A young Miami mom was stripped of the right to raise her four
children. The father of the youngest child was allowed to keep the girl.
Just another day in child-welfare court.
But then a child welfare judge in Miami discovered information that
troubled him: A social worker who gave damaging testimony against the
woman — while lavishing praise on the father — had had sex with the
father, at least according to the man himself. Another case worker whose
testimony also was damaging to the mother had told colleagues she
wanted to adopt her children after the mother lost all rights to them.
Calling the actions of the two child welfare workers — as well as
their bosses and lawyers — “reprehensible” and “manifestly
unconscionable,” the judge returned the four children to their mother
this week. In a 40-page order tinged with anger, Miami-Dade Circuit
Judge Michael A. Hanzman said the reversal was necessary in order to
undo a miscarriage of justice.
Circuit Judge Michael A. Hanzman
Hanzman, who presides over child welfare cases in Miami’s Allapattah
juvenile courthouse, wrote that the woman could not have received a
fair trial because state child welfare “agents withheld information
that demonstrated bias on the part of two material witnesses.”
The Department of Children & Families “and its cadre of private
sector agents are a collective prosecutorial arm of the state, charged
with a public trust,” Hanzman wrote in the order, signed Tuesday. “The
constitutional rights of the families brought into our dependency
courts depend upon the faithful and impartial exercise of that trust.
When it is betrayed — as it was in this case — due process is
denied.”The mother, Hanzman added, “was entitled to a fair trial. She
instead received the ‘parental death penalty’ in a proceeding infected
by bias and conflict…The parties prosecuting her knew the process was
contaminated, but took no corrective action. The fact that the lives of
this family would be permanently altered — and the mother’s
constitutional rights severed — was of no moment. The state simply
trampled on those constitutional rights in its zeal to win at all
costs.”
Child welfare officials in Miami-Dade had some harsh words in return
for the judge. They said he had just recently ignored warnings from
them and left an infant in the care of a relative who accidentally
smothered him.
The woman at the center of the controversy, and her children, are not being named by the Miami Herald to protect their privacy.
Neither of the caseworkers named in Hanzman’s order — “lead witness”
Tatiana Ashley and Michelle Sales, both of the CHARLEE foster care
program — remain with CHARLEE, said a spokeswoman for the Our Kids
agency, which oversees private child welfare programs in Miami under
contract with DCF. Ashley was fired for “performance” issues unrelated
to Hanzman’s order, and Sales resigned, the spokeswoman said.
Neither woman could be reached by the Herald for comment.
DCF’s ethics watchdog cleared the two women of wrongdoing in a lengthy report last August.
The Inspector General was asked to investigate the mother’s claims
in January by an Our Kids’ regional manager. The IG, Christopher T.
Hirst, concluded the mother’s allegations regarding Ashley could not be
substantiated without a witness to the alleged affair. Likewise, Hirst
wrote that there was no proof that Sales lied on the witness stand,
and that her desire to foster or adopt the children did not create a
conflict of interest.
DCF’s interim secretary, Esther Jacobo, who was leading DCF’s Miami
district when much of the controversy unfolded, said Friday her agency
is most concerned with the future welfare of the mother’s children —
not with what has already occurred.
Esther Jacobo
“The claims of unethical behavior by these caseworkers were
thoroughly investigated by the DCF inspector general and not
substantiated. Now, two years later, our attention must be centered on
these children — their safety, security and emotional health. With all
the information and facts in hand, my sincere hope is that the judge
will do what is best for the safety and well-being of these children.”
Hanzman’s return of the four children occurs at a time of deep
animosity between the judge and Miami child welfare administrators.
Earlier this week, a Miami infant born with medical concerns owing
to his mother’s drug use died at the home of his adult half-sister in
Broward. Hanzman, records show, sent the boy to live with his
half-sister over the objections of DCF lawyers, an Our Kids foster care
provider and the Broward Sheriff’s Office, which had conducted a study
of the woman’s home and concluded she was not fit to care for the boy.
Records suggest the half-sister may have accidentally smothered the
infant while sleeping with him on a couch.
The mother at the center of Hanzman’s order this week emerged from a
troubled home herself, sources told the Herald. Now 23, the woman
“aged out” of foster care at age 19 with four small children, and
sources say DCF continues to harbor serious concerns about her ability
to raise the kids.
In July 2010, the agency’s hotline received a report that the mom
and the youngest child’s father had an altercation. The children
remained “safely” in the mother’s care, the judge wrote, until March
2011, when a relative complained that the father had pulled a gun on
him.
When DCF was alerted to the incident by the mother, the agency placed
all four children in foster care. Two months after that — and after
the mom had mostly completed a laundry list of tasks designed to
improve her parenting skills — the woman was arrested on a shoplifting
charge. DCF abruptly reversed course, filing a petition to terminate
the woman’s parental rights.
The mother, a petition said, had been “unable to gain the necessary insight required” to safely parent her children.
At trial in August 2011, Ashley, the case worker, testified that,
while the mom had completed parenting, domestic violence and anger
classes, and although she was “bonded” with her children, Ashley had
“concerns as to her parenting,” the judge wrote.
Broken system
As to the youngest girl’s father, the one who had allegedly wielded a
gun, Ashley was far more complimentary. She testified that he was
always “appropriate” in his visits with the little girl, and that she
had no concerns about his parenting skills. Ashley recommended that he
retain rights to the now-4-year-old daughter.
Sales, the order said, worked with the mother and her kids from
October 2010 through the following January. Sales dropped the case, she
testified, because she became fearful of the mother following a fight
she witnessed between the mother and another woman. The mother insists
that no such incident occurred, the judge wrote.
At a hearing on the mother’s concerns over the fairness of her
trial, and in comments to the inspector general, Ashley strongly denied
having a sexual relationship with the father. The father himself
acknowledged the affair. The caseworker had begun “flirting” with him
“while the two were in her car discussing what he had to do to get his
daughter back,” the man testified. “They eventually wound up in the back
seat having intercourse,” Hanzman wrote.
And, although the inspector general wrote that there were no
witnesses, the father’s brother testified that he was at his mother’s
house when the father and Ashley were in a bedroom having sex.
The mother of the children arrived at the father’s house in August
2011 while he and Ashley were “fooling around” in a back bedroom, the
father testified. The father’s brother alerted him that the mother was
walking up the stairs to see him. She confronted the couple and hit the
father with a mop stick, the judge’s order said.
The caseworker, the father testified, told him that neither she nor
CHARLEE were eager to sever his rights to the youngest child. He said
he failed to disclose the sexual relationship out of fear that it would
interfere with his custody rights.
As to Sales, numerous people — including several employees of CHARLEE — testified that she wanted to adopt the children.
So concerned were CHARLEE administrators about Sales’ desire to adopt
the kids that they asked an Our Kids boss if it made sense to transfer
the case to another foster care agency “to avoid any kind of conflict
of interest.” The administrator, Hanzman wrote, refused the transfer
request. Another judge who was presiding over the case was never told
about the alleged conflict.
That omission, Hanzman wrote, “can only be charitably characterized as blatant incompetency.”
