrowing evidence detailing how Spry had subjected the
children to a regime of abuse.
The child's hand has been rubbed raw with sandpaper
The three victims, known as Victim A, B and C, all gave
evidence describing how their daily routines were
punctuated by random acts of bizarre and sadistic violence
at the hands of their foster mother.
Kerry Barker, prosecuting, told how Victim A, now aged
21, was imprisoned in a wheelchair by the woman following
a car crash.
Spry had tried to stop Victim A from trying to walk
again following the crash so she could get more
compensation money.
Victim B, also 21, told how her foster mother would
pull her hair and shove her face in her pet dog's faeces
as punishment.
Victim C, now 18, described how his foster mother held
his hand down on a hot electric hob until it was left
looking like a "gooey mess".
He said he had been force-fed so much washing up liquid
by Spry that he could now differentiate between the brands
on taste alone.
The offences took place in two of Spry's homes in
Gloucestershire between 1986 and 2005. Mr Barker, had
told the jury: "On hearing the indictment the word that
probably sticks in your mind is cruelty.
"That is what this case is about. It is a history of
cruelty by Eunice Spry who was an adoptive mother over a
long period of time."
Face injuries of Victim A
The abuse was finally discovered after another
Jehovah's Witness secretly confronted the wheelchair-bound
Victim A about marks to her head caused when Spry rubbed
sandpaper over her face.
Victim A finally plucked up the courage to report her
foster mother to the police who quickly interviewed Victim
B and C.
Mr Barker added: "The outcome of the interviews was a
horrifying catalogue of cruel and sadistic treatment.
"Most of the acts were carried out as punishment;
others were inexplicable acts of cruelty."
He said the children would be regularly punished for
minor acts of misbehaviour.
Mr Barker explained: "They were made to eat lard and
drink washing up liquid poured down their throats.
They called it home: Spry's foster children lived in
squalor, with little in the way of comforts
"If they were sick (she) would make them eat the vomit
and they were made to eat rat excrement."
He said that Spry would regularly beat the children on
the soles of the feet with a "variety of sticks".
They would be "punched kicked and strangled", and if
they cried the sticks would be forced down their throats.
Mr Barker said Spry used unusual punishments such as
making the children lean against the side of a wall.
The bedrooms in which Eunice Spry's foster children
slept were strewn with rubbish
If they moved, the soles of their feet would again be
beaten with the sticks.
Full cans of food would be thrown directly in their
faces and they would have their heads forcibly held under
the water while in the bath.
Victim A told how when she was a young girl her foster
mother had fixed a sign to the back of one her dress to
cause embarrassment in public. The message read: "This
child is evil. Do not look at her or talk to her. She
wets the bed and is an attention seeker."
Victim A was involved in a serious traffic accident in
2000. Doctors told the girl, who suffered horrific
injuries, that she would be confined to a wheelchair for
up to six months after the crash.
But medical experts who examined her soon found there
was no physical reason why she could not walk.
Spry refused a series of tests to find out what was
behind the girl's mysterious condition and deliberately
hindered her recuperation in a cynical bid to maximise the
compensation payout she could get from insurers.
In 2004, Child A fled from her foster mother and walked
on the very same day. She later confessed that Spry had
forced her to remain in the wheelchair since 2000.
Mr Barker said on one occasion Spry had forced Child C
to place his hand over an electric ring on a cooker
causing blistering.
He added that Spry was able to conceal her alleged
reign of abuse as the children were home taught and not
sent to school.
She has also terrified the children so much with her
ritualistic abuse that they were too frightened to alert
the authorities.
Spry covered her tracks by forbidding them to be
examined on their own by doctors or dentists. She
maintained her innocence throughout police interviews and
during the subsequent trial.
Record CAS Meetings
March 19, 2007
The greatest fear of social services is exposure. They fight tooth and
nail to stay out of the press, and they fear video and audio recording of
their actions. Today's discussion on Sarnia's Smoking Gun shows just how
great is their fear of recordings. Readers with revealing recordings should
forward them to Dufferin VOCA or Canada Court Watch for posting to the
internet.
expand
collapse
Topic: Brant cas worker complains about
"COURTWATCH"
Rob Ferguson wrote:
Late last week I was contacted by two parents with very
similar stories. It seems that a CAS worker in Brantford
has put up a fight against Canadacourtwatch's teaching of
recording court and cas meetings. One parent produced an
affidavit suggesting indeed the worker has fears of the
practice of recording meetings. I advised both parents to
continue the good fight and contact Brant MPP (for now)
Dave Levac.
litigator answered:
Maybe the Brant CAS worker would like to complain about
Litigator supporting recording of visits and court
hearings too. This is for all CAS workers reading this
Board.
The public is well aware of the suggestive and leading
questions used by you CAS workers when interviewing
children. You frequently submit perjured evidence to the
court by way of affidavit and are rarely held accountable
for your actions. If you people exercised due diligence
when conducting your investigations and told the truth,
people would not have to record you covertly. Innocent
people have nothing to hide and would not care either way
about being recorded. Guilty people immediately begin
complaining because they know damn well the tapes will
incriminate them. So to all you workers out there, you
should be interviewing children on video tape as the
police do so we the parents can see the methods you use to
elicit information from our children
darrensgirl answered:
My worker and supervisor had told me to stay away from
Canada Court Watch saying it's giving out false
information. I have a meeting sometime this week with the
supervisor over the letter I wrote to them about a worker
change.
Guess they didn't like the comment that the workers own
personal problems are clouding her judgement.
Kids Drugged en masse
March 17, 2007
The CTV program W-5 did a story on the drugging of Ontario children,
including the role of children's aid societies as enforcers. One
ten-year-old boy was arrested by police, taken in handcuffs to a group home
and held down by orderlies while being forcibly injected. Social workers
troll the schools looking for kids to diagnose based on junk science
questionnaires. Mega-bucks change hands while children turn into zombies.
This program should bring the matter again to the
attention of the Ontario legislature. It is a good
opportunity to call your MPP to remind him to halt routine
use of psychotropic drugs on children. A first step would
be to enact pending bill 88, to give the Ombudsman authority
to look into children's aid societies.
Here are two mms: links to files in .wmv format. You
can give them directly to your media player.
part one 12:25
part two 8:47
If you are unable to use these links, expand the article
below and click on the Source link, taking you to a CTV page
with two links to an embedded viewer.
expand
collapse
A Convenient Diagnosis
Updated Sat. Mar. 17 2007 6:58 PM ET
Sarah Stevens, W-FIVE
When Joshua Lourie was seven, he started acting out in
class. His school sent him for a psychological assessment
and he was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD). Not unusual, as estimates say that
between 3 to 7 per cent of Canada's more than seven
million children are diagnosed with ADHD.
Joshua Lourie was diagnosed at age 7 for ADHD, but his
family believes the real problem was diabetes.
Janette at first refused to put her son on Ritalin,
but that wasn't then end of the issue.
Sandra Fisman says 'There is a fashion around the
diagnosis of ADHD.'
Joshua's mother Janette says, "The school had suggested
that I put him on Ritalin and this is when he was about
the age of six, going on seven. They put a lot of
pressure on me to take him to the doctor, get him on
Ritalin." She refused, but that was not the end of it.
At 10, Joshua ended up being removed from her care and
placed into a juvenile facility where he was given
psychiatric medicines, not just ADHD medications but
antidepressants, not approved by Health Canada for use in
children under 18.
For the next 18 months he was bounced around from
foster care to group homes, sometimes on as many as three
different drugs at a time.
Joshua's grandfather, George Lourie, believes the
reason for Joshua's problem behavior was not ADHD, but
diabetes. Joshua's blood sugars were out of whack, and
then he was prescribed Wellbutrin, a drug with potentially
dangerous side-effects for diabetics and children. Joshua
collapsed in a group home while he was on the drug.
Psychiatric diagnoses often lead to the prescription of
medications, never tested in or approved for use by
children. As children's bodies metabolize medication
differently than adults, these off-label prescriptions can
leave a child feeling, at best, like a zombie or at worst,
lead to suicide.
Using data received from IMS Health Canada, an agency
that tracks the use of prescription medications, W-FIVE
discovered that in 2006, over one million prescriptions
for ADHD medications, drugs like Ritalin, Adderall and
Concerta, were written for children under the age of 18.
And there were over 300,000 prescriptions filled for
anti-depressants (SSRIs). Some people are increasingly
worried about the sheer volume of these prescriptions.
Marty McKay, a psychologist who has treated and
assessed children for over 30 years, believes that "Ninety
per cent of children diagnosed as ADHD are misdiagnosed
and drugged for no appropriate reason." She points the
finger of misdiagnosis at the school system and the
psychiatric industry.
Teachers, she believes, are not qualified to make these
diagnoses, but do so regularly. They are in fact being
asked to assess children through the use of psychiatric
rating scales in which they check off behaviors. Check
off too many behaviours and it can lead to a child being
diagnosed as ADHD. The next step is to refer a child for
psychological assessment, which McKay says, generally just
rubber-stamps a teacher's diagnosis.
Ask Joshua Lourie who should take the blame and he will
tell you it's the doctors and the psychiatrists who
prescribe all that medication.
Dr. Sandra Fisman of the Ontario Psychiatric
Association, surprisingly, doesn't disagree with Joshua's
point of view. She says, "There is a fashion around the
diagnosis of ADHD." In blaming careless diagnosis, Fisman
explains, " What we may be looking at is a core group who
actually have the disorder and then a halo around that."
She believes it is a problem that the "halo", those who do
not have the disorder, are diagnosed and in many cases
medicated.
Addendum: For a comic reply,
listen to Michael
Savage in this YouTube audio-only recording.
Sally Clark R.I.P.
March 17, 2007
The following paragraphs are from the Sally Clark home page, where you can
read the whole story.
Sally Clark 1965-2007
Sally Clark - victim of a miscarriage of justice
Sally Clark - Friday 16th March 2007
It is with the very greatest sadness that Sally Clark's
family announces that Sally was found dead at her home this
morning, having passed away during the night.
The matter is in the hands of the coroner and it is too
early to provide any further information. Sally's family
very much hopes that the media will refrain from making any
enquiries or attempts to contact them at this painful time.
Sally, aged 42, was released in 2003 having been
wrongfully imprisoned for more than 3 years, falsely accused
of the murder of her two sons. Sadly, she never fully
recovered from the effects of this appalling miscarriage of
justice.
Sally, a qualified solicitor, was a loving and talented
wife, mother, daughter and friend. She will be greatly
missed by all who knew her.
Girl Battered in Foster Home
March 17, 2007
A Tehachapi California toddler, Savannah, had an accident at home and
went to a foster home for "protection". There she was really abused. When
the girl was returned to grandmother Cynthia Miller, mother Heather Yeck got
to see the damage. In the story Toddler Physically Abused watch the video — it may disappear
from the web in a few days.
Bargain Hunters:
Buy two babies, get 25% off!
March 17, 2007
Here is another case of babies sold for cash, with published prices, this
time Samoans sold to Americans.
expand
collapse
Saturday, 17 Mar 2007
Samoa rocked by adoption scandal
The tiny Pacific nation of Samoa has been embroiled in
an adoption scandal, with families in the United States
paying thousands of dollars to adopt children who were not
orphans.
Five people are being prosecuted by US authorities and
two others are being sought for their part in a scandal
that saw 81 children given to families in America without
the full understanding of their biological parents.
It is alleged the adoption agency Focus on Children
knowingly brought children into the US under false
premises between March 2002 and June 2005.
Melodie Rydalch from the US Attorney in Utah said Focus
on Children allegedly had American parents pay $US13,000
($NZ19,000) to adopt a Samoan child, although there was a
discount for adopting two children, which cost $US20,000.
She said parents of the children in Samoa and the United
States were both victims of the alleged con.
"The Samoan families (allegedly) thought that their
children were being put into a programme, that they would
receive letters, they would receive visits, they would
stay in touch with the children and that when the children
reached 18, that they would return to Samoa having had a
good education and would then be able to take good care of
the Samoan parents.
"On the other side, the American families thought they
were orphans or that they had been relinquished by their
parents and that it was a permanent adoption. Both sets
of parents are victims, it is alleged," Rydalch said.
"Some of them were newborn and some of them were
teenagers," she said.
The managers of the scheme, Scott and Karen Banks, as
well as three other people Karalee Thornock, Coleen
Bartlett and Dan Wakefield have been freed on conditions
in the United States but are facing penalties as high as
20 years in jail and a $US500,000 fine.
Two other people involved who are in Samoa, Tagaloa
Ieti and Julie Tuiletufuga, are being sought by US
authorities.
Rydalch said no matter what the outcome of the
prosecutions, the fate of the 81 children living in the
United States would be determined by civil actions, which
could take years.
"We have been encouraging communication between the two
families," she said.
The prime minister of Samoa in a media statement said
US officials had met with his government.
Prime Minister Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele
Malielegaoi's office said the country would be conducting
its own investigation into the adoption scheme.
"To date, Samoa has not received any written request
from the United States of America for the extradition of
the two Samoa citizens who have been charged in the state
of Utah. If such a request is received, Samoa will
consider what assistance, if any, it can provide," he
said.
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was
unable to immediately say whether any Australian families
also had attempted to adopt children through the scheme.
A trial date for the hearing into those allegedly
involved in the scheme is expected to be set early April.
Norris Returns to Internet
March 16, 2007
An advertisement in the Kingston Whig-Standard has alerted us that Cathy
Norris is back on the internet with a new site, this time with real names
for all parties. The ad, already gone from the web, is:
NEW - MISSING CHILD 13 year old Cole Norris Please
contact these two web sites for more information
casinternment2.com
cas911.ifrance.com
- 3/12/2007 - ID 9562015 / 10569566
International Child Abuse
March 16, 2007
In case you think Canadian child protection could not get any worse, it
can. Check out this thirteen minute video titled if
Americans knew (local copy flv). Five
women — Palestinian, American, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish —
tell stories of humiliation and harassment by Israeli border guards and
airport security officials.
Foster Care on CHUO
March 16, 2007
John Dunn and Jessie McVicar appear on this
CHUO (Ottawa) program (mp3). Both discuss their frustration in efforts
to reform CAS, and John Dunn recounts his efforts to get the records of his
own years in care. He also tried unsuccessfully to become a member of
Ottawa CAS, and to get a list of existing members. Interspersed through the
program are words and songs reminiscing Mother Jones, an American socialist
of a century ago.
Boys Escape CAS
March 15, 2007
Here is another Hamilton CAS story that doesn't add up. Two boys have
been missing for three months, yet there have been no police
alerts, and no news other than this solitary item. No one seems serious
about looking for them. Maybe they agree with us, that the boys are safer
outside of CAS control.
expand
collapse
CCAS looking for missing boys
Mar, 15 2007 - 11:40 AM
HAMILTON (AM900 CHML) - Hamilton Police and the
Catholic Children's Aid Society are looking for help
finding a pair of missing boys.
14-year-old Mark Gartner and Steven Walker, also 14,
were last seen in mid December.
The 2 don't know each other but officials say they
disappeared at about the same time.
Gartner, who is dark skinned, 5'9", 150 pounds with
brown hair and brown eyes, had been at a foster home in
Hamilton for the last year.
Walker, is white, 5'2", 145 pounds with short curly
brown hair and blue eyes and had only been at a foster
home in Grimsby for less than a week when he vanished.
— Jay McQueen
Addendum: The Hamilton Spectator
printed pictures of the missing boys on March 16, with
wording suggesting one or both were crown wards. Also
below, CHML reports one of the boys was found in a place the
cops did not suspect for three months — with his mom
and dad. In a move out of Alice in Wonderland he
can now be saved from his parents.
expand
collapse
Missing boy turns up
Mar, 16 2007 - 11:10 AM
HAMILTON (AM900 CHML) - One of 2 boys in the care of
the Catholic Children's Aid Society who have been missing
since December has been found.
14-year-old Steven Walker was found at the home of his
biological parents on St. Matthews Drive yesterday
afternoon.
Walker had been in a new foster home in Grimsby for
less than week when he vanished in mid December.
Police say his biological father was arrested yesterday
afternoon on another matter.
— Jay McQueen
Erroneous Expert Can Be Sued
March 15, 2007
Dr Charles Smith, previously excused from civil liability by a court decision, can be sued for his
erroneous evidence leading the incarceration of a mother accused of killing
her own child.
Louise Reynolds spent two years in jail and lost a child to adoption on
account of Smith's evidence. Children's aid societies currently employ
expert witnesses known to favor CAS over families in almost all cases. Full
permission to sue for false testimony in child protection cases could curb
many of these abuses.
expand
collapse
Top Ontario court grants wrongly accused
woman right to sue pathologist
Tobi Cohen, The Canadian Press, Wednesday, March 14,
2007
CREDIT: Global National
Louise Reynolds
TORONTO -- The Ontario Court of Appeal has paved the
way for a woman who was wrongly jailed for her
daughter’s death to sue the pathologist whose allegedly
shoddy work sent her to jail.
Former Kingston, Ont., resident Louise Reynolds
appeared before the province’s highest court last month
to seek the right to sue Dr. Charles Smith.
A forensic pathologist at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick
Children at the time, Smith initially determined
Reynolds’s seven-year-old daughter Sharon died of
multiple stab wounds in 1997, but a later autopsy
concluded the girl had been mauled by a pit bull.
A lower court denied Reynolds the right to sue Smith
because he was protected by witness immunity, but a
three-judge Ontario Court of Appeal panel decided that
decision should be up to a trial judge.
“Essentially they decided that Dr. Smith, the claim
for witness immunity that he wanted to make, couldn’t be
brought at this stage,” said Peter Wardle, a lawyer for
Reynolds.
“He would have to wait until there was a trial in
which the judge would have all the facts and would be albe
to make a decision based on those facts.”
The high court also agreed with the defence’s claim
that the problems pertained more to what they called
Smith’s “negligent” and “deeply flawed” role as
pathologist than to his testimony as a Crown witness at
her preliminary hearing.
“The claim that Louise was making was one that was
not about his testimony, but was about his role in
investigating a suspicious death which we think is a
pretty key conclusion,” Wardle said.
“We think it’s going to make it very difficult for
him again to make this argument in a lawsuit.”
Wardle said the decision could open the door “a
little wider” for others who have been wrongly accused
and want to hold pathologists and other experts
accountable before the courts.
“Certainly the Court of Appeal was very encouraging
in terms of how they dealt with our theory and our causes
of action against Dr. Smith,” he said.
Some 44 of Smith’s cases, some dating back to the
early 1990s, are currently under review by Ontario’s
chief coroner to determine if his conclusions can be
supported.
More Drugged Kids on TV
March 15, 2007
We have received a report (not on the CTV website) that the TV program
W-five will air a piece on the drugging of children on Saturday March 17 at
7pm.
Foster Boy Speaks
March 14, 2007
Today we feature two video interviews, one of a foster child, the other
of his mother. The videos come from the moderated website liveleak.com. The parties are only named as
child Justin, mother Theresa and foster family the Greens. The protection
agency is the Safe Children Coalition, operating in Florida, and the second
interview mentions last year's video at the Pinellas County Courthouse by Greg Pound. We believe Mr Pound is
the interviewer here as well.
expand
collapse
11-yr-old Child Gives Details of Abuse By
Foster Parents
WARNING! GRAPHIC PICTURES OF CHILD ABUSE!
Eleven year old boy burned with cigarettes by DCF
foster parents, beaten unmercifully by other kids in the
foster home, all because he would not break into a
person's house and steal for the foster parents. Child is
tortured by being stabbed with pencils and burnt with a
lighter while handcuffed. DCF Case managers were
notified, but ignored the child's pleas for help. Child
had a black eye, numerous injuries, was completely
emaciated with his rib cage showing, yet DCF does nothing
to the foster parents. The Foster mother was taking
pills, smoking dope and usually passed out while the child
was being abused, all for three long years with no
intervention by DCF. The Mother of the abused child lost
her 3 daughters and son because her husband died and she
was vunerable to the DCF and the "Safe Children
Coalition", as she had no funds to fight back. The "Safe
Children Coalition" said her home wasn't big enough, even
though she had a 5 bedroom home available. No charges
were ever brought against her, but they took her kids
anyway. The "Safe Children Coalition" takes children from
Christian families and puts them in unsafe locations so
that they can continue to be funded by your tax dollars.
The "Safe Children Coalition" only takes children from
poor people, as they do not have the money to fight back
against the system.
link to
Justin's interview
11-yr-old Child Gives Details of Abuse By
Foster Parents (part 2)
Part Two - Interview with Justin's Mother: Eleven year
old boy burned with cigarettes by DCF foster parents,
beaten unmercifully by other kids in the foster home, all
because he would not break into a person's house and steal
for the foster parents. Child is tortured by being
stabbed with pencils and burnt with a lighter while
handcuffed. DCF Case managers were notified, but ignored
the child's pleas for help. Child had a black eye,
numerous injuries, was completely emaciated with his rib
cage showing, yet DCF does nothing to the foster parents.
The Foster mother was taking pills, smoking dope and
usually passed out while the child was being abused, all
for three long years with no intervention by DCF. The
Mother of the abused child lost her 3 daughters and son
because her husband died and she was vunerable to the DCF
and the "Safe Children Coalition", as she had no funds to
fight back. The "Safe Children Coalition" said her home
wasn't big enough, even though she had a 5 bedroom home
available. No charges were ever brought against her, but
they took her kids anyway. The "Safe Children Coalition"
takes children from Christian families and puts them in
unsafe locations so that they can continue to be funded by
your tax dollars. The "Safe Children Coalition" only
takes children from poor people, as they do not have the
money to fight back against the system.
link to
Theresa's interview
Dubious Story
March 14, 2007
We usually ignore planted stories glorifying children aid workers, but
this one does not add up. A mother was arrested for trying to kill her
child. Mothers have been known to harm their own children, but how many do
it with hostile witnesses in the room? Could it be that the CAS workers
exaggerated the actions for effect? After all, the article says the child
was not seriously hurt. We will never know, because there are no names in
the story, making it impossible to verify the facts. Another day, another
deceit.
expand
collapse
CTV.ca, March 13, 2007
The apartment building in Hamilton, Ont. where the
stabbing occurred.
Hamilton mother tried to stab toddler:
police
toronto.ctv.ca
A Hamilton, Ont. mother is facing attempted murder
charges after she tried to stab her eight-month-old baby
girl, police say.
Emergency officials were called to an apartment
building on Sandford Avenue North late Tuesday morning
after receiving a 911 call from Children's Aid Workers who
witnessed the alleged attempting stabbing.
"They found a child in distress; the child appeared to
be suffering from stab wounds," Sgt. Michael Webber told
reporters.
The toddler was rushed to hospital in serious
condition, but police later said she suffered only
superficial wounds.
Police guard the crime scene on Tuesday.
'They found a child in distress; the child appeared
to be suffering from stab wounds,' Sgt. Michael
Webber told reporters.
Police said the infant is doing well, but will be kept
overnight as a precautionary measure.
Another child in the household was taken into the care
of the Children's Aid Society.
A 28-year-old mother was arrested and charged at the
scene. Her name is not being released because the case
involves the CAS.
News of the attack shocked neighbours.
"I heard about the baby and it's ignorant," said one
man. "I don't know what else to say. It's just
disgusting."
Residents were relieved to hear the toddler was not
seriously hurt in the incident.
The Hamilton police child abuse unit is continuing to
investigate.
Webber said the involvement of the aid workers is also
being reviewed.
With a report from CTV's Jim Junkin and files from The
Canadian Press
Addendum: An investigator
checked the hospital (McMaster) that takes care of injured
children in Hamilton. They had no admissions on March 13.
The same investigator found that the police filed no charges
similar to those in the story. Below is another story from
the National Post. It mentions that the mother is a deaf
mute, and that she was questioned by the police. There is
no mention of the technology used in the questioning.
expand
collapse
Mom arrested in alleged baby stabbing
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
HAMILTON - A 28-year-old Hamilton woman was charged
Tuesday with the attempted murder of her infant daughter
during a visit supervised by a worker from the Children's
Aid Society of Hamilton.
Police were called after reports the eight-month-old
girl had been stabbed by her mother, who is a deaf mute.
The infant's injuries aren't life-threatening and she's
expected to be released from hospital today.
Hamilton police Staff Sgt. Dave Beech said the injury
is a "cut" from a "sharp object."
Although the child's injuries aren't severe, police
laid the attempted murder charge after questioning the
woman.
"You have to be able to show there was intent (to kill)
to lay an attempted murder charge," Beach said. "We
believe there was in this case."
Police won't say why the girl and her three-year-old
brother, who was also at the supervised visit, were taken
by Children's Aid before Tuesday's visit.
Police declined to identify the infant or her mother,
who is expected to appear in court today.
Addendum: A follow-up nearly eight months later
that is probably the same incident. This time they make it look like the
misbehavior is the result of the mother's experiences herself in the care of
CAS as a child. The press, and apparently the prosecutor, have backed off
the contention that there was an attempted killing. Still no names, so we
have to believe their story.
expand
collapse
Deaf woman sentenced to time served and a day
Assault on infant daughter blamed on dysfunctional
upbringing
Barbara Brown, The Hamilton Spectator, (Nov 3, 2007)
A deaf woman was so overwhelmed and anxious about getting her children
back from the Hamilton Children's Aid Society that she did the
unthinkable.
While a child-protection worker and sign language interpreter sat in
the next room, the 28-year-old mother carried her eight-month-old daughter
into the kitchen, picked up a knife and made a small incision in the
baby's chest.
The cut drew an alarming amount of blood and brought the screaming
child's visit with her mother to a sudden, screeching halt.
The woman was charged with attempted murder but ultimately pleaded
guilty to the lesser offence of aggravated assault.
Ontario Court Justice Marjoh Agro sentenced her yesterday to time
served plus one day in jail and placed the woman on probation for the
maximum three-year period.
Agro gave the woman enhanced credit for eight months of pretrial
custody because her hearing loss had prevented her from taking part in
rehabilitation programs.
Liza Ban, a mental health counsellor with the Canadian Hearing Society,
put together a release plan for the convicted woman and found her a place
to live in a second-level lodging home.
Defence lawyer Andrew Confente shed some light on what had driven his
client to commit such a strange, violent act against her helpless child.
He said the woman never knew her biological father and was physically
and emotionally abused as a child by a mother, who suffered with
schizophrenia compounded by alcoholism.
His client had a brother but was the only deaf person in her family.
"She felt very lonely growing up because there was no effort on the
part of any other family member to learn sign language," said Confente.
"She was a victim of abuse by her mother and brother and by the men
brought home by her mother."
Confente said his client was, herself, apprehended by the CAS at the
age of 12 and lived in a series of foster homes from 1979 to 1998. During
this time, she was exposed to drugs and started smoking marijuana.
While a ward of the society, she achieved a Grade 11 education at E.C.
Drury School for the Deaf in Milton.
At 19, she was living on the street and using crack cocaine. During
this time in her life she resorted to prostitution to support her drug
habit.
Confente said his client was married briefly and had two children from
that relationship.
But dysfunctional upbringing had left an indelible mark on her psyche.
In 2004, she was diagnosed with a mood disorder with features of
depression and schizophrenia.
At the time of the knife incident, her four-year-old son had been in
CAS care for more than a year and his younger sister from her birth.
The mother struggled to pull her life together and improve herself.
She found an apartment, took parenting courses and was slowly working with
CAS social workers toward a goal of gaining custody of children.
Still, at the time she harmed her child, the mother had not been taking
her mood disorder medication for about six months.
Confente said his client loved her children, but worried about her
ability to measure up to the standards of parenting expected by the
society.
"Her response was that she felt overwhelmed by the CAS's expectations
and the standard of care that would be required of her."
"She made it clear she had no intention of killing the child. And it
was in fact a superficial injury."
Assistant Crown attorney Kevin McKenna urged the judge to impose a
further eight months in jail in addition to time already served.
He argued there would be days ahead when the woman would feel anxious
and overwhelmed and it had to be brought home to her that violence was not
an acceptable recourse.
bbrown@thespec.com, 905-526-3494
Children Protected from Protector
March 13, 2007
Another one of those angels who protect your children has been arrested,
this time for abusing her own children. She was not a lowly caseworker, but
a senior officer. This is likely to be one of those stories we never hear
about again.
expand
collapse
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
DFCS official denies abuse
By CRAIG SCHNEIDER, Published on: 03/13/07
One of Fulton County's top child welfare officials was
arrested after being accused of striking her 8-year-old
daughter 34 times with a belt, police said Monday.
Cylenthia Clark, 38, of Fayetteville was charged with
felony child cruelty on Saturday. Clark is assistant
director of the Fulton County office of the state Division
of Family and Children Services.
Cylenthia Clark's four daughters have been placed in
protective custody. She is out on bond.
The arrest warrant alleges that on
Feb. 7, Clark told the child to remove all her clothes
except her panties and then whipped her with the belt on
the back, arms, legs and face.
The girl and her three sisters, ages 6, 5 and 3, were
taken from Clark's care and placed in protective custody,
Fayetteville police Lt. Beverly Trainor said.
In an interview, Clark acknowledged spanking her
daughter but said, "I am not a child abuser. I have never
abused my children." Clark got out of jail on bond
Saturday.
Trainor said the girl's school reported marks on the
child's back and arms Feb. 28 to Fayette DFCS. That
report was passed on to Fayetteville police.
Clark said her daughter had been aggressive lately,
fighting in an after-school program at Hood Avenue Primary
and even fighting a teacher who tried to break it up.
"I did spank her, but I didn't abuse her," Clark said.
"I don't even want to spank my kids, but it's a last
resort."
DFCS spokeswoman Dena Smith said Clark is back on the
job but only doing administrative work and has no
involvement in child protection cases.
The arrest of one of Fulton's top child welfare
officials stunned workers in the county office and leaders
in Georgia's child welfare community. Officials at Fulton
DFCS have power to investigate parents for child abuse and
neglect, and even to remove children from their homes and
place them in foster care.
"We would hope that the people we entrust with our
children would hold the same values as we do," said Normer
Adams, executive director of the Georgia Association of
Homes and Services for Children. "The values that people
hold reflect in what they practice. How can you take
someone's child away, when you're doing something like
this?"
Adams said he thinks Clark should be put on
administrative leave until the case is resolved.
DFCS officials said Clark arrived in the Fulton office
less than a year ago. Clark and her husband are
separated, Fayetteville police said, and he lives in
another state.
Fulton DFCS workers said the office was shocked to hear
the news. "She's a nice person," said Fulton DFCS worker
Richard Maynard. "It's unfortunate, and my prayers go out
to her and her family."
Shantreas O'Neil, a Fulton social services specialist,
said, "All of us doing this work are responsible for
protecting the kids, so it would surprise me if this
happened to any worker."
Neighbors at Weatherly Walk apartments in Fayetteville
said Clark appeared to be a caring mother.
"I was always amazed she could get all those little
girls dressed and herself ready for work," said Lori Holt,
the mother of twin 8-month-old boys. "I'm doing good to
get out of here with bottles and diapers."
Clark said she was surprised to be arrested.
"I'm sure they [Fayette DFCS and police] were following
protocol, but from my experience that [an arrest] is
reserved for more severe cases," Clark said.
The arrest comes as Fulton DFCS has come under attack
from several of its own workers who criticized top
managers as arrogant and belligerent. The workers say the
management style has prompted many employees to leave,
burdening others with more work and leaving some children
in danger of abuse and neglect.
State DFCS Director Mary Dean Harvey said the Fulton
office has increased its scrutiny of workers since a
lawsuit settlement last year in which a federal court
ordered the office to improve its care of children.
She said the greater demands may have led some
disgruntled workers to complain and leave. She also said
the Fulton office is performing better.
Staff writers Kathy Jefcoats and S.A. Reid contributed
to this article.
Addendum: Social workers are in the habit of
destroying families with false allegations, and when they want to purge one
of their own, they do it the same way. This could be a case of social
worker fratricide.
Addendum: This later article shows that the mother
in this case got preferential treatment.
expand
collapse
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
DFCS workers felt pressured to play
favorites, advocate says
By Craig Schneider, Kathy Jefcoats
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/12/07
Fayette County child welfare workers felt pressure from
their state office to close the case against a top
employee charged with beating her daughter, the state
child advocate said Wednesday.
Child Advocate Dee Simms said Gov. Sonny Perdue
personally requested she find out if favoritism was shown
to Cylenthia Clark, deputy director of the Fulton County
child welfare office.
Clark was charged with felony child cruelty March 10
after Fayette school officials reported marks on the
child's back and arms to the Fayette office of the state
Division of Family and Children Services. Fayetteville
police said that on Feb. 7, Clark ordered her 8-year-old
daughter to remove her clothes and whipped her 34 times
with a belt.
DFCS officials said the case was handled properly and
that Clark was not given preferential treatment. Clark,
who has been reassigned to administrative duties at the
Fulton DFCS office, could not be reached Wednesday for
comment. A month ago, she said she spanked her daughter,
but didn't abuse her.
Simms said her investigators interviewed several
workers in the Fayette office of DFCS. "It is my feeling
that they felt pressure to minimize it [the case] or make
it go away," Simms said. She said she hasn't gotten state
DFCS's side of the story yet.
Police placed the girl and her three sisters in foster
care, but DFCS quickly moved the children into the home of
their maternal grandmother, Simms said.
One Fayette caseworker wrote the governor to complain
about the way the case was handled. Tracy Murray said the
state office "mandated" that her office waive the drug
screen and criminal background check in order to quickly
place the children with the grandmother.
"Governor, make no mistake the leadership representing
this department is in full support of this mother who has
beaten her child with no remorse," Murray wrote.
State DFCS Director Mary Dean Harvey said she often
reviews individual county cases and, working in
consultation with the county, discusses waivers on
background checks.
The children have since been placed in the custody of
their father, who lives in Chicago, authorities said.
State Department of Human Resources officials say
they're conducting an internal investigation. "We haven't
found anything to show that DFCS has done anything wrong,"
said Cathy Lynn, deputy director of the state Office of
Investigative Services, an arm of DHR. DFCS is also an
arm of DHR.
The difference of opinion sets up yet another conflict
between state DFCS, the agency tasked with handling child
welfare services, and the child advocate, appointed to
keep watch over DFCS. Simms recently issued a blistering
report on the Fulton DFCS office.
Fayette District Attorney Scott Ballard also has
started an investigation into whether Fayette DFCS delayed
reporting the abuse allegations to Fayetteville police.
Harvey said DFCS notified police by fax shortly after
receiving the abuse allegation from the girl's teacher.
Ballard said he needs to confirm that, but said DFCS
did not follow protocol and telephone police to confirm.
Consequently, he said, police did not begin the
investigation for another 20 days.
Group Home Embezzles Kid's Pay
March 12, 2007
A blog by a resident of Kennedy
House in Scarborough Ontario recounts his experiences under the screen
name Ed Blazo, really his nemesis at the group home. Among other
experiences, he recounts the rape of a fellow resident. Below is his story
of how part of his pay from a summer job was embezzled by the group home
staff.
expand
collapse
Ed Blazo
I am in grade 12 and exams are just around the corner.
The stress of living in this hostile house is weighing
down on me. I think I have been through a lot in this
four and half years that I called this house home.
Instead of building young boys into confident responsible
men, the goal seems to be how to beat the soul and spirit
out of these young bucks. How many guys that have gone
through Kennedy house's doors have made it. Ok, make it
easier, how many have stayed out of jail? Not many.
Still the world revolves around money, so Ed was not going
to be pulling in any more money from the children's aid
for anyone who is over 18, so out they go. And to make
sure they are out and he doesn't have to carry them, he
gives ya the boot before your 18th birthday. So like I
said with exams around the corner, I was told to look for
an apartment. I said how was I to pay the rent? Kathy
said that I would be given student welfare till I finished
grade 12. I said what about after that? She said as far
as going on to further my education, she didn't see that
as an option. Best that once I finished school to look
for a job. Immediately. I asked about the 25% of my pay
she has socked away. When do I receive that? She said:
sorry, but that money went back into the house. But I
said that when we were told to give her 25% of our pay
when we were forced to work the summer and also whenever I
worked — hell they even took Tyrone's 25% when he
slaved all day selling Dicky Dee ice cream — it
would be returned to us upon leaving the house, so(rt) of
like a hope chest — funds to sock away for a rainy
day. She went into: do you know how much it costs to
keep me here? She said that I would find out once I was
on my own.
Endless Accusations
March 11, 2007
James Nord, an Arizona man in a business where he could make enemies, is
anonymously accused of molesting a ten-year-old boy living in his home.
When child protectors find the man lives alone, the accusation changes to
molesting at the home of the boy's mother. When they can't find her, he is
accused of molesting his own sister and son. The caseworker tells the man
his file has been closed, but continues to question his friends. He is on a
list of low-risk sexual predators, but cannot find the name of his accuser.
The caseworker continues because she collects a bounty for her
investigation. Child protection is too important to stop for mere
innocence, or even absurdity.
expand
collapse
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Man upset over probe for alleged child
molestation
Suzanne Cronn-Herald/Review
James Nord reviews a document in his home office on
Sunday. Nord has file a $50 million dollar law suit
against Cochise County and the state stemming from an
accusation of child molestation of which no evidence
was found and the case was closed.
By Shar Porier
Herald/Review
SIERRA VISTA — “They don’t care who they screw
up.”
The frustration of 66-year-old paralegal James Nord
over an alleged incident of child molestation, which he
claims landed his name in a file at Child Protective
Services as a “low risk” sexual predator, continues as
he tries to clear his name.
It all started more than a year ago on Feb. 28 when he
got a call from CPS investigator Marilyn Piduch at his
home in Sierra Vista. She asked if she could meet with
him. He agreed, and Piduch and Marde Closson, local CPS
supervisor, came to his home and told him a complaint had
been filed. They had been told a woman and her
10-year-old son were living with him, and that he had
molested the boy. After an inspection of his home, they
found no evidence of anyone living with Nord.
“I’ve lived alone for 18 years, with the exception
of my son and his family when they first moved here,” he
said.
Wondering who could have made such an accusation, he
asked for the name of his accuser and was told the
identity could not be revealed.
He filed a complaint with the Cochise County’s
Sheriff’s Office for false reporting and harassment
against the CPS.
Deputy Cpl. John Filippelli took the complaint and
called CPS in an attempt to confirm a name given by Nord
as the possible informant. The deputy states in a report
that CPS told him the caller wished to remain anonymous
but that it was definitely not the person suspected. He
then went to Nord’s residence and advised him of the
findings.
“Nord advised when CPS completes their investigation
he will file a petition to disclose the name of the person
reporting. I advised Nord if/when he finds out the
subject’s name to contact me, and I will continue the
investigation,” he writes in the report.
Though Nord said Filippelli met with him the morning of
March 2 and told him CPS had closed the case, there is no
such statement in the deputy’s official report.
Filippelli’s investigation is listed as active/dead file
pending further information from Nord on the identity of
the person who called CPS with the complaint.
Part of Nord’s complaint of CPS’ actions involves
the continuing investigation involving friends and family
after the case had supposedly been closed.
Piduch interviewed Nord’s son, Carl, on the same day
and questioned him about the woman and her son.
Nothing further was done until May 17, when Nord
requested a copy of the complaint. On June 8, he received
the CPS summary report, which gave a different scenario.
In the report, Nord was accused of molesting the
10-year-old daughter of a woman while living with her at
her residence. The report also states he violently
molested and assaulted his sister for four years and
molested his son.
Nord and his son were upset over the new allegations
listed in the summary report.
“I don’t understand. First it was a boy. Now
it’s a girl, my sister and my son. It’s absurd,”
Nord said.
Carl Nord says there wasn’t an incident involving
him.
“Nothing ever happened to me or my aunt. I
checked,” he said. “There are no people living with
Dad or he with them. It’s a crock. Somebody’s made
up the complaint. They investigated and found no
evidence, but, yet, they continued. If the case was
opened and closed on the same day, as they said, why did
they call me in March?”
Nord decided he was going to get to the bottom of it
and tried to get a judge to allow the identity of his
accuser to be revealed and his name cleared. The case
went before Cochise County Superior Court Judge James L.
Conlogue.
Assistant Attorney General Roger Perry Jr. argued
against releasing the name. According to documentation on
file at the courthouse concerning the case, Perry stated,
“There can be no justification for a request that all
records concerning the petitioner be expunged from CPS
files,” he said, “Arizona maintains a record of the
report as it must, according to law.”
Conlogue ruled against Nord’s request and ordered the
file sealed.
Nord suspects he was the subject of retribution of
someone, but he hasn’t a clue who that may be.
His friend Betty Madrid believes she knows who filed
the complaint. Nord was helping her on a legal matter
involving fraud. According to her affidavit, Madrid
called Piduch on March 1 and said she “was positive that
the report was made for vindictive reasons. I told her
that because of my accusation, I was being followed …
She asked me who I thought would do this.”
Madrid gave four names, but was interrupted by Piduch,
who asked how Madrid knew of one of the people mentioned.
That made Madrid suspicious, and she told Nord of the
conversation.
In December, Nord filed a lawsuit against the county,
the state and all the agencies and people involved in
December. His lawsuit claims that Closson and Piduch
“… acted with reckless disregard” and failed to
determine whether probable cause existed before taking
action. He claims violation of his civil rights to due
process, loss of reputation and infliction of emotional
distress among other charges.
He is seeking $50 million in his suit.
“I suffer from headaches, nausea and nervousness.
This whole thing has distracted me from being able to my
job. It interferes with my work,” he says in the court
paperwork.
“One’s reputation is a significant, intensely
personal possession that one strives to protect,” Nord
continued. “The CPS takes everything some mystery party
says as factual and does not need any corroboration of any
sort. They closed the case without any substantiation and
put my name in their files.”
He sought help from an Arizona ombudsman, Ellen
Stenson, who wrote in a letter the case was closed “as
neither substantiated nor unsubstantiated, but rather
noted they were unable to locate (the woman and her
child).
“We do not have any evidence that the CPS
investigation was inappropriate or that CPS has
inappropriately shared information about you …,”
Stenson said in her response.
Stenson’s findings seem to bolster the stand of the
Attorney General’s Office, which is handling the federal
lawsuit.
The state, on behalf of all the agencies and parties
listed in Nord’s suit, is represented by Assistant
Attorney General Perry, who has entered a motion to
dismiss on the grounds that Nord has a “lack of
cognizable legal theory” and “the absence of
sufficient facts.” He states in the motion that CPS, as
an agency of the state, is immune from private damages or
injunctive relief.
As for Nord’s worry of being classified as a sexual
predator in a central registry, Perry says this “is an
example of an unwarranted deduction of fact. (Nord) was
investigated by the CPS; therefore, he reasons, he has
been placed on such a list … it appears (from the
complaint) this claim was not substantiated. There was no
child living in his home to be concerned about. He is not
a convicted sex-offender, subject to registration.”
Perry writes that CPS is required to maintain a record
of the report, but this record in no sense is considered a
predator list. Therefore, Nord’s deduction that since
he was investigated his name exists on a CPS list is
unrealistic.
He states in a court document, “… Criminal
investigations — even if CPS conducted criminal
investigations — can be conducted on no more than a
hunch; they can be conducted on a whim …”
Due to the serious nature of the information included
in the CPS summary report, the agency had the right to
investigate the tip, he argues in the court document.
Perry has tried to have that CPS summary report
rejected as evidence. In a phone conversation, Perry said
Nord had not authenticated the CPS report. Therefore, it
should be disallowed, as should the affidavits Nord
gathered.
“I am asking the court to look at facts alleged in
the complaint. Nord does not state a cause of action
against these people. I have moved to strike things that
are not properly brought before the court,” Perry said.
“I cannot find a cause that would allow for action
against these people. I have to move to strike things
that are not properly brought before the court. Even if
you were to pretend that all the facts as he presents them
are true, he still does not have a case.”
Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever and County Attorney
Ed Rheinheimer did not respond to calls for comment on the
lawsuit.
Liz Barker, public information officer for CPS, said
she could not comment on the pending litigation. However,
she answered questions about procedure and policy of CPS.
She said when someone calls the statewide hotline phone
number, a series of questions is asked. If the answers
meet the criteria, a report is forwarded to the proper
district office, and staff proceed to investigate.
Barker confirmed that a person’s name remains on file
with CPS even if allegations have not been substantiated.
If the case is substantiated and a conviction obtained,
the name is added to the statewide registry of sex
offenders by the department of public safety.
One other irregularity, as Nord sees it, is a provision
that provides a monetary incentive to CPS staff to
investigate cases. If six cases of abuse or neglect are
investigated per month, the employee receives 10 percent
of the monthly salary.
Barker confirmed that case workers are paid “a
stipend” on the number of cases they investigate. The
sum is paid whether the investigations pan out or not.
That makes Nord wonder if such financial gains are
ethical and if that policy is part of the problem.
“Was I investigated to make more money? Who thought
of this stipend?” he asked. “All I’m trying to do
is clear my name. I had a background check run on myself
and it came back clean,” he added. “But CPS has my
name in a file somewhere, unsubstantiated or not.”
Nord, who claims he is still distressed over the
incident, waits for the lawsuit to be heard. “Can you
imagine waking up one day to find you’re being looked at
as a child molester? And I’m just supposed to take that
and roll over and play dead? I don’t think so.”
REPORTER Shar Porier can be reached at 515-4692 or by
e-mail at shar.porier@bisbeereview.net.
Drugging Video
March 11, 2007
A video recently circulated on the internet, The Drugging of our Children, produced by Gary Null, deals
with the enormous quantity of drugs given to school children, including the
role of child protectors as prescription enforcers. Its 103 minutes are of
particular interest to viewers knowledgeable about biology and pharmacology.
local copy (flv 207 megabytes).
Student Gets Real Sex Ed
March 10, 2007
When Nelson A Boylen Collegiate Institute needed a family studies
teacher, they hired the best — a qualified teacher with experience as
a children's aid worker. She taught her students so well that she will soon
give birth to one of their children.
expand
collapse
Teacher accused of sex with student
Paola Queen, a teacher at Nelson A. Boylen Collegiate
Institute, has been charged with sexual exploitation
after police received a tip about an alleged
inappropriate relationship.
Woman is pregnant after alleged
relationship and teen has left high school, police say
March 10, 2007, Betsy Powell Kristin Rushowy, Staff
Reporters
She was a child protection worker who taught family
studies and now she's a high school teacher accused of
having sex with one of her teenage students.
Toronto police have charged Paola Queen, a 35-year-old
teacher at Nelson A. Boylen Collegiate Institute, with
one count of sexual exploitation after they received a
Crime Stoppers tip earlier this month about an alleged
inappropriate relationship between a high school teacher
and a student.
She is pregnant and is at a "substantial stage" into
the nine-month term, Det. Peter Duncan said yesterday.
The student, who has left the north Toronto school on
Falstaff Ave. near Jane St., is believed to be 17 and
cannot be identified by law.
"This was a very good student, someone who has since
left school" and the reasons, while not conclusively
known, are "directly related to that pregnancy," Duncan
said.
Police allege Queen began a romantic and sexual
relationship with the teen not long after she started
teaching at the school in September 2005, "one that has
continued, to our knowledge, to the present time," said
Duncan, of 31 Division. Both speak Spanish, a source
said.
A student in Queen's parenting class said she often saw
the teacher and two brothers in a car together. "She
would let them drive," said the 15-year-old who asked not
to be identified.
Queen was obviously pregnant and recently told students
not to give her grief in class because of her condition,
the student said.
Family members on both sides were also aware of the
relationship and the pregnancy, police said.
"From our investigation it appears that both relatives
of the accused lady and the victimized youth knew of this
relationship and had for some time, several months at
least," Duncan said.
Police exercised two search warrants and they found
photographs showing the pair with other family members.
The teacher had been living with the student "for short
periods at least before she was arrested."
Queen was arrested on Tuesday night.
Under the Criminal Code, no one is allowed to have a
sexual relationship with anyone under 18 years old if they
are in a position of trust or authority "and certainly any
teacher would follow under that description," said Duncan.
A young person at that age is "at an obvious stage in
their emotional development" where they would be
vulnerable to "friendly behaviour and given a degree of
affection would fall into a position where they would
develop an emotional attachment with a teacher as somebody
in a position of authority."
While he doesn't now appear to be traumatized, "this
could be a young man who could take years to fully
understand the impact on his life," he said. "I think
this is something, morally, is going to disgust some
people."
Supt. Roy Pilkington, who runs 31 Division, said it's
not uncommon for men in positions of authority to
victimize young females, but added: "It's very rare –
I've been a police officer for some 34 years – and this
is the first case I can recall in Toronto ... where we've
had this reverse situation."
Queen has been released with conditions not to attend
the school in question. She is to appear at in court
April 17. She has no children of her own and is not
currently married but may be separated or divorced.
She is also to have no contact with the youth. Duncan
admitted this could prove to be problematic if he is
indeed the father of the baby. "That's another sad
dimension."
Queen is a former child protection worker with
Toronto's Catholic Children's Aid Society.
The family studies teacher is now on home assignment,
which means she's on leave with pay until the matter has
been resolved in the courts.
"That's normally the case when a teacher has been
charged with a criminal offence," said board counsel Grant
Bowers.
"That's normally their status until the matter has been
disposed of by the courts."
If found guilty, she'll be fired; if she's acquitted
or the charges are withdrawn, the board will still conduct
its own investigation before deciding if she's allowed to
return to work, added Bowers.
In a letter sent home with students yesterday,
principal Linda Curtis said it's alleged that Queen began
an inappropriate relationship "soon after she started as a
teacher" at the school in September 2005.
Queen became a teacher in June 2005 after obtaining a
bachelor's degree in education from the Ontario Institute
for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.
According to the Ontario College of Teachers, her
qualifications are in the areas of family studies,
individual and society, and visual arts.
She also has two undergraduate degrees – in arts and
social work – from York University, dating back to 1995.
The Toronto District School Board first heard of the
allegations from police, Bowers said. He could not say if
the school had previously received any complaints about
Queen.
The student is not currently attending Nelson A.
Boylen, although sources said he has not been transferred
to another school.
Even though the charges were laid just days before
March Break, the Toronto board has arranged for
counselling during the holidays should students or staff
request it. A meeting will be scheduled following the
break for parents to air any concerns or to seek advice on
how to discuss the issue at home.
"Our primary goal is to make sure that the students
aren't upset, and to provide any counselling that students
may need," said Bowers. "When a person in authority in a
school community is charged with anything, it can cause
ripples in the school community."
Bowers said the Toronto board has one of the toughest
policies regarding relationships. No employee – teacher
or any other staff member – is allowed to have sexual
relations with a student.
"Any teacher or other employee found guilty (by the
courts), or found by us on the balance of probability to
have abused a child in any way, is terminated
immediately," he said.
"If these allegations are true, and that's a big if,
it's extremely regretful and another example of how we
have to be vigilant and protect our kids."
The Ontario College of Teachers, the profession's
governing body, says if the board alters Queen's terms of
employment "if it restricts her teaching duties or
terminates her, they must let us know," said
communications officer Brian Jamieson.
After receiving the complaint in writing, the college
will investigate, and information would be forwarded to an
investigation committee to decide if an official
disciplinary hearing is warranted. The college's
investigation is separate from that of the police.
In cases where teachers are found guilty of
professional misconduct for having sexual relations with
students, they stand to lose their licence – and, if
that happens, it's almost always permanent, said Jamieson.
Bowers said he will notify the college on Monday.
When asked if the boy's family could sue the board,
Bowers said that Canada is "rather unique because since
the year 2000, the Supreme Court has held school boards
and other institutions vicariously liable" for the
inappropriate actions of teachers and other caregivers of
children.
In Ontario Goverment Everything is Secret
March 9, 2007
An article by James Wallace of
Osprey Media displays the kind of investigative journalism normally only
seen in the American press. Ontario's government agencies at all levels
deny requests for information from the public, even routine requests.
Freedom of information requests are stymied with legal exceptions. The
experience of Dufferin VOCA is similar. Inquiries are commonly met with
"that's confidential". In the case of a request to a children's aid
society, they say nothing, or answer with "we don't supply that
information".
Best Kid Culled
March 8, 2007
Another personal story found on the internet. It is another "Sophie's
Choice" scenario, in which CAS lets mom and dad keep two kids, they want the
other to place with grandma.
expand
collapse
March 07 (2007)
Bitten By The Scorpion
I have been bitten by the scorpion!
The scorpion being the Children's Aid Society. They
have been involved in my family's life for seven and a
half years, and they sting is still just as painful. They
have been trying to take our son away since he was six
months old, and just couldn't seem to do it. But now they
just may have found a way to keep him away from us
forever. With the help of my "loving" mother of course.
They will allow us to have our daughters but not our son,
and for th life of us all, no one can figure out why.
Especially since they think we're good enough parents to
our daughters that it is safe for them to close their
file. But yet they would rather have my mother gain full
custody of our son. It really doesn't make much sence.
My husband has been reduced to supervised access and now
must see his son under the close scrutiny of the CAS.
That is completely unjustifiable. But what makes it worse
is that he is only allowed to have 2 hours a week. Worse
still is now they are trying to make things even more
difficult for husband by making him sign his life away in
paper work before he caneven get to see his son, and if he
were to not follow any of the supposed rules for
thereputic access, his visits will cease and desist
effective immediately. But yet when he was having visits
before he didn't have to sign a thing and the so called
rules were not nearly as overbearing. The CAS is doing
everything in their power to make excuses as to why my
husband should be refused his access and they are stalling
so that my mother can gain custody of our son.
All of this is because my mother wanted a little boy
and she got me instead. And I got to have the little boy
that she has always wanted with a family that she has
hated for the past twenty-seven years....
In the end it isn't really about a child's wellbing
it's about money and power over the less fortunate. Greed
is a very powerful thing...I just hope that my son and two
daughters can survive the backlash.
We'll just see how much the scorpion will sting when
it's under the heel of my boot!!!
Author's profile:
| Display name: | Crimson
| | Nickname: | Crimson_Sorrow_Forever
| | Gender: | Female
| | Age: | 27
| | Occupation: | CSR
| | Interests: | I love Anne RIce novels and Stephen King. I
like all kinds of music. I love to sing dance
write
| | More about me: | I'm a mother of three. I'm a student I work I
have a loving husband I'm wiccan I'm aspiring
to be an author and a Forensic Pathologst I
also tend to be a little over dramatic
sometimes ob kb I'm turning into a pumpkin
Blessed Be on Thy Journey! In Love and Light
let Trust and hope be with Thee!
| | Name: | April Willison
| | Home address: | Canada
| | Marital status: | In a relationship
|
Apprenticeship for Crime
March 7, 2007
A report acquired by the CBC says that Ontario's children's aid societies
act as apprenticeship programs for criminal behavior. No one will dare
suggest correcting the problem by leaving children with mom and dad.
Instead, we can soon expect calls for more money for CAS to improve group
homes.
expand
collapse
Kids see group homes as 'gateways to
jail': child advocate
Last Updated: Wednesday, March 7, 2007 | 7:46 AM
ET
CBC News
Almost half of Ontario's young offenders in detention
for minor crimes came through the child welfare system, a
report from the Office of Child and Family Service
Advocacy shows.
The trend is a concern for child advocates across the
country and Ontario Child Advocate Judy Finlay said many
of the province's young people are beginning to think of
group homes as "gateways to jail."
"We're taking them out of very difficult family
circumstances, bringing them into state care and then
we're charging them for their behaviour. It's very
concerning to me," Finlay said.
The report, which was obtained by CBC News, lays much
of the blame on group homes that rely too heavily on
police to resolve problems that could be handled by staff.
Kids have been charged for everything from refusing to
read a book or hitting someone with a tea towel, Finlay
said.
One group home in Ontario called police 400 times in a
single year.
Ontario is not the only province that needs to fix the
system, the report says. A sampling of facilities across
Canada found that 57 per cent of young offenders had a
connection to the child welfare system, the report said.
In British Columbia, a recent study put that number at 73
per cent.
While some teens acknowledge the more serious charges
may be warranted, they complain that too often, staff lack
the training to deal with troubled kids and resort to
calling police.
One teen, who can't be named under federal law, said
workers would often provoke him. After he was charged,
group home workers had an easy way to threaten him by
suggesting a breach of his bail or probation conditions
would mean a return to a young offenders facility.
"They threaten you and say you better read that book or
you're going back to jail. Come on, what kind of system
is this?" the teen said.
Finlay is calling on the province to collect data on
police calls from group homes and the charges that result.
She also wants to see a mental health worker attached to
each group home and higher standards for an industry that
costs taxpayers more than $200 million a year.
Addendum: Here is the start of a comment on this
subject by Carolyn Buck, Executive Director of Toronto Children's Aid:
The most recent aggregate provincial data shows that
15% of Crown wards under CAS’ care in Ontario were
charged under the Young Offender Act, now the Youth
Criminal Justice Act. This is not the overwhelming
majority as some critics report.
Young people come to us with an array of difficult
experiences. The scars left by the trauma of abuse go
well beyond skin deep and unspeakable acts leave indelible
impressions at the most vulnerable time in human
development.
This drivel requires us to go back to elementary arithmetic. Judy Finlay
divided the number of young offenders with CAS cases by the number of young
offenders (almost 50%), Carolyn Buck divided it by the number of crown wards
(15%). Of course the results are different. You are not lying, Mrs Buck,
you are just trying to fool us.
The second paragraph goes on to blame the failings of children in care on
the parents they were taken from. If that is so, why is the death rate in
foster care five times as high as parental care? The most common cause of
foster death for young children is "battered". How do parents batter their
kids in far-away foster homes? There are indeed unspeakable acts that leave
indelible impressions on children, but they come from the child protection
system itself.
CAS Harasses F4J Member
March 5, 2007
Fathers-4-Justice has had success in drawing press attention to the
injustices of family court, and consequently its members come under intense
scrutiny from agenicies with police power. This press release from Jeremy
Swanson gives more on the soldier, Ken Sandall, harassed by children's aid.
expand
collapse
CAS INVESTIGATES FORMER OTTAWA F4J COORDINATOR
In November 2006, the Ottawa office of the Children's
Aid Society (CAS) investigated the former Ottawa
Fathers-4-Justice (F4J) Coordinator for being a member of
that group. According to Ken Sandall and another source
who was interview by CAS, questions of Mr. Sandall's F4J
membership and activities were posed. An official CAS
document obtained clearly states that CAS had unverified
child protection concerns but pursued the investigation of
Mr. Sandall regardless.
While earlier acting in the position as Ottawa-area F4J
Coordinator, Mr. Sandall received emails from the CAS
making inquiries and demanding information about local F4J
policies and activities. When Mr. Sandall did not
comply, a damaging and defamatory child protection
investigation was launched against Mr. Sandall.
According to CAS, they received a mysterious, anonymous
complaint-which could not be verified-accusing Mr.
Sandall of many false allegations. However, according to
Mr. Sandall, CAS' investigation went far beyond the
issues and indications provided by this 'phantom' email
from an un-named source. The resulting CAS
interrogative-style interview of Mr. Sandall was focused
on his F4J membership and allegations that the CAS
investigator later admitted were not part of that
'phantom' email or any of the allegations contained
therein
Mr. Sandall's activities with F4J were limited at the
time of his service due to the fact that he is a current
serving member of the Canadian Forces. Mr. Sandall
supported F4J in a supportive, organizational and
administrative capacity. However, after three short
months, he was forced to resign as the F4J Ottawa
Coordinator for family reasons. Mr. Sandall states that
he was not bullied into leaving the F4J position, as the
decision was clearly family-orientated. He still
maintains his basic membership in F4J and other Fathers
and Family Rights groups.
Questioned Saturday Mr Sandall ventured "Is
participation in F4J or any other father's rights groups
illegal ? Does being a father's rights supporter
constitute a danger to children? CAS seems to think so "
he said.
Mr. Sandall tried to directly address the CAS
investigation from the local CAS Ottawa office up to the
CAS' provincial office in Toronto. He received no replies
to phone calls and emails and the official reaction
appears to ignore all attempts at communication in this
matter. Mr. Sandall has launched a complaint to CAS, as
well as his Member of Parliament and the Office of the
Ombudsman of Ontario.
"I fear that, CAS will attempt to 'find' and launch
another allegation against me in response to my complaint
and attempt at redress against them " said Mr Sandall.
-30-
| Contact:
| | Jeremy Swanson | (613) 237-1320 ext 2438
| | Ken Sandall | (613) 249-9470
cell (613) 794-7435
|
United Way Supports CAS
March 4, 2007
When you give a donation to the friendly folks who collect for the United
Way, you are supporting the same agency that separates parents and children
by force of arms. Here the United Way gives $198,990 to the Mutual Aid
Program for Parents, operated through the Children's Aid Society.
expand
collapse
United Way agencies get boost
By JENNIFER O'BRIEN, SUN MEDIA
[ Paragraphs not relating to Children's Aid
omitted. ]
Yesterday, dozens of community agencies found out
how much money they'll get this year from the United
Way of London and Middlesex as it released allocations
from its record $6.6-million fundraising campaign last
year.
Overall, United Way funding to member agencies will
rise to just more than $5 million this year, up from
$4.4 million last year.
Also, spending on United Way community services and
special programs will rise to nearly $1.63 million
from $1.4 million last year.
Yesterday's funding allocations lit up the office
for United Way staff, said Helen Connell, the local
chapter's executive director.
"There was a feeling of euphoria here today," she
said of the office at 409 King St.
"All day long, people have been coming in to find
out how much they are receiving . . . We get to see
the faces of the agencies and how appreciative they
are.
"It really feels good."
The Mutual Aid Program for Parents, operated
through the Children's Aid Society received a $55,000
boost, bringing its funding to $199,000 to support a
program that helps Spanish-speaking parents.
---
FUNDING ALLOCATIONS
- Across Languages, $32,000
- Big Brothers, $172,300
- Big Sisters, $211,951
- Boys' & Girls' Club, $421,000
- Canadian Hearing Society, $75,900
- Canadian Mental Health Association, $127,703
- CNIB, $210,670
- Changing Ways, $170,000
- Community Living London, $117,051
- Crouch Resource Centre, $109,480
- Epilepsy Support Centre, $100,000.
- Family Service Thames Valley, $401,626
- Girl Guides, $46,000
- Glen Cairn Community Resource Centre, $159,000
- Horton Street Seniors Centre, $70,650
- Hospice of London, $126,500
- John Howard Society, $318,654
- Learning Disabilities Association, $109,000.
- London Coffee House Program, $128,600
- London & District Distress Centre, $134,493
- London Intercommunity Health Centre, $78,655.
- London Interfaith Counselling Centre, $85,325.
- London Occupational Safety & Health, $90,866
- London Unemployment Health Centre, $153,855
- LUSO, $120,796
- Meals on Wheels, $79,000
- Mutual Aid Program for Parents, $198,990
- N'Amerind, $61,233
- Ontario March of Dimes, $94,785
- SARI, $35,500
- Scouts, $42,500
- Sexual Assault Centre, $60,855
- South London Neighbourhood Resource Centre, $104,794
- Stevenson Children's Camp, $93,730
- Next Wave Strathroy Youth Centre, $124,000
- Women's Rural Resource Centre, $58,013.
- London Y, $220,000
- Youth Action Centre, $66,500
Legal Whistleblower
March 2, 2007
Canada Court Watch has been approached by a whistleblower lawyer who
wants to expose the corruption in family courts.
expand
collapse
Lawyer calls for judicial inquiry into
dysfunctional family court system!
(March 2, 2007) - A long standing member of the Law
Society of Upper Canada contacted Court Watch recently and
stated that there is an urgent need for a full judicial
and/or Parliamentary inquiry into what this experienced
Law Society member believes is corruption and incompetence
within the family court system in Ontario. This lawyer
says that the current family court system is destroying
children and families and bleeding them dry of their
financial resources. This unnamed source has offered
Court Watch the opportunity to review documents and other
evidence to support this whistle-blower's allegations
about the system and will go on the public record soon
about his allegations. This lawyer has said, that in the
name of justice, the truth about the family court system
in Ontario must be made known to the people of Ontario and
that the family court system must be cleaned up from top
to bottom as it is bringing scorn and disrespect to the
entire legal profession and to those remaining lawyers in
other sectors of the law who still believe that it is
their duty to stand up to vigorously defend the principles
of truth and justice.
Mom and Daughter Jailed
March 2, 2007
A quip attributed to Mark Twain says: “It's no wonder that truth is
stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”
In this item, a mother who wants to be with her daughter, and a daughter
who wants to be with her mother are both in jail to keep them separated.
Since it is truth, it doesn't have to make sense.
expand
collapse
Originally published February 28, 2007
Amber Alert canceled — Missing girl OK,
mom arrested
By Lisa Roose-Church, DAILY PRESS & ARGUS
Submitted photo
Christina Renaud, the Howell-area girl who was the
subject of an Amber Alert, turned up unharmed Tuesday
at the Royal Oak Police Department. The girl's
mother, who is not her legal guardian, is in custody
on parental kidnapping charges.
The Livingston County Sheriff's Department said early
Wednesday that the Howell-area girl who was the subject of
an Amber Alert the prior day had turned up at a police
station unharmed.
Meanwhile, the girl’s mother, who is not her legal
guardian, was being held at the Livingston County Jail for
allegedly kidnapping her.
The girl — Christina Renaud, 16, of Oceola Township
— turned up OK at the Royal Oak Police Department on
Tuesday, the same day authorities in that community had
taken her mother, Debbie Renaud, into custody, the
Sheriff's Department said. Debbie Renaud lives in Royal
Oak.
Police say Debbie Renaud requested visitation with her
daughter last week and was to return the teen to her legal
guardian Sunday. But the teen didn't turn up or contact
her guardian as planned, and the Livingston County
prosecutor’s office on Tuesday authorized an arrest
warrant against Debbie Renaud for parental kidnapping.
Also, police issued an Amber Alert for Christina Renaud on
Tuesday.
Royal Oak police arrested the mother later in the day.
Christina Renaud was in protective custody with the
Sheriff’s Department this morning.
Sheriff's Detective Marc King is still investigating
the circumstances surrounding the teen's disappearance.
Contact Daily Press & Argus reporter Lisa
Roose-Church at (517) 552-2846 or at lrchurch@gannett.com.
Adoptions Don't Work
March 2, 2007
When an adoption is finalized, most jurisdictions issue a phony birth
certificate to the adoptee, listing the adoptive parents as mother and
father. These birth certificates are useless when it comes to protecting
the child from inherited genetic diseases. Another problem is that the
phony birth certificates are not recognized for citizenship purposes,
allowing an adult to unexpectedly become an illegal alien in his own country
— we reported on the case of Ruth Shaw. Here is a third problem — inheritance. Olive Watson
was the daughter of IBM magnate Thomas J Watson Jr (1914-1993). To ensure
her lesbian lover Patricia Spado shared in her inheritance she adopted Spado
as her daughter in 1991. The death of Watson's wife in 2004 activated a
provision in the will dividing his estate among his grandchildren. The
Watson family does not want Spado to get a share, and is challenging the
adoption.
So adopted children can be cut out of their health, citizenship and
inheritance. Once adopted children reach the age of majority, they are in
practice orphans again.
expand
collapse
IBM heirs battle 'my mother is my
girlfriend' cash claim
Big Blues see red over pink adoption
By Chris Williams
Published Thursday 1st March 2007 00:54 GMT
A lesbian woman who had a long term relationship with
one of the daughters of IBM president Thomas J. Watson Jr
is fighting for her right to a share of his legacy.
Patricia Spado lived with Olive Watson for more than 10
years until they separated in 1992. Watson adopted Spado
under Maine law in 1991. At 44 years old, Spado was one
year her senior.
The unusual arrangement was designed to circumvent
anti-gay marriage laws and allow Spado to become a legal
heir to the trust fund Thomas Watson Jr set up for his
grandkiddies, bringing the total number of beneficiaries
to 19.
When the couple separated, Olive Watson signed an
agreement with her ex stating: "I have not and that I
shall at no time initiate any action to revoke or annul my
adoption of you."
However, Thomas J. Watson's 18 grandchildren are
arguing that the fund, which was opened on his death in
1993, was aimed at blood relatives and that he had no
knowledge of the adoption.
Fund chief Thomas J. Watson III successfully
challenged the legality of the adoption in Connecticut,
where his father died. Spado is appealing that decision,
and is fighting another attempt by the trust to have the
adoption annulled in Maine.
If Spado is denied the millions, she could do worse
than get a job at IBM, which earlier this year topped a poll of the most fabulous places for gay
people to work. ®
US Jails Canadian Boy
March 1, 2007
A Canadian boy, and nearly 200 other children, are in jail in Texas. In
this case, the pretext is immigration. When children really need help,
there are no child protectors in sight.
expand
collapse
Truthdig
We’ll Lock Up Your Tired, Your Poor,
Your Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free
Posted on Feb 27, 2007
By Amy Goodman
“I want to be free. I want to go outside, and I want
to go to school,” pleaded a 9-year-old boy, on the phone
from prison. This prison wasn’t in some far-off
country, some dictatorship where one would expect children
to be locked up. He is imprisoned in the United States.
The boy, Kevin, is imprisoned in Taylor, Texas, at the
T. Don Hutto Residential Facility. His parents are also
locked up there. The tale of how this family became
imprisoned is just one example of how broken our
immigration policies are in this country. It is a tale of
children left behind, of family values locked up, of your
tax dollars at work.
The parents are Iranian and spent 10 years in Canada
seeking asylum. Kevin, their son, was born in Canada
during that time. Their request for asylum was eventually
denied, and they were deported back to Iran. Majid, the
father, said he and his wife were jailed and tortured
there. They soon fled to Turkey and bought Greek
passports. They hoped to reapply for asylum in Canada,
armed with proof of the torture they suffered in Iran.
On a plane back to Canada, a fellow passenger suffered
a heart attack, requiring an unscheduled landing in Puerto
Rico. Although they never had any intention of entering
the U.S., because the plane touched down here, their
passports were questioned and they were detained. The
family was shipped off to Hutto. They have been there for
more than three weeks.
Immigration detention places the family in a legal
limbo that could leave them imprisoned indefinitely,
perhaps only to be deported back to more torture in Iran.
This shameful practice of locking up children is bad
enough. What’s worse is that it is being done for
profit, by the Corrections Corp. of America. CCA is the
largest publicly traded private prison operator in the
U.S. CCA has close to 70 facilities scattered across the
country, recent earnings of $1.33 billion and a gain in
its stock-share price of 85 percent in the past year.
Industry analysts gush at the profit potential promised by
private prisons. Their commodity: human beings.
A recent report issued jointly by two nonprofit
agencies—the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and
Children and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee
Service—titled “Locking Up Family Values: The
Detention of Immigrant Families,” paints a grim picture
of the conditions these families endure. While in 2005
Congress directed the Department of Homeland Security and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain families in
“non-penal, homelike environments,” the report details
how prisonlike the Hutto facility is. While ICE announced
Hutto as a new facility, it was formerly a prison.
Children as young as 6 are separated from their
parents, kept in prison cells with heavy steel doors
equipped with a sensitive laser alarm system. The
children wear prison uniforms. They get one hour of
school per day and one hour of recreation. All non-lawyer
visits are “non-contact,” through a Plexiglas window
speaking over a phone, to obviate the “necessity” of a
full-body cavity search after each visit. Yet the
chairman of the CCA board of directors, William Andrews,
begs to differ: “The reports come from special-interest
groups that are attempting to do away with privatization
and the whole immigration situation. ... The family
facility, particularly, at T. Don Hutto is almost like a
home.” Recent reports put the total number of children
at Hutto at between 170 and 200.
Close to a year after massive pro-immigrant marches
occurred in every major U.S. city, immigration policy
remains broken, with sensational crackdowns on
undocumented workers, a planned multibillion-dollar wall
along the U.S.-Mexico border and more than 26,000
immigrants in prison.
CCA stock is up but the spirits of 9-year-old Kevin are
down as he languishes in his federally funded private
prison cell. He wants to go home to Canada, where he was
born. U.S. immigration officials now hold his fate and
that of his parents: deportation to possible torture in
Iran, or political asylum and a possible return to Canada.
With a Congress obsessed with nonbinding resolutions and
the Bush administration that brought you Abu Ghraib and
the Maher Arar deportation scandal, the prospects for
Kevin and his parents are grim at best.
Amy Goodman is host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily
international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in
North America.
Addendum: Alex Jones calls this a concentration
camp, since it holds people not for wrongdoing, but for being a member of a
group.
Addendum: The boy Kevin and his family were
returned to Canada on March 21. The camp remains in operation.
expand
collapse
Canadian boy, parents arrive in Toronto
after Texas prison stay
Last Updated: Thursday, March 22, 2007 | 7:41 AM ET,
CBC News
A nine-year-old Canadian boy and his Iranian parents
arrived safely in Toronto on Wednesday night after being
held for six weeks in a Texas detention centre.
"Thank you for everybody who helped us," Kevin
Yourdkhani said, clutching his bags at Toronto's Pearson
International Airport.
Masomeh Alibegi holds up immigration papers as she
walks with nine-year-old son Kevin Yourdkhani and his
father Majid after arriving at a Toronto airport on
Wednesday.Masomeh Alibegi holds up immigration papers
as she walks with nine-year-old son Kevin Yourdkhani
and his father Majid after arriving at a Toronto
airport on Wednesday. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
Kevin and his parents, Majid Yourdkhani and Masomeh
Alibegi, flew into the airport from Houston, landing in
Toronto at about 5:45 p.m. ET. The couple had tears in
their eyes after leaving the plane.
The family was allowed to come to Canada after
Immigration and Citizenship Minister Diane Finley agreed
to give them temporary residency permits two weeks ago.
The permits arrived in Texas on Monday.
Finley said she granted the permits in the best
interest of the boy. The family is now trying to claim
refugee status.
Kevin's parents arrived in Canada 10 years ago seeking
asylum, but were unsuccessful and deported to Iran in
December 2005. Kevin was born when they lived in Canada.
The parents said they faced torture in Iran and made
another attempt to seek refuge in Canada with the use of
stolen Greek passports.
But on a flight to Toronto from Guyana on Feb. 4, a
passenger suffered a heart attack and died, resulting in
the plane being diverted to Puerto Rico.
U.S. officials discovered their false documents and
detained them for five days before sending them to the T.
Don Hutto detention centre near Austin, Texas. The
converted medium-security prison has been condemned by
human rights groups and is the subject of a lawsuit by the
American Civil Liberties Union.
The family said living in the centre was awful.
"It was miserable condition they had over there," Majid
Yourdkhani said, standing by his wife as he spoke to
reporters at the Toronto airport.
"There are almost 200 children that live there in very
bad conditions. Now most of the children there have
chicken pox, eye infections, flu."
His wife said the family is relieved to be back in
Canada, and young Kevin said he can now resume his life in
Toronto.
"I will go back to my school, to my teachers," the boy
said.
earlier news
| |
|
