Posted on 07/27/2004 5:57:06 AM PDT by Born Conservative
WILKES-BARRE - A New Jersey couple has filed a federal lawsuit against the Luzerne County Children and Youth Services claiming the agency knowingly placed a 7-year-old "sexual abuser and predator of other children" with the family. The boy sexually abused the couple's 8-year-old son while living with the family in Hudson County, the suit states.
The suit also names foster parents Donald and Mary Pranzoni, the county and three Children and Youth Services case workers as defendants.
The foster child's history of sexually abusing other children was well-known to the foster parents and the three employees, Olga Araujo, Rebecca Glassman and Robin Ritsick, but was withheld so as not to "sabotage" the child's chances of being adopted, the complaint alleges.
After the family assumed custody of the boy in November 2000, the child overpowered and sodomized the couple's older but smaller son as many as 10 times, according to the complaint.
The agency assumed custody of the 7-year-old boy and his sister in May 1999 after it became evident the children's father was sexually abusive to them and their mother was unable to provide proper care, the complaint said.
The two were then placed in foster care with the Pranzonis. When the New Jersey couple learned the two children, to whom they were related, were living with a foster family, they sought custody.
The couple's attorney, Barry Dyller, alleges the boy's history of replicating the abusive behavior he suffered was willfully withheld, an omission that placed the family's two children at risk.
The county, the agency and its employees violated the couple's civil rights by subjecting their children to a danger that had previously not existed, Dyller said.
The suit also claims negligence on the part of the foster parents. "They were foster parents who were told and complied with the instructions, don't tell," Dyller said.
In 2003, Dyller sent a version of the lawsuit to an attorney who regularly represents the county in hopes of reaching a settlement and preventing the victim from having to appear in court.
"This is not a good thing for my client to have to go through litigation," he said. "It's horrible thing that has happened to a young child."
No action was taken at that time, he said.
"The hope was that Children and Youth Services would have learned from this horrible thing, and make it not happen again, and accept responsibility," he said.
Representatives of the county agency did not return calls for comment Monday afternoon.
Your solutions may work in some situations, but I think many of our urban areas have gone past the point of no return, beyond critical mass. My solution would be to get far away from our dystopic urban areas, they are on the fast one-way road to hell on earth, IMHO.
I agree. You just can't beat a 7-year-old pedophilial predator into stopping his cravings. That is not going to be the least bit fruitful.
Quite possibly. However, if the problem of "feral children" were to be solved rather than contained, that's where the solution would have to be applied.
The ACLU and other crypto-Fabians dedicated to the destruction of Western values will forbid any effective societal interventions until it's far too late.
Well, yes. But that points out the larger problem of a lack of moral clarity in the wider, "normal" population. We as a culture all too often bury our first impressions ("there's no F-ing way that should be allowed") under the false assumption that the expression of "individual rights" trumps all other considerations.
Thus the concept of "duty" has been largely replaced by that of "tolerance." As a society, we're wealthy enough to be able to pretend that it's possible to have rights without responsibilities, and our culture has decayed as a result.
When you look at it, our exchange is not really off-topic -- it helps to explain the actions of the CPS folks, and certainly the boy's biological parents.
Thank you for your reply (yes, I am sitting here clicking "refresh" repeatedly on this thread - I am getting fairly desperate).
I have been in contact with the State's Attorney's office and with my son's criminal defense attorney. They both told me the same thing - the intent of both the prosecution and the defense is to get him on something called the "Walker Plan." It is a juvenile sex offender program in Florida where the child has to admit guilt to the offense, and then is placed on this program. He has to complete therapy, community service, etc. in order to pass the program.
Anyhow, what the attorneys have told me is that once he is on the program, that the first time he commits another crime (or doesn't fulfill the obligations of the program), he will be sent to jail or a treatment facility. No more messing around. So, for now, that's the plan. We have court dates on the 4th and the 19th of next month, and I am doing everything in my power to convince him to go ahead and get started on the program. His attorney has advised me, though, that the decision is my son's, not mine.
I agree completely that no counseling is going to fix someone with a real physical or chemical problem in their brain - I am as certain as I can be that he has an actual defect in his brain of some sort. It isn't just the sex offenses - he has no conscience at all, doesn't demonstrate real emotions, can't identify with the feelings of others, etc. He has been to multiple counselors, psychologists, doctors, etc., to no avail - no medication or therapy has ever made a difference.
I will check into what you suggested about getting a separate attorney for my son - no one has mentioned that route to me before. Thanks again.
"Nothing a good walloping won't fix"
That actually might make the child commit sodomy more...
He has never had an MRI or a PET scan. That is what interested me most about your reply. I doubt seriously that he has ever sustained physical damage to his brain - he has only ever been in the hospital once, and that was for viral meningitis (at 10 weeks of age) - never for an injury. I am wondering, though, if a brain scan of some sort might reveal something.
When he was very little (baby and toddler stage) he was a terrific little guy. Very loving and outgoing. When he started to develop an actual personality, though, it was obvious to anyone who spent time with him that something was very wrong (this started at about the age of 3 or 4). He has been kicked out of every single school he has ever attended, starting with kindergarten, where he stabbed a little girl with a pencil and accused a homeroom mother of abusing him (which was false - I believed him at the time and went nuts on the school, but it turned out that it just didn't happen).
I have seen his school records (when he had to transfer to an alternative school last year, the old school handed me his folder to take to the new school - it was the first time I had ever seen it) - it was a file about two inches thick, mostly page after page of computer printouts of all the offenses he has committed in school. Most were issues of impulse control, although there was also some seriously crazy sh-t in there, too, like when he told everyone at school (and cried all day) about his cousins who died on 9/11 - the only cousins he has are the little ones he raped and threatened to kill if they told. He just does crazy things - his dad caught him out in the yard pulling lizards apart with his bare hands and putting their insides into little piles. That's about the craziest thing I can think of that he's done.
I can certainly understand how people's first instinct is to look to the parents of a troubled/crazy child - it would most likely be my first reaction, too. But anyone who has spent any time getting to know him has either been horribly abused by him (my mom, my sister and her kids, his father and his half-sister, me), or has done whatever it takes to get him away from them (every school he has ever attended). I just can't understand why, after all of that, that no one takes what I say seriously.
I know him better than anybody on this planet, and I fear him deeply. He's completely unpredictable, and will do whatever he needs to do to satisfy his current wants. Whether that be lying to get out of trouble, bringing a gun (yes, a gun) and drugs into my house, or raping his relatives. I am as stunned with disbelief as I am anything else.
Too true, and far too few people posting here realize your words' truth.
Thunder/lightning storm - gotta run (I live in a very old, rickety house!) and unplug PC. Will be back ASAP to check replies. Thank you again.
God forgive me for saying this, but a 7 yr old this disturbed should be put down like a rabid dog now before he becomes an adult released at the age of 18 to abuse other boys. I think it is terrible that some beast of a father already did this to him, but imo when someone starts perpetuating the same abuse on others, they have gone beyond the point of being able to be cured in this world anyway. I just don't trust this child to grow to adulthood and be respectable. Slaughter the pervert who damaged him too.
Yup, and they do the same thing in schools. It is why I inquired if my autistic son would be mixed with children with serious behavioral disorders. Truly disabled children should not be mixed with children who have been abused imo.
We still have no word. It is frustrating. She went to the doctor because her legs were hurting and her counts were low so they sent her to Albuquerque. There her blood counts were totally different but they decided to do a bone marrow test. Well, that test came out as full-blown leukemia so they did another with the same marrow that said remission. They are testing again and I'll let you know as soon as I know.
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