Posted on 10/12/2003 6:07:51 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
ITHACA--The nightmare began with a telephone call on a dreary winter afternoon.
Anne and Doug Sutton had been upset that their daughter, Erica, was defying their order to stay out of Internet chat rooms. Late at night, Erica would talk on the computer with people who claimed to have multiple personalities and said they were sexually abused.
When they confronted Erica, she became incensed. They immediately suspended her computer privileges.
The next day, concerned about the blowup, the Suttons called Erica's therapist at school. The therapist cut them short and passed the call to a Tompkins County social worker.
Get off the phone, the social worker told Doug. Then, to Anne: Hurry to school.
"Leave your husband home," the social worker said. She didn't explain.
It was Feb. 27, 2002. At school, Anne would learn the unthinkable: Erica, a troubled 16-year-old, had accused her father of raping and sodomizing her for nine years, from the time she was 1 until she was 10.
None of it was true.
It didn't matter.
From school, Erica went to an aunt's house, then to a mental health clinic and then in April - when a judge awarded custody to the county - to foster care. Erica wouldn't speak to her father or return to her family's split-level home in Ithaca for nearly a year.
Although no charges were ever filed, and Erica eventually admitted she was lying, the Suttons were put on a statewide registry of sexual abuse and maltreatment offenders, where they remain.
"Very simply, what occurred here is the government . . . tore a family apart," said Scott Miller, one of two lawyers representing the Suttons. The couple has filed a $10 million lawsuit in federal district court in Syracuse alleging Tompkins County and social services violated their constitutional rights to parent their daughter, filed misleading statements with family court and failed to investigate Erica's allegations fairly before taking custody.
The county Department of Social Services said they believed Erica's allegations, even though there was no medical evidence of sexual abuse, no psychiatric evaluation was conducted and the girl's own therapist doubted the story.
County Child Protective Services caseworker Cindy Jacobson, in a deposition, said Erica offered few details such as times, places or events to corroborate her allegations. Jacobson interviewed Erica twice at length, spoke to her several more times, and said she believed the teen largely because she stuck to her story under questioning.
Tompkins County never obtained Erica's pediatric records, according to the lawsuit. Had they done so, they would have learned then what Dr. Mary Anne Kiernan testified to in a deposition months later: That she saw no medical evidence during her many examinations of Erica that the child had been sexually abused as an infant.
Jacobson, the child protective worker, agreed in her deposition she should have examined Erica's childhood medical records. She defended the omission by saying there is no physical evidence in about 80 percent of child sexual abuse cases.
The Suttons say their case shows how easily Social Services can remove a child. Their message: If it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone.
"I was so angry at the system and so astounded this kind of stuff could happen," Doug Sutton said. "I just remember thinking this was obscene and I'm going to fight it. . . . It's the system that needs to be ashamed of itself for allowing this to happen."
Under state law, Child Protective Services must launch an investigation within 24 hours after receiving a report of abuse or maltreatment and must determine, within 60 days, whether there is evidence to support the charge and whether or not the child's safety is at risk.
Caseworkers are required to interview the alleged victim and family members; conduct a home visit; and talk to the source of the report as well as other "collateral sources" including hospitals, schools and police.
(Excerpt) Read more at syracuse.com ...
It's a story, Anne Sutton said, that could have been scripted from the old television series, "The Twilight Zone." Her father, the late Rod Serling, was the show's creator.
Serling, at the time of his death was a professor at Ithaca College.
I am not making this up. Cue spooky music.
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At one point the police were getting serious about arresting him for various things.
Several of use knew there was no way any of the things his daughter was saying was true. We raised so much hell with that they had a real professional evaluate the girl and eventually found she was coached by a couple she had met who were really wacked out. Long story.
Eventually everything worked out but he spent a mint on attorneys.
...except in Arkansas, of course.
That frightening statement encapsulates the evil of this government agency and the rules that it operates under. The Constitution must not have been the role model for crafting this abominable law. Perhaps it was the Spanish Inquisition.
The state recently took away his driver's license because he refused to reimburse the county for Erica's $8,060 foster care bill. Medical and legal bills total more than $300,000 and continue to grow.
Anne Sutton, an early childhood educator, said she was too depressed to leave the house most days, missing so much time at work that she was replaced. Because she's on the sex offender registry, she said, she can't get another teaching job.
Unbelievable!!!
>font color="navy"> Arizona parents ought to take note, given the um, great extent of their governor's support for social workers and childrens' protection services (whatever it's called).
She did end up in "the system," and she recanted.
That's why the parents are suing.
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