Another Outrage from Child Protection Services

Emial | 10/17/05 | Mark I. Johnson

[Carry_Okie]

Interested Parents,

Tuesday, October 18th at the Biltmore Hotel & Conference Center – 7:00 – 8:30pm, we are holding a meeting to inform, educate, and rally the public around the egregious abuse of power by the Santa Clara Social Services, Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) – Child Protective Services (CPS) as they attempt to rip my family, and many others apart. The Biltmore is located just south of Montague Expressway, east of highway 101 at 2151 Laurelwood Rd, Santa.

At issue are three key points that will be of interest to you as a parent:

1. Our rights as parents to raise and educate our children as we deem appropriate within the law, free from the harassment and abuse of Social Services,

2. Our rights as adoptive parents / families to seek and utilize resources that will help solidify the bonds of attachment which are essential to a successful adoption, and

3. The need for change in the policies of DFCS that will position them to embrace and support families rather than vilify parents and destroy families.

Synopsis of our Situation – The Johnson Family (my family) - is currently under siege by the Santa Clara Social Services, Department of Children and Family Services (DFCS) – Child Protective Services group (sometimes referred to as Emergency Response). The department’s intense interest in my family stems from an allegation of child abuse related to our oldest son who was adopted at birth, and who suffers from drug and alcohol abuse in-utero and a condition called Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). It is my understanding that the mother of a baby sitter made the report after talking with her daughter who has never met my adopted son, and only sat one time for my two younger children for one day in our home. The sitter observed inconsistencies the furnishing of my oldest son’s room and observed the smell of urine. On this basis this, the mother, who has never met any member of my family, or stepped foot in our home, or discussed the circumstances surrounding our son, reported us to the police as child abusers.

Because we are home schoolers, we initially consulted the HSLDA who advised us not to allow CPS into our home or to interview our children unsupervised. We were further advised to seek the services of a local attorney to ensure that our rights as parents were not violated as we work to clear our names related to the allegations of child abuse, which we did.

The DFCS, as a result of our refusal to allow them to interrogate our young children without supervision, together with the fact that we home school and therefore they are unable to gain access to our children without our permission (as is commonly done when children attend school outside of the home), went to court and swore out a Protective Custody Warrant to force themselves into our home, to have their way with our children, and to remove my oldest son into their protective custody. Today, my wife and children are in hiding to protect our family, in a location not even know to me, while I have been engaged in a very distressing and disruptive court battle in an effort to have the Protective Custody Warrant quashed, a request that was denied last Friday.

To date, no one at DFCS has been interested in understanding our unique parenting needs, the resources we have used and the third parties who can speak to quality of our parenting, and love that we have for of all of our children. Their action, based on our stance of “tell us what you are concerned about so we can give you reasonable access to our family to resolve them”, has been to take the child and ask questions later. They have leveraged the courts in this effort.

Since DFCS has no interest, nor apparent requirements to ascertain the facts before they have ripped our family apart, we’ve decided to share them with you. Perhaps when you speak out someone in the agency will finally listen to how they are about to destroy yet another family in an effort to “protect” a child that does not need protection and initiate policy based changes. This is why I urge you to come out Tuesday evening! This is a completely free event paid for out of my paycheck.

Thank you for your support,

Mark I. Johnson

[absolootezer0]

CPS didn't come into existance for middle class people. it was for your stereotypical trailer trash, ghetto trash, junkies, hookers, projects dwellers.. basicly the welfare class. and according to my friend in CPS here, most of the removals aren't even for abuse. its usually for living enviroment. cases where mommy is too busy turning tricks to pay for her habit, or the redneck who lets his dog crap in the house. or maybe the neighbor is irritated because someones cat dug up her flower garden so she made up a story.

[hopespringseternal]

There is a fact of life that trips up all bureaucracies like CPS, and it is referred to in post 321: Only half the country needs this preponderance of government nannies.

The nannies don't like people who don't need them, who presume to be wiser than their wisdom, who are too independent, too self-reliant, too self-controlled and self-ordered.

They do like their wards: The abusers, alcoholics, drug addicts, indigent, lazy, unemployed, unwed mothers, whiners, and assorted ne'er-do-wells. These affirm the existence of the bureaucracy and its employees.

So when these bureaucrats encounter someone who is their better, who pays their salary but has absolutely no use for their services, they lash out. They want to believe the whole world needs them and they aren't just meant for people who really just need a good whipping until they shape up. So in their eyes, everyone is as bad as the worst.

That is why they extend all mercy and grace to people who really are abusing kids and bring wrath and destruction on families where no abuse is present. Abusers are theirs and comprise us to CPS, middle class America has no use for CPS and therefore is them in the mind of CPS and its ilk.

We aren't their tribe and they will take every opportunity to raid and plunder our villages. This is the psychology that drives much of their machinations.

[Carry_Okie]

An excellent analysis, and yet another reason to restructure the system. I have long said that CPS exists to recruit new customers for the welfare state. They're effective in that respect.

The damage done to children when they are taken from a home, even when the conditions are awful, is too often more destructive to their sense of belonging and continuity than the public realizes. I've been there. The juvenile court broke up our family and split me away from my brother, mom, and her new boyfriend over forty years ago. It may have been for the best, but the transistion has long term impacts upon a child that are not well understood or quantifiable.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I totally agree that CPS agencies should be brought under the umbrella of law enforcement, probably state police. They do need the right to remove children from a situation quickly when they perceive imminent danger -- even a very prompt court proceeding leaves plenty of time for an abuser to either disappear with the children, or terrify them into denying any abuse. CPS workers aren't the only people who coach children in making certain statements, but abusive parents often "coach" with violence or threats of violence ("Watch me torture your beloved kitty to death." Now see, that's what I'll do to you if you tell.")

The issue of trauma to children by the removal -- especially if the removal turns out not to have been warranted -- is a big one, and it hasn't been addressed properly IMO. There need to be supervised shelters where the entire family can be taken, pending the outcome of any court proceedings seeking permanent or long-term removal of the child from the parents. Yes, it would cost money, but probably not significantly more than the foster homes and field social workers who currently supervise removed children. And the benefit to children would be immense. When parents are found to have been the target of false or seriously exaggerated accusations, the child has never been separated from the parents. And when the parents are found guilty as hell, and the children are subsequently separated from them, there would at least have been a transitional period to lessen the trauma, and obviously child counselors and psychiatrists should be available at these shelters. If parents decline the offer to accompany their children to a temporary shelter, that would be a pretty good indication that removal of the child is warranted (e.g. meth and heroin addicts won't agree to move to a supervised situation where they won't be able to get their fixes).

However, proposals for improvement don't really have any bearing on the question of whether the removal of the child who is the subject of your post, is warranted or not. Neither you nor I have anywhere near all the facts, and it's quite likely that the court which approved the removal warrant had more facts than we do. And it's not clear that being rushed off to a hiding place and having their normal routine (and presumably their father) suddenly vanish and the paranoia of "We can't let them find us" added to the disruption, is any less traumatic than removal to a foster home would have been. And if the original charges are deemed by the court to be unfounded, the route the father chose is likely to result in a much longer disruption to their lives.

[Carry_Okie]

I totally agree that CPS agencies should be brought under the umbrella of law enforcement, probably state police. They do need the right to remove children from a situation quickly when they perceive imminent danger -- even a very prompt court proceeding leaves plenty of time for an abuser to either disappear with the children, or terrify them into denying any abuse.

I don't buy "quickly." Even in the case of the lady who just dumped her kids in San Francisco Bay, CPS had plenty of time to obtain proper evidence for a hearing. The system knew she was nuts and did nothing. The numbers confirm that is no justification for abuse of power that isn't covered by conventional criminal law.

However, proposals for improvement don't really have any bearing on the question of whether the removal of the child who is the subject of your post, is warranted or not. Neither you nor I have anywhere near all the facts, and it's quite likely that the court which approved the removal warrant had more facts than we do.

There is no indication of immediate threat of serious bodily harm. The statistical likelihood is so low as to be virtually non-existent. As far as psychological harm is concerned, nothing the parents could do in the time it would take to hold an evidentiary consultation with the parents and their witnesses is so severe as the threat of trauma to the child by taking possession of him by force. Nothing.

And if the original charges are deemed by the court to be unfounded, the route the father chose is likely to result in a much longer disruption to their lives.

False premise. It would have taken but a few days to consult the parents and their agents. This case has already gone on for two weeks.

[GovernmentShrinker]

If the parents had responded to the first visit by politely asking the CPS workers to get a warrant, and then let them in for a look around when they came back with a warrant, it porbably only would have taken one day, and the children wouldn't have been removed from their home by anyone. Unless, that is, the parents really do have something to hide.

[Carry_Okie]

If the parents had responded to the first visit by politely asking the CPS workers to get a warrant, and then let them in for a look around when they came back with a warrant, it porbably only would have taken one day, and the children wouldn't have been removed from their home by anyone. Unless, that is, the parents really do have something to hide.

Your understanding of the facts is in error. The police were called in to take the child before the parents were notified of a warrant BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T GET TO THEM AT A PUBLIC SCHOOL AND TAKE THEM IF THEY SO CHOOSE WITHOUT NOTIFYING THE PARENTS as they usually can. Get it out of your head that parents harm their kids so routinely that procedures such as you envision are necessary.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I don't care how rare serious child abuse is, we still need a system for emergency intervention. We all agree the current system needs some major changes. But nobody on this thread really knows whether or not this particular child's situation warranted immediate removal.

[Carry_Okie]

I don't care how rare serious child abuse is, we still need a system for emergency intervention.

We have one. It's called probable cause or a warrant for arrest for a crime. If a crime is in progress, make an arrest. There is no justification for trashing the Bill of Rights in the name of expediency.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Arresting the alleged criminal isn't the first priority when a child is believed to be in serious danger. Arrests, even of people accused of very violent crimes, are usually followed by the prompt release of the accused on bail. Not really a helpful procedure, when the accusation is of child abuse, and the accused is just briefly arrested and then sent straight home again.

We don't know what transpired the first time CPS visited the house an requested entry without a warrant. If they said they would seek a warrant and then return, and the father responded with threats to forcibly defy the warrant and/or to hide the child before they got back, then it was reasonable for police to arrive with the warrant and simultaneously seize the children. The CPS and police had gone to court and obtained a warrant to do what they did. Neither you nor I know what evidence they may have presented to the court in support of their request, so we can't know whether it was reasonable for the court to issue the warrant.

It is not standard procedure to give suspected criminals advance notice of warrants to arrest them or to enter their home or business and seize materials as evidence, especially when there is reason to believe that they may try to flee or destroy/hide evidence. Why should this principle not apply to suspected child abuse cases? The father has now had a hearing, and his move to quash the warrant was denied. He was unable to provide evidence that the court found more compelling than the state's evidence. His hiding of the children did not help his case. I don't see how we can have anymore due process than this. Yes, due process is sometimes deliberately perverted by judges and prosecutors, but that is unavoidable and hardly unique to child abuse cases. That's what we have appellate courts for.

[Carry_Okie]

Arresting the alleged criminal isn't the first priority when a child is believed to be in serious danger.

I don't care what your fantasy justification is for trashing the Bill of Rights, because it is IN FACT a fantasy. If the behavior of the parents does not warrant arrest, then the likelihood of the efficacy of protective custody is vanishingly small, even in inner cities. The massive problem you imply justifies such action DOES NOT EXIST. You should change your screen name, BTW, it does not befit your preferences.

The myth upon which you rely is no different than the early stories that came out of New Orleans. We all believed them, because we internally understood the disaster the welfare state has made of the black family. In fact, before any of that massive program to rear more indentured Democrat constituents arose, the black family had a lower rate of divorce and illegitimacy than did whites. What you are seeing and using as justification is, in large part, the PRODUCT of a government social services system. The consequences are inherent to any socialized commons: the asset that justifies its existence. No amount of "we Republicans can do it better" will EVER fix that fact. It is time to shut it down, bury it, and start over.

We don't know what transpired the first time CPS visited the house an requested entry without a warrant.

Get it through your thick skull (because I have written this at least three times), CPS has never visited that house. A case worker requested a warrant on the basis of the initial notification from the mother of the sitter, relying upon NOTHING more than hearsay from a teenage kid detailing an empty room and the smell of urine.

If they said they would seek a warrant and then return, and the father responded with threats to forcibly defy the warrant and/or to hide the child before they got back, then it was reasonable for police to arrive with the warrant and simultaneously seize the children.

Your little fantasy here didn't happen. The warrant was issued from the bench upon receipt of the request from the case worker. The police then went to the house. The mother saw the cars and kept driving until she could find out what was happening.

Neither you nor I know what evidence they may have presented to the court in support of their request, so we can't know whether it was reasonable for the court to issue the warrant.

I know what witnesses, including others than the Johnsons, told me. These include home school families who live on the same street and often visit with those kids. It's better than CPS has got.

It is not standard procedure to give suspected criminals advance notice of warrants to arrest them or to enter their home or business and seize materials as evidence, especially when there is reason to believe that they may try to flee or destroy/hide evidence.

In a CPS taking there is often no crime involved at all. It's a civil case backed by police power, a concept so far from the powers granted to any government by the Constitution as to be laughable.

The father has now had a hearing, and his move to quash the warrant was denied. He was unable to provide evidence that the court found more compelling than the state's evidence.

I am told he was not allowed to offer ANY evidence. The ruling was strictly upon the basis of whether the warrant had complied with procedure.

His hiding of the children did not help his case.

That's not what the other parents in the audience whose kids were abducted have said, nor did the lady who used to run that CPS office. IMO, his chances of getting justice were so low as to warrant his choice. It's that far out of control.

I don't see how we can have anymore due process than this.

A pure strawman of your own concoction.

[GovernmentShrinker]

"The DFCS, as a result of our refusal to allow them to interrogate our young children without supervision,"

This excerpt from the father's own account of events, clearly indicates that he had some contact, either in person or over the phone, with DCFS, before they sought, obtained, and exercised a warrant. You seem to think the babysitter's mother called police, and with no further ado, DCFS got a warrant and headed for the house with police to grab the kids. This is not the case. That the father skims over his initial contact with DCFS, does not suggest that the content of that contact was insignificant. I suspect that it's very significant, and that's why he's leaving out any details. The mother already knew police were coming for the kids, before she saw them in her rearview mirror. That's why she already had them in the car.

That's not what the other parents in the audience whose kids were abducted have said

Just how many parents in your neighborhood have had children "abducted" by DCFS? I know it does happen, but large clusters within a small area sure are uncommon. If there really is an out of control DCFS in your area, that has been grabbing kids without good reason for some time, why haven't some of these parents mounted a serious legal challenge? Individual parents challenging these things are often fighting an impossibly steep uphill battle, but a sizeable group doing a class action suit, should be able to rectify the problem. HSLDA should be quite eager to take on such a suit. Unless of course, the "abductions" really were warranted, and the area just has an unusually high concentration of dangerously wacko parents.

[BoneHead]

Rodney, check your reading skills.

The sitter told her mother. Her mother (not the childs birth mother) called cps.

You've repeated the same mistake twice.

[runningbear]

ya know, once upon a time I attended some meetings back in the late 1980's because Santa Clara County Social Services were pending a grand jury process. There is an attorney over on Taylor and I think the cross street is Elm but right near The Alameda who was or is familiar to these stories. (I'm out of town, so I don't have access to a phone book for the address.) His law office is there. The group was called something like Concerned Parents of ??? And I can't remember the rest.. But from my understanding, if there is a complaint, then the best avenue to take is to have an attorney represent you, your family and if CPS needs to interview, then it to be done at the attorney's office. (that alone intimidates those social workers) I had met a very great CPS worker back then, but she has long retired. She helped me most when my son's elementary school sent my son home from school sick to a former babysitter w/o telling me. I then panicked, not knowing what happened, and where my son was? No one had answers from the school. So, I called her, (I was near breakdown thinking someone took my son, and she got on the 'horn' and gave answers within mins.) The best avenue I took was consulting with that attorney as a single parent back then. Schools do funny things..

Reading this story title brought back memories.... ;o)

[calcowgirl]

Lots of reading skill improvement is required on this thread. Despite this statement (#138) by Carry_Okie,

...he does not use the violent methods about which you posted.

posters went on to post about 'quack diagnoses', 'quack therapies', and quack therapists that happened to operate in the city (by name, no less), despite none of the above being part of the situation presented, all the while ignoring the focus of the post which was Parents rights and the overreaching practices of DCFS.

Best wishes for your friend, C.O.

[Carry_Okie]

^{Photo by MARTIN JIMENEZ}

Madison Fort watches Shrek 2 with her half-brother, Noah, 2, babysitting him Sunday morning. Madison was Noah's age when her custody ordeal began.

A state-sanctioned nightmare
For four years, couple fought to get their child back after an abusive relative lied to authorities about alleged child molestation

By KATE WOODS
Pinnacle Staff Writer

Reporter's note: I met Molly and Nathan Fort for the first in 1998, as they wept together in a Hollister supermarket. The couple, barely in their 20s, had spotted an aide for then-Assemblyman Peter Frusetta and stood in a check-out aisle as they implored her to help them regain custody of their 2-year-old child. The aide said neither she nor the assemblyman could do anything for them. After the aide skirted away, I — being a green but curious cub reporter — approached the Forts, their eyes brimming with tears, to ask what was wrong. What poured forth was a horror story about how social workers had taken away their daughter, Madison, based on a child molestation allegation made by Molly's father, the Rev. Mike Mewborn.

            I promised I would do what I could to write about their plight, but the story proved to be impossible to tell. It involved a minor, sealed files, ongoing closed court hearings that not even Nathan was allowed to attend -- and no one on either side, including the Forts, I discovered, was allowed to discuss the case.

Over the years, Nathan and I kept in touch, somehow. We spoke briefly over the phone once a year or so, and the upshot was always the same: they weren't ready to tell their story, not yet. Two weeks ago, I received a final call from Nathan: their ordeal had ended, finally. This is their story.

 – Kate Woods

 

            It's an unfathomable notion for a parent: an unstable relative who continues to make sexual innuendos around your toddler calls social workers to tell them you have abused your child. Suddenly, your child is gone, and she ends up in the hands of that very relative, and you are branded as a child molester. And it's all very legal.

            That is exactly what happened to a young, religious Hollister couple, Nathan and Molly Fort, in early 1998. After conducting what was later deemed by the court to be an improper interview with their 2-year-old daughter Madison, San Benito County Child Protective Services gave custody of the little girl to the man described in court documents as the child's drug-addled biological father who, according to Molly, wanted nothing to do with Madison the moment she was conceived.

It was a decision based on what was revealed years later to be false allegations by Molly's obsessive father that Nathan had molested his own stepchild. Molly's father, the Rev. Mike Mewborn of what was then the Prunedale Community Church, was the man leveling what were found to be false charges.

Not long after that, Madison was given to Robert Devenecia, her biological father. Mewborn convinced Devenecia to move in with him – and to bring Madison with him.

            "It changes you forever," Nathan said. "We will never be the same people we were."

Many believe there are safeguards built into the system to prevent an injustice.

            Not in San Benito, at least not in 1998.

            The official closing of the Fort case last week launched a change of policy in Child Protective Services agencies in San Benito and eight other rural counties in the state that, like San Benito, still were using similarly defective procedures that allowed Madison to be torn from her parents. The settlement agreement does not specify the names of the counties that will undergo special training for their CPS workers.

It took four long years for the couple to get their child back and another two to reap a glimmer of justice from the powers that be. In the end, the county not only was ordered to restore the child to her family, but it also had to pony up $1.25 million in damages and write out a letter of apology to the Forts.

            Despite the favorable rulings for the Forts made by the Court of Appeals and the Northern District Federal Court in San Jose, and despite the money the Forts won, the ordeal took its toll on the couple. Only time will tell what effect the tug-a-war had on Madison, now 8.

            "Money was not our goal," said Molly. "Our goal was to stop the people who did this to us from doing it to anyone else."

            "But no one got fired," Nathan added. "This town is a cesspool of corruption."

            Actually, one county employee involved in the case did get fired. County Counsel Karen Forcum was fired by the new Board of Supervisors in February, seven months before the Forts suit against the county was settled. However, Forcum was fired for her ineffectiveness in an onslaught of cases against the county, board members said at the time, not necessarily for her complicity in the Fort case.

            Forcum has moved from the area, and those she left behind at the County Counsel's office declined to say where she is.

 

Two houses divided

            Speaking for the first time about their ordeal, Molly and Nathan appeared much older than they did in 1998 when their troubles began. The two have aged a bit beyond their years, though they are both only 27; they appear sadder and wiser for the experience. As the parents sat on a plush couch in the living area of the Fort family mansion near Hollister, once a happy, rich haven for four generations of Forts, Madison monitored her 2-year-old baby brother, Noah, in the spacious kitchen.

            Molly and Nathan met in 1995 at a church-sponsored skating party in Salinas, where Molly's family lived. Molly was only 18 but already a single mom. She bore Madison when she was 17; the father, Robert Devenecia, was 20 when Madison came into the world but he initially paternity and refused to accept any parental responsibility for the child, according to court documents filed by the Fort attorneys.

            At the time he met Molly, Nathan was destined for a children's pastoral college in San Antonio, Texas. Nathan's parents, Robert and Esther Fort, are both ordained ministers.

            "Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to be a kids' pastor," Nathan said.

While the Fort family in Hollister was strong, well off and stable, Molly's family was conversely weak – at least emotionally. She had a tumultuous relationship with her father, Rev. Mewborn, who screeched fire and brimstone during Molly's childhood and continued his tirades after Madison was born.

"He use to call me a slut and a whore when ... I was just in sixth grade," Molly said, visibly pained from the memories. "He would say really vulgar things to me."

            It seems the only thing the families had in common was a deep faith in God.

While Nathan and Molly were dating, he and his parents became increasingly concerned for Molly and Madison's physical safety and emotional welfare. A month after Nathan and Molly were engaged, when Madison was 1, Mewborn kicked his daughter and the child out of the house. The Forts offered the young mother and daughter a guesthouse next to their mansion on the Fort estate on Union Road. But, apparently, it wasn't far enough away to escape the wrath of Molly's father.

After Nathan and Molly were married, and after Nathan bonded with Madison as her new father, Mewborn began popping up unannounced at the Fort home and making scenes, they allege. At one point, according to court statements from Fort attorney Robert Powell of San Jose, Mewborn stood outside the front door and demanded that the couple relinquish "his daughter" (Madison) to him, and that Madison had "tried to hump me," he claimed, according to court filings.

It was the final straw for the young couple. Up until then they allowed Mewborn and his wife visitations with Madison, but her father's behavior and statements led to Molly's decision to suspend Madison's overnight visits to her father's home. When the Forts obtained a restraining order against him, Mewborn flew into a rage, resulting in another confrontation in front of the Fort home with the preacher screaming. The Forts called the county sheriff, and while deputies were taking Mewborn away he continued to scream obscenities along with a claim that Nathan was molesting Madison. The deputies ignored his claim, believing the man was unstable. Several years later Mewborn was in court attempting to sue the county and the sheriff's deputies, claiming police misconduct and unlawful arrest. After Mewborn was caught lying on the stand, the judge dismissed the case as "frivolous" and the jury was dismissed.

            Moments after Mewborn got out of jail, the same day he was arrested, he called Child Protective Services and made a claim against Nathan.

 

Improper procedure, conflicts

On April 25, 1998, social worker Rebecca Ochoa-Perez of the county's Child Protective Services, or CPS, came to the Fort home with a foreboding message: "someone" had made an accusation against Nathan and the agency would like to interview Madison.

            Good, thought Nathan, this will finally be over. We'll clear this up once and for all and get Molly's father out of our lives with the help of the local government.

            But after another social worker, Lucy Perez, interviewed Madison alone for three hours at the CPS office, the Forts got the shock of their lives. Perez told them that Madison had made a disclosure about Nathan – though she would not give any details. It wasn't until half a year later that Perez finally told the Forts what Madison supposedly had told her: "Daddy touched my pee-pee." It turned out Ochoa-Perez, the original social worker on the case, was taken off the matter by CPS supervisor Donna Elmhurst when the Forts arrived at the office with Madison. While Ochoa-Perez had a master's degree in social work, Perez did not have any degree – not even a license from the state. It would take months before the Forts would find out why Elmhurst switched caseworkers.

            Don Cox, attorney for the Forts, says Perez admitted on the stand later that she broke CPS rules after claiming Madison had made the disclosure about Nathan in the "first 10 minutes" of the interview. But had that been the case, federal law requires social workers to stop interviews the moment a disclosure is made, bring in witnesses and videotape the rest of the interview. Perez did none of that until she was hours into the interview.

            Perez still works at CPS in San Benito. When asked about the Fort case, Perez said, "I don't have much knowledge about it." After a few awkward moments, Perez added, "I'm not even supposed to talk to the press," then shortly after ended the call.

            But there were worse violations enacted by CPS, an appeals court ultimately found. Elmhurst, the supervisor who had switched caseworkers on the Forts, was an active member of Rev. Mewborn's Prunedale church. Before Madison was taken away from her parents, Mewborn often made threats against the couple, according to court documents.

            Attorney Robert Powell, one of three on the Forts' side, wrote in a brief for the courts that no agency in San Benito took Mewborn seriously – not the District Attorney, law enforcement nor the Victim's Witness Program – no agency except CPS. "...This was because Donna Elmhurst, a member of Rev. Mewborn's church, interceded on Mewborn's behalf," wrote Powell. He goes on to say that the Forts documented numerous threats from the reverend, "including, ‘I can have your child taken away from you anytime I want,' specifically stating that he could use Donna Elmhurst for this task."

Elmhurst declined to be interviewed for this story.

A panel of appeals judges in San Jose agreed that Madison was wrongfully removed from the Fort family. In 2002, Madison was awarded back to her mother and surrogate father, Nathan.

            But for the four years before the ruling, life was hell for the Forts.

 

‘Like Nazi Germany'

            All Nathan Fort had to do was admit that he had molested Molly, and CPS said they would give her back to the family.

            Instead, neither Molly nor Nathan would admit to the lie. Within a month after Molly was awarded to her biological father, Devenecia, who admitted in court he was a drug user and whose police records show he had been arrested for petty theft. Nathan paid to take a polygraph test and passed it with flying colors. He even offered to move out of the state if the social workers would only give Madison back to Molly. But since Molly would not "admit" that her husband was a child molester either, CPS would only allow Madison to visit her mother if Nathan moved out of the Fort family mansion. In addition, all signs of his existence had to be removed from the house, such as framed family photos.

            "Molly and Nathan were never willing to admit what CPS said they had done," attorney Cox said. "If they had rolled over they could have gotten Molly back. That's the outrageous part."

            "It was like Nazi Germany," Nathan said. "I was guilty before proven innocent."

            In fact, Nathan was never charged with any crime against Madison or anyone else. He had a spotless record, at least legally. That didn't stop his church, the First Presbyterian Church in Hollister, from asking him to leave the congregation. Nathan said he went into a deep depression, ballooned up to 300 pounds. Still, he made his living as a project manager for a national retail furniture maker. At the court hearings, Nathan wasn't allowed to defend himself because he wasn't Madison's biological father. He wasn't even allowed to enter the courtroom. The crowning insult was when he received a letter from the county informing he was about to be placed on a national list of known sexual predators.

            "I was only 19 and my life was ruined," Nathan said. "If we would have died and someone had explained to Madison that we had died, it would have been better."

In the meantime, Molly was given visitation rights, finally, but noticed Madison was doing poorly in school. She had failing grades, would not play with other children, and gained a lot of weight like her surrogate father had. At that time Madison was living with Devenecia, who moved Madison and himself into Mewborn's home at the reverend's insistence.

            "Emotionally, she was like a little cement fortress," Molly said, trying to hold back a torrent of tears for having to bring up the bad memories. "Everything she said was monotone. There was no happy. There was no sad. There was nothing."

            "Even though there was a restraining order against Mewborn, the county allowed Madison to live with the Mewborns!" said Cox. "Madison spent four years in jail. They placed this little girl with the only two people they knew (Devenecia and Mewborn) to do inappropriate things with this little girl."

 

A CPS witness turns evidence

            In 2002, after the San Jose appeals court reversed San Benito Superior Judge Tom Breen's decision, the Forts won their daughter back. In 2003, the couple decided they never wanted to see this happen to anyone else and sued San Benito County for the suffering and damage it had caused.

            One of the defendants in the civil tort suit was U.S. Army Capt. Paul Peterland, a veteran of both Gulf wars, but then a CPS social worker who was placed on the Fort case.

            "Captain Peterland ultimately decided that telling the truth was more important than covering up the malfeasance in the case," Cox said.

            Cox said that under oath and during depositions, Peterland told of a sordid tale fraught with conspiracy. Donna Elmhurst, Peterland's supervisor and friend to Rev. Mewborn, told Peterland she was recusing herself from the case for a conflict of interest – and then proceeded to do the opposite. Elmhurst wrote five petitions for Mewborn, the accuser, and constantly interceded in the case. Eventually, she purged Peterland's notes from the file, he testified.

            "At this point he was convinced she (Elmhurst) was talking to someone in this case, and it's not a stretch to imagine it was Mewborn," Cox said. "I don't know what the hold is but apparently Mewborn did have a hold over her."

When Peterland went to see County Counsel Karen Forcum on the matter, Forcum left her office, came back with Elmhurst's supervisor at her side and told Peterland he was no longer on the case. He could go home now.

In his depositions, Peterland said he was told that Nathan was the object of the investigation.

            Peterland later left the agency to fight a second war in the Middle East, and became a specialist in interrogations. When he received notice he was about to be sued along with a parade of other social workers and county heads over what had happened to the Forts, he flew home to tell the truth, said Cox.

 

You can never go home

            Today, Donna Elmhurst is no longer with the county's CPS. Instead she is head of the county's Adult Protective Services, which deals with alleged cases of elder abuse. She did not return phone calls.

Elmhurst's new supervisor Stephen Pierce, the county's Deputy Director of Social Services, said he could not talk about the Fort case as stipulated in the settlement agreement. However, he did defend his agency. When asked about the part of the settlement that requires workers in his agency and those of other counties to fulfill special training, Pierce said he was not aware of it and that his agency is working to better their CPS services on a daily basis, as required by the federal government.

            Pierce, a former CPS worker trainer in Merced, became second-in-command in January and said he first heard about the Fort case in June.

            "It's not like we have to be hammered over the head to fix things that need to be fixed," Pierce said in an interview. "We're motivated on our own. My speculation is that if this case never happened, we would be doing all this anyway."

            Cox laughed when he heard Pierce's statement.

            "Is that why the county had to pay all that money to the Forts?" Cox offered. "The case had a profound impact on San Benito County. I hope they take to heart some of the policies they perpetuated."

            Madison, now 8, appears slim and happy. Her manners are impeccable and in every way she seems like a normal little girl.

            "She is a very well-adjusted little girl," Cox said. "And that's a tribute to the Forts."

            Not long after Madison was restored to Molly and Nathan, Mewborn left his second wife in Salinas, along with his church, and moved to Louisiana. Molly said she has no idea where he is and all contact with him has ceased.

            Though the nightmare has ended for the Forts, their experience still lingers and manages to invade their daily lives. The couple is overly cautious, they said, especially around other people's children.

            "When we won it was, like, yeah, we won, but things didn't go back to the way they use to be," Nathan said.

            Cox, one of only three attorneys in the state who specialize in unfair CPS cases, said what happened to the Forts happens at least once if not several times a day to parents throughout the state and nation.            "I have no sympathy for child abusers. They should rot in jail for the rest of their lives," Cox opined. "But when someone is accused of this, in the business it's called ‘admit to get.'  That means they have to admit they abused the kid to get the kid back. That's the systemic problem in these cases. It should scare anyone who has a child. It's a bloody outrage."

[GovernmentShrinker]

Yes, it does happen. And why aren't citizens clamoring for very harsh prison terms for people involved in committing crimes like this? And why aren't the perpetrators facing jury trials and getting huge monetary judgments against them, that will ruin THEIR lives? Seems to me that would be a more productive avenue than campaigning for the abolition or severe hand-tying of all government child protection agencies. The two chief perpetrators in this story apparently weren't charged with anything at all -- Mewborn ran off to Louisiana a free man (hopefully he's one of the 1000 who didn't survive Katrina), and the CPS supervisor is still on the taxpayers' payroll, now with access to vulnerable elderly people.

Cox, one of the successful attorneys in this case says "I have no sympathy for child abusers. They should rot in jail for the rest of their lives". But he, and the citizens, need to make clear that there WERE real child abusers in this case, and THEY need to be charged, tried, convicted, and sent to rot in prison. Until we make a scary example of some of these people, it'll keep happening frequently.

[Carry_Okie]

And why aren't citizens clamoring for very harsh prison terms for people involved in committing crimes like this?

Because the media trade in constant cases that were so bad that CPS could do nothing to prevent them?

And why aren't the perpetrators facing jury trials and getting huge monetary judgments against them, that will ruin THEIR lives?

Statutory immunity.

Seems to me that would be a more productive avenue than campaigning for the abolition or severe hand-tying of all government child protection agencies.

That Constitution thingy really bothers you, doesn't it? I suggest you move to Sweden.

The two chief perpetrators in this story apparently weren't charged with anything at all -- Mewborn ran off to Louisiana a free man (hopefully he's one of the 1000 who didn't survive Katrina), and the CPS supervisor is still on the taxpayers' payroll, now with access to vulnerable elderly people.

Agencies with power protect themselves. That's how it's always been.

But he, and the citizens, need to make clear that there WERE real child abusers in this case, and THEY need to be charged, tried, convicted, and sent to rot in prison. Until we make a scary example of some of these people, it'll keep happening frequently.

Ahem... IT DOES HAPPEN FREQUENTLY. What is rare is when someone within CPS breaks ranks so that a lawsuit even has a prayer.