CPS PLACEMENT, FALSE ACCUSATIONS, FIGHT CPS, LIES, HELP

I saw this letter and I think everyone should think about their innocents.  Try to fight with what you can.

If I were to write a letter to an attorney in a new CPS case, it might go something like this:

You have been appointed to represent me as an attorney in the county juvenile court. Be on my side; I need your help. I am fighting for the release of my three children from state custody. I am innocent of any wrongdoing. The caseworker made assumptions about me that are false. My children need to be at home with me, for their well-being – mentally, emotionally, and physically.

While you are my attorney, please keep in mind that you are working for me, not for the county that pays you. As my attorney I expect you to give me the best legal representation available. I therefore request face-to-face meetings with you at least once monthly to make sure you are actively working on my case, and not letting it slide between the cracks.

I understand that many court-appointed attorneys tend to simply guide parents through the juvenile court system, advising them to plead guilty to charges to make things easier for everyone else in the courtroom. This is not the kind of representation I’m requesting. I’m asking you to be actively involved in proving my innocence.

I’m hereby asking that you take my case to trial and make the caseworker prove all charges. Since they are false charges, I think it would be in my best interest, and the best interest of my children, if I were to fight to prove my innocence with a full trial. Do not under any circumstances ask me to plead guilty to false charges against me.

As you know, parents involved in CPS cases have to complete a ’service plan’ yet many do so and still do not get their children returned. I would like to avoid doing any kind of ’services’ and request that you refuse all services, and/or force the caseworkers to prove the need for any services requested. I do not want to be in the position of many parents in these cases forced to have psychological evaluations when there is no evidence of mental illness, or forced to do drug testing when there’s no evidence of drug abuse. Please honor my request, protect my best interests, and see that my time is not wasted by unnecessary court-ordered ’services’. Of course they would also be a waste of taxpayer money. Do everything you can to resist these services in my case. As you are my attorney I’m trusting you to fight these issues individually and fiercely.

I expect you to be 100% aware of what is happening with my case at all times, and to inform me immediately of any changes.

I expect you to obtain and share with me a complete copy of the case file including all case narratives.

I expect you to help me compile substantial evidence to prove my innocence in this case by preponderance of the evidence.

I expect you to produce legal paperwork including a complete response to all caseworker reports, declarations supporting my side of the case, and other documents as needed, and to present those documents to the judge or juvenile court referee who hears our case.

I expect you to do everything you can to prevent my name from being included on the central index, blacklisting people from working with children. I am innocent and my name should not be included on that list.

Please respond to my requests in writing within ten days; I will need your written response for my records in this case.

Sincerely,

Name of Client

…

Send Emails/letters to Governors, Senators and Anyone Else That Can Be Found

Nationwide, there are State run agencies who are supposed to be protecting abused children in dangerous situations. Each State has many different titles for them. All of them are main stapled as CPS (Child Protective Services). For example, in Texas they’re known as DFPS. (Department of Family and Protective Services)

While there is an important need to find abused children and to protect them, the current system is only finding a small percentage of those truly abused children. The rest of their statistics that guarantee a high departmental income are from families who never abused their children. Where they get this income and the sources of information will be posted after the next paragraph.

I am not calling for an abolishment of CPS. What I am petitioning for is an overhaul and restructure to bring them in line with lawful investigation practices, to maintain Constitutional Rights and proper training for Agents who never had children, and psychological evaluations to find and replace the Agents who were themselves abused as Children and see abuse in every home regardless of the situation. This is not, I repeat, not a rare occurrence. I will supply statistics to support this and how this has escalated. I will also supply the sources.

Departmental income has become more important to CPS and their offices than actually finding abused children and protecting them. Each and every time they remove a child from the home, they get paid from the Federal Government. Here they are:

1. Public Law 93-247 known as the Mondale Act of 1974.

2. Public Law 96-272 known as the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980

3. Social Security Title IV-E funds.

The ASFA- Public Law 105-89 known as American Safe Families Act of 1997 is one of the most horrific laws on the books today. While it sounds nice in the title, when you get through the legal jargon, what this means is so wrong. If you ever had a child removed from your house by CPS, even UNFOUNDED and you are innocent, they will take that child in minutes after the child is born! Babies are highly adoptable and the Federal Government pays out $6,000 to the CPS office who conducts the legal kidnapping and gets them adopted quickly without regards to the biological Mother and her family. Since she was investigated once, they do this in the “best interests of the child” as she is a “potential” abuser.

The largest targeted type of families are folks with low incomes, children on SSI and are minorities. If you even have one of those three issues, you are a target for CPS to illegally investigate you. While these things are a surefire magnet, they have been known to do illegal investigations against families if they were reported falsely with malicious intent. Example is an ex-wife wants to get even with her ex-husband and his new family, she could report them and put them through Hell.

Why are the reasons CPS Agents actually find so little true abuse?

1. Agents who never had children and don’t understand that a few toys in the corner of the room is not a hazardous mess.

2. Agents are not trained in real evidence recognition. In fact, no Agent in CPS has any training in evidence, the Constitution or criminal justice. They are given anywhere from 3 to 6 months of training, being taught that it is ok to break into a Home without probable cause or exigent circumstances.

3. Agents are trained to use subjective speculation and not objective factual reporting.

4. The Agents do not get psychological evaluations. A number of Agents who were abused as a child themselves see abuse in every home they go into, even if it’s not there.

5. Most States do not require Agents to have a degree in Social Sciences. Any degree will do, doesn’t even have to be related to the field.

6. The Agency has no checks and balances. A field Agent can lie to a judge or police officer with absolutely no proof and have it entered as factual evidence in a court of law!

7. Agents are trained to believe they are immune from the authority of the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment. They violate this in every investigation done nationwide.

Here are the statistics and sources to support these facts:

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the United States. These numbers come from The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) in Washington.

CPS- Physical Abuse (160) Sexual Abuse (112) Neglect (410) Medical Neglect (14) Fatalities (6.4)

Parents- Physical Abuse (59) Sexual Abuse (13) Neglect (241) Medical Neglect (12) Fatalities (1.5)

As you can see, children are abused far more in care than at home. The calculated average is for every 1 abused child removed from an abusive home, there are 17 unabused children removed from loving non-offending homes nationwide.

Constitutional Violations and Court Rulings that CPS Ignores to this very day!

1. It’s unconstitutional for CPS to conduct an investigation and interview a child on private property without exigent circumstances or probable cause. – Doe et al, v. Heck et al (No. 01-3648, 2003 US App. Lexis 7144)

2. All CPS workers in the United States are subject to the 4th and 14th Amendment – Walsh v. Erie County Dept. of Job and Family Services, 3:01-cv-7588

3. Police officers and social workers are not immune for coercing or forcing entry into a person’s home without a search warrant. Calabretta v. Floyd (9th Cir. 1999)

4. The mere possibility of danger does not constitute an emergency or exigent circumstance that would justify a forced warrantless entry and a warrantless seizure of a child. Hurlman v. Rice (2nd Cir. 1991)

5. Police officer and social worker may not conduct a warrantless search or seizure in a suspected child abuse case absent exigent circumstances. Defendants must have reason to believe that life or limb is in immediate jeopardy and that the intrusion is reasonable necessary to alleviate the threat. Searches and seizures in investigation of a child neglect or child abuse case at a home are governed by the same principles as other searches and seizures at a home. Goodv. Dauphin County Social Services (3rd Cir. 1989)

6. The Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures extends beyond criminal investigations and includes conduct by social workers in the context of a child neglect/abuse investigation. Lenz v. Winburn (11th Cir. 1995)

7. Making false statements made to obtain a warrant, when the false statements were necessary to the finding of probable cause on which the warrant was based, violates the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Aponte Matos v. Toledo Davilla (1st Cir. 1998)

What can be done to change this for a better, more healthy Child Protection System?

I. Child Abuse is a Crime, not a touchy feely civil complaint and should be investigated as a crime.

II. Have the abuse allegations investigated by a Detective or Police Officer, who are trained for this as a career, whereas CPS workers are not. All investigations are joint ones with said Officers of the Law and with warrants properly issues under probable cause.

III. Re-train Agents to respect and obey the laws of the Constitution of the United States. If a family is guilty of abuse, a legal investigation will find it.

IV. Repeal the Mondale Act, Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, Title IV-E rewards to CPS from Social Security and the American Safe Families Act. Remember, they are not what the title sounds like and has been the root core of many loving homes losing their children to a system that will abuse them.

V. Make CPS legally investigate those who sign up to be foster parents. They do not do this today, and many foster parent who want the money for fostering them are actually child abusers who never get caught!

VI. All interviews to be audio and video recorded just like it happens with the police!

VII. Hold CPS Agents and foster parents and the records keeper responsible for every child who vanishes or dies in their care for their location.

VIII. Also investigate the person or persons reporting the abuse, and if done maliciously with intent to disrupt a family, prosecute the reporter to the fullest extent of the Law regarding making false claims to Government Agencies to affect an unnecessary and costly investigation.

IX. Abuse is a Crime, guarantee the accused retain their right to face their accusers in a court of law. As the system currently is, this is not done.

X. The Children are to be tracked on a weekly basis, so no more children vanish in the system.

XI. If a disabled, mentally retarded or sick Child is put into Foster Care, the Child’s current Physician will need to provide a copy of the diagnosis and treatment, and medications, if any, will be provided as prescribed by the Physician. All appointments must be kept while in Foster Care. Any violations without a very good reason will result in the Foster Parents losing their certification for Foster Care.

XII. If a Foster Child dies while in Foster Care, there will be an Investigation by the FBI and all parties responsible for the Death of a Child will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

XIII. There will be a National Database where all known abusers are recorded and can be accessed by Law Enforcement. Everyone who is found not guilty won’t have their Convictions and Abuse Reports listed. It will be illegal to keep records of any sort on innocent individuals or families. If they are convicted in a court of law by a jury of their peers, then the report of abuse they are guilty of will be the only report listed.

Currently, none of this is done, and innocent families who are not guilty of anything are losing their Children based on the word of others where there is no burden of proof for Prosecution, for the sake of getting Federal Funds for tens of thousands of dollars. The few truly abused children are ending up in a system where they are worse off than where they came from, even to the extent of being killed. Also, the innocent children who are never abused are also killed.

Injustice against one American is injustice against all Americans. Help us put the Justice back into Child Protective Services and get them focused on finding and saving abused children. It’s time we removed them from the profitable business of tearing loving non-offending families apart.

State’s Child Protection Agencies Collude with Judges to Defraud Federal Government

State’s Child Protection Agencies Collude with Judges to Defraud Federal Government
© Nev Moore Jan. ‘02

In 1974 Walter Mondale initiated CAPTA (the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act), the legislation that began feeding federal funding into the state’s child welfare agencies. With remarkable foresight Mondale expressed concerns that the legislation could lead to systemic abuse in that the state agencies might over-process children into the system unnecessarily to keep, and increase, the flow of federal dollars. Shortly after CAPTA was enacted there was a dramatic increase in the number of children in foster care, peaking at around 500,000 during the mid-70’s. George Miller, the Chairman of the federal Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, initiated an intensive investigation of the nation’s foster care system after the effects of CAPTA started to become apparent by the soaring numbers of children who were being placed in foster care. An official at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare admitted to Miller that the government had no idea where many of the nation’s 500,000 foster children where living, what services they were receiving, if any, or if any efforts were being made to reunite them with their families.

To address the obvious free-for-all snatching of children that CAPTA had stimulated, the Committee crafted new federal legislation with the intent of creating accountability and clearer guidelines for the states child welfare agencies. During the crafting of P.L. 96-272 Chairman Miller’s concern was that the federal government was footing the bill for warehousing children in institutions and inappropriate settings without accountability. In 1980 the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, P.L. 96-272, was enacted. The act included provisions that “reasonable efforts” be made to prevent children from being unnecessarily removed from their homes and placed in foster care. Although CPS has always tried to buffalo the media and the public that they are involved with families due to some sort of horrific child abuse or neglect, there has never been any debate among national policy makers, researchers, and federal agencies that the vast majority of CPS cases are due to poverty or frivolous/social reasons and do not contain elements of real child abuse. If the cases did actually involve acts of abuse they would be criminal, identified and investigated by law enforcement, rather than social workers, and would be prosecuted as such. P.L. 96-272 came into effect partly because Congress determined that a large number of children were being unnecessarily removed from their homes, and, once removed, they were lost in the limbo of foster care for years, many until they just grew too old, when they were then put on the streets at the age of 18.

The Child Welfare League of America testified before a senate subcommittee: “In fact, there were many instances then, as now, of children being removed unnecessarily from their families. It is important to recognize that children are almost always traumatized by removal from their own families.” So, accountability from each states child protection agency was also written in. To receive the federal money the states would have to submit an annual report to the federal government, known as an AFCARS report, that specifically accounts for each child in state care. ACLU Children’s Rights Project attorney, Marcia Robinson Lowry, explained in her testimony to Congress: “As a condition of federal funding, states must have a reasonable information system to identify children in federally-funded state custody.” These requirements were implemented in 1980. Up until 1999 some states were still not filing their federally required AFCARS report to the federal government. According to Jeffrey Locke, former Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services, the excuse to the legislature was that they “couldn’t figure out how to
work their computer system.”

When I called Senator Therese Murray in 1998 to ask how many children had died in foster care in Massachusetts, her aide replied: “We don’t have those statistics.” At that time Senator Murray was the Senate Chair of the Committee on Health & Elderly Affairs, and therefore responsible to oversee the collection and filing of AFCARS data.

The “reasonable efforts” requirements were designed to address these issues by requiring the states child welfare agencies to have specific investigation and assessment policies to minimize frivolous removals, to provide “services” to address and ameliorate conditions that were detrimental to the child’s well-being; to place children with relatives when removal from the home was absolutely necessary; and make efforts to reunite families in a timely fashion. Methods to audit and track compliance with federal requirements were also built in. The states were to establish “citizen review panels” comprised of a specifically designated representation of the population which would include not only members of collateral professional communities involved in child protection, but “parents, foster parents, and former foster children.” Each state was to have at least three citizen review panels. The panels would essentially act as a standing jury of peers and would review CPS cases. Twenty years after P.L. 96- 272 went into effect the citizen review panels have never been established in most states.

Another means of creating accountability was to have the federal authority, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, conduct compliance audits, which are known as Section 427 reviews. The method of enforcement that Congress devised to ensure that the states followed the federal law was to provide incentive funds to the states that documented their compliance with the federal regulations. The states would self-certify compliance, but could be subjected to “periodic” 427 reviews by the Dept. of Health & Human Services. Were the states to find themselves in non-compliance they would simply return the incentive funds. It would seem that providing cash to agencies that are allowed to self-document compliance is a somewhat less than intelligent system. It would be interesting to track down exactly how much money the states child “protective” agencies have returned to the government because they found themselves in non-compliance. Gee, maybe this is rocket science.

Like CAPTA, P.L. 96-272 could only have worked if the federal government demanded compliance and meticulous accountability, and them imposed sanctions for non-compliance. Even better – criminal charges for racketeering for intentional fraud. Mark Soler, director of the National Youth Law Center in California explained:

“The Department of Health & Human Services has failed to promulgate meaningful regulations to implement the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act. It has applied even the minimal federal regulations that were developed in an inconsistent and arbitrary manner, and only token implementation of the laws protecting children.’

Even when HHS finds overwhelming evidence of lack of compliance during 427 reviews, no sanctions are imposed and they continue to keep the fed $$$ pouring in – in violation of their own regulations. Not so much as a slap on the hand or even token admonishment. Certainly explains how CPS developed their arrogance and contempt for any authority – because there is none. Their confidence that they are free from the feds insisting on compliance with the law is well illustrated by the foster care numbers which increased dramatically after CAPTA began feeding federal dollars into the states child protection agencies, then dropped equally dramatically after the enactment of P.L.96-272, which was supposed to create more specific federal regulation and accountability. However, once the state agencies saw that the federal government was not enforcing compliance, the foster care numbers soared once again.

Michael Petit, Deputy Director of the Child Welfare League of America, stated in his testimony before Congress: “A 427 is a meaningless process for most of the states. It represents no kind of sanctions to the states whatsoever for non-compliance.” Marcia Robinson Lowry told Congress: “States are passing HHS audits with systems in which no reasonable person could consider that children are being well treated. It is virtually impossible to fail a 427 audit.”

The initial concept of “reasonable efforts” was the only conclusion that any rational person could come to: rather than disrupt children’s lives, and traumatize them by seizing them from non- abusive situations and placing them with strangers (who are often no better, and sometimes far worse), assist families in overcoming their obstacles and problems by providing support and services. The idea never worked, though, because it has always been more profitable to too many to remove children rather than keep them at home. Rather than offer support and simple, practical services to families CPS forged contracts with vendors. Now private businesses, under the guise of “service providers”, could mushroom into existence knowing that their sugar daddy, CPS, would provide a never-ending flow of coerced clients. The market potential is unlimited – potentially every mother, father, grandparent, and child in the country. Rather than offering practical, meaningful services that are germane to the families circumstances, CPS clients are ordered to engage in “services” with CPS-contracted vendors; special interest groups who are dependent on CPS for their income and profit by maintaining the levels of children in foster care, and whose interests are protected by a bureaucracy intent on securing it’s own survival and protecting unlimited growth.

The extent of which CPS is allowed to continue to operate while being so far out of compliance with the existing state and federal laws is mind boggling. It would be a challenge to find any other agency in our countries history that operated in such gross and blatant violation of the law with absolutely no intervention from the administration. Tens of millions of tax dollars are being squandered on a system that is destroying families and causing lifelong emotional ruin to children – and those are the lucky ones who live through it.

The most egregious area of outright criminal fraud is CPS’s practice of filing their federally required documentation of compliance in secrecy through the courts. The federal foster care reimbursements are channeled through the Title IV-E section of the Social Security Act. Each states child welfare agency enters into a contract with the federal government, which is referred to as their Title IV-E state plan. It is this contract that spells out the responsibilities that CPS must, by law, comply with in order to receive their federal funding. To document compliance with the fed regs CPS must file a form through the courts in each individual case. In Massachusetts these forms are referred to as a “29-C.” 42 U.S. Code, ss 672 reads:

“These requirements are not mere formalities. The Finance Committee of Congress, in preparing its summary for final passage of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, P.L. 96-272, stated; ` The Committee is aware of allegations that the judicial determination requirement (sic: that a judge makes a determination that a child needs to be removed from the home) can become a mere pro forma exercise in paper shuffling to obtain federal funding. While this could occur in some instances, the Committee is unwilling to accept as a general proposition that the judiciaries of the States would so lightly treat a responsibility placed upon them by federal statute for the protection of children.”

1980 U.S. Code Cong. and Admin. News: “A judicial determination of those efforts (reasonable efforts, as defined in the Act) serves to closely examine, in the case of each individual child, whether reasonable efforts were made to keep the family intact.” In accordance with the federal requirements the Massachusetts legislature enacted G.L. c.119 ss 29b, which requires all judges to certify that the Department of Social Services met the obligation grounded in the federal statute of making reasonable efforts to protect the child short of removing him or her from the parents, and, if the child was removed, making it possible for the child to return home in a timely manner. Rather than “closely examining”, in Massachusetts this grave responsibility is carried out by judges by rubber stamping stacks of 29c forms that simply contain three “yes” or “no” check boxes. In many instances making three check marks is even too much work for Massachusetts judges and they rubber stamp the forms while leaving them blank – never mind actually verifying that the “reasonable efforts” were made. In return for these forms DSS receives it’s federal money.

The three questions are:

1. Continuation in the home is contrary to the well being of the child?

2. Reasonable efforts have been made prior to the placement of the child to prevent or eliminate the need for removal of the child from his/her home?

3. Reasonable efforts have been made to make it possible for the child to return to his parent/guardian?

I discussed this issue a few years ago with Veronica Melendez at the Children’s Bureau (the federal authority). She told me that the federal government was under the impression that all parties were present in the court room at the time of the filing of the 29c’s, so that the parents attorneys had the opportunity to object, rebut, or verify the “reasonable efforts.” In reality, no one sees the federal forms except the judges and a representative of DSS’s main legal department. Attorneys ask us how we ever “got our hands on” the 29c forms, as we have never yet met an attorney who has seen the forms, let alone have been notified of the filing hearing. We even have forms on which the “no” boxes were checked, yet the children were still removed from their homes and federal funds collected for them.

By seizing children illegally in violation of the Title IV-E requirements, then filing false documents in secrecy through the courts to obtain federal funding, CPS is defrauding the federal government with intent. CPS should be subject to investigation and prosecution by the U.S. Attorneys Office. They should be held liable for the restitution of all illegally obtained funds, and prosecuted for perjury, obstruction of justice, and the fraudulent collection of federal funds under the False Statements and Accountability Act of 1996, P.L. 104-292 110 stat 3459, 42 U.S.C.S. 670-679a; P.L. 96-272; C.F.R. part 1356; and Title IV-E. I have discussed this issue with the Inspector Generals Office and they felt it could possible be prosecuted under RICO, yet they have also failed to act, possibly because it isn’t just CPS/DSS who is committing federal fraud, but also the judges who are signing the documents.

In 1988 George Miller, the original architect of P.L. 96-272, and Chairman of the congressionally appointed Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, recognized the fraud being committed in the name of child “protection”, and stated:

“What has been demonstrated here is that you have a system that is simply in contempt. This system has been sued and sued and orders have been issued and they just continue on their merry way. And HHS just continues to look the other way. You have a system that is not only out of control, it’s illegal at this point. What you are really engaged in is state sponsored child abuse.”

From FBI Investigating This CPS Office!, 2008/09/14 at 3:08 PM