[BRIGADE] Legal Kidnapping in VA
Published: Tue, 08/05/08
This is not an unusual story. Google "CPS Kidnapping" and you will
get nearly 85,000 results. Thousands of families across the USA are
torn apart each year by kidnappers masquerading as Child
Protective Services [CPS]. It just happens that I know this family.
"An anonymous call about a 10-ounce weight loss by their then
3-week-old daughter triggered a legal avalanche that buried
Arlington [VA] residents Nancy Hey and Christopher Slitor.
Their parental rights were terminated last year by Arlington Judge
James Almand even though Hey and Slitor had been exonerated of
all neglect charges nine months earlier...."
That's right Brigade. All it took was an anonymous call to CPS. And
even though they were proved innocent of all charges, the Judge
permitted another family to permanently adopt their baby [Sabrina].
"Judge Almand later used the baby's inappropriate removal to justify
making the separation permanent, saying it would be too "traumatic"
to return Sabrina to her natural parents. "
Here's another [sick] facet to the story:
"Sabrina went to a politically influential local professional
couple with no training as foster parents, despite CPS requirements
that foster couples be trained before being entrusted with
children...."
As I understand it, the foster father worked for years as a
prosecutor with the Federal Dept. of Justice, and he was working on
some "domestic violence" task force. He may have known, the
judges, various lawyers and prosecutors involved with the case.
Nancy told me the foster mother had fertility problems. She said,
"It seems irresponsible of CPS to give this woman our baby for
custodial foster care, because she was more covetous of our baby
than ever. We always got the feeling that the baby was privately
promised to them, from the beginning, by the CPS social workers and
supervisors..." It appears that the foster mother was involved in
fund-raising for liberal and environmental causes, she and her
husband were very well connected with various movers and shakers in
Arlington, VA.
Brigade, see articles below.
Then contact Nancy and Kit. See what you can do to help them get
baby Sabrina back. Contact them at: cattynancy@hotmail.com
For the Cause, Linda
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Special Reports
Is it child protection or legal kidnapping?
by Barbara F. Hollingsworth,
The Washington Examiner - May 29, 2005
Children being taken from their homes, based on tips from anonymous
telephone callers alleging abuse or neglect, has been cast in a
harsh spotlight in the Texas polygamy case, and there's growing
evidence that more than a few of the 510,000 children placed in
foster care annually don't belong there.
In February, Georgia state Sen. Nancy Schaefer released a
blistering assessment of the bureaucrats entrusted to protect
children there: "I believe Child Protective Services (CPS)
nationwide has become corrupt and that the entire system is broken
almost beyond repair. I am convinced parents and families should be
warned of the dangers."
Armed with court orders and protected by confidentiality statutes
that function as bureaucratic shield laws, CPS workers need just
one anonymous phone call to a hotline to swoop in and remove
children, regardless of the facts.
Such calls can be legitimate, coming from a legally mandated
reporter such as a doctor or teacher. But it could also be a
fabrication from a vindictive ex-spouse, a nosy neighbor, or a
disgruntled relative.
Since no laws clearly define child abuse and neglect, parents have
been accused of these serious crimes when what they actually did
was yell, withhold TV privileges, or "repressing" their children by
supervising them too much.
Dr. Steven Krason, professor of political science and legal studies
at Franciscan University of Steubenville, is writing a book on CPS
wrongdoing based on two decades of research.
Krason says CPS itself now poses "a grave threat" because "it is
almost impossible to fully insulate one's family from...a system
that on very little pretense can simply reach into the home and
take away one's offspring."
He's convinced the number of real child abuse cases has remained
fairly steady over the last three decades; what has been growing is
an unprecedented government assault on innocent parents.
And if it doesn't take much to have your children placed in foster
care, getting them back can be another story. An anonymous call
about a 10-ounce weight loss by their then 3-week-old daughter
triggered a legal avalanche that buried Arlington residents Nancy
Hey and Christopher Slitor.
Their parental rights were terminated last year by Arlington Judge
James Almand even though Hey and Slitor had been exonerated by of
all neglect charges nine months earlier.
In another local case, Georgetown residents Greg and Juliana Caplan
had to spend $75,000 on lawyers and wait two weeks before their
children were returned, even after five doctors confirmed that an
injury sustained by one of their twin daughters was not caused by
abuse.
The Caplans are still listed as possible child abusers in D.C.,
however, because they refused to submit to psychological
counseling. Despite the stigma, that might have been a wise decision.
The psychological evaluation trap is one of the least expected
obstacles facing parents snared unfairly in the CPS system. Most
panicked parents promise to do anything to get their children back,
often agreeing to a battery of psychological tests they naively
believe will prove their parental competence and end the nightmare.
But it doesn't always work out that way.
Arlington social workers told Hey that she had to undergo
psychological testing before she could get her baby back, so the
longtime Federal Communications Commission employee readily agreed.
She was diagnosed with two clinical disorders by Dr. Giselle Hass
at the Multicultural Clinical Center in Springfield. This
psychological evaluation was cited in the court ruling terminating
Hey's parental rights.
But an independent, expert analysis of the report obtained by The
Examiner included scathing critique of the methodology used to
evaluate Hey, saying it "...reads more like advocacy than a
professional psychological assessment... clear and frequent
evidence of error... Any graduate student who turned in as poorly
scored and interpreted a test as did this evaluator would probably
have failed the first semester."
Besides violations of standard practice and professional rules of
ethics, the analysis noted numerous illustrations of bias in the
psychological profile and "a consistent failure to include data
that would be favorable to Mrs. Hey,"including 17
computer-generated scores on the Parental Stress Index that were
all in the normal range.
This was a significant omission, given that Judge Almand cited
Hey's tendency of "freezing...in times of stress" as one of the
main reasons she could not be trusted to raise her own child.
Hey - who has never been convicted of either abuse or neglect - has
had no contact with three-year-old Sabrina since Judge Almand
allowed her to be adopted by the same foster family Arlington CPS
workers originally selected to care for her baby.
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Examiner's local opinion editor.
SOURCE:
http://www.examiner.com/printa-1413848~Is_it_child_protection_or_leg
al_kidnapping?.html
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Special Reports
Bureaucrats running down the clock against parents
by Barbara F. Hollingsworth,
The Washington DC Examiner - May 29, 2005
When Congress passed the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act, it
allowed states to terminate parental rights after a child has been
in foster care longer than 15 months.
But the law, intended to keep children from truly abusive homes
from languishing in foster care for years, had unintended
consequences. States receive a $4,000 cash bonus from the federal
government for each child adopted, multiplied by the percentage
that the state exceeds its adoption goal.
The system gives child protective agencies a powerful financial
incentive to terminate parental rights, something that they did
more than 79,000 times nationwide in 2006, according to the federal
Administration for Children and Families.
And because infants and toddlers are much easier to place in
adoptive homes, they're often targeted for removal by overzealous
social workers based on flimsy or anonymous evidence of parental
abuse or neglect.
The 15-month clock, which starts ticking as soon as a child goes
into foster care, can easily be run down by months of forced
psychological testing and the filing of legal motions and other
delaying tactics.
These tactics give a clear advantage to child protective service
bureaucrats, who have unlimited time and financial resources to
wage what often amounts to legal warfare against stunned and
beleaguered parents who basically have to prove their own innocence.
If a person commits murder or robs a bank, prosecutors must prove
he or she is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Not so in the
Alice-in-Wonderland world of CPS, where individuals and parents are
considered guilty as charged by anonymous tipsters whose hidden
motivations are never brought to light. Once the 15 months are up,
that fact alone can be used as legal justification to terminate
parental rights.
It costs child protective agencies $20,000 on average to keep a
child in foster care, versus $8,000 for in-home services for
troubled families. This means that a host of lawyers, social
workers, therapists, psychologists and other professionals make a
lot more money when families are broken apart.
And although CPS' stated goal is family reunification, the reality
is that these agencies reap a second financial windfall when the
forced separation between child and parent becomes permanent.
SOURCE:
http://www.examiner.com/a-1413554~Bureaucrats_running_down_the_clock
_against_parents.html
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Editorial: Baby Snatching by Arlington County
The Washington DC Examiner
April 18, 2008
There's an empty highchair sitting in the kitchen of the Arlington
home of Nancy Hey and Christopher Slitor. It's their daughter
Sabrina's highchair. But it's been empty for two years because
thieves disguised as Arlington County social workers and judges
took her from her parents. She was stolen with no public scrutiny
or accountability. Arlington County social workers used unproven
allegations of neglect in April 2005 to justify removing
then-3-week-old Sabrina from her parent's home. Her parents were
accused - anonymously - of starving Sabrina. And they were deemed
unable to care properly for their daughter, even with the frequent
help of Nancy Hey's mother and a full-time nanny. After more than
two years of legal wrangling with the county's Child Protective
Services (CPS), Arlington Circuit Court Judge James Almand
terminated the couple's parental rights in June 2007.
But nine months earlier, Sabrina's parents were completely
exonerated by Virginia CPS hearing officer George Walton, who noted
in his official report that, despite the baby's worrisome 10-ounce
weight loss soon after her birth by Caesarian section, nothing in
the her medical record indicated she had ever been in danger. There
was also no evidence, Walton added, that Sabrina's "failure to
thrive" resulted from parental neglect.
In fact, the record showed the opposite: Nancy Hey - who suffers
from a developmental disorder that makes it difficult for her to
recognize non-verbal signals from others - and her husband fully
cooperated with medical professionals and CPS workers throughout
their ordeal. In any case, Sabrina was at her proper weight when
she was taken away by county officials, two days after her parents
told social worker Dana Zemke that they were retaining a lawyer.
Arlington Judge Esther Wiggins Lyles signed the removal order with
neither Hey nor Slitor even aware of the proceedings, much less
being present to contest the decision. Sabrina went to a
politically influential local professional couple with no training
as foster parents, despite CPS requirements that foster couples be
trained before being entrusted with children.
Judge Almand later used the baby's inappropriate removal to justify
making the separation permanent, saying it would be too "traumatic"
to return Sabrina to her natural parents. So, when Sabrina turned 3
April 3rd, she didn't blow out her birthday candles in the kitchen
where her heart-broken parents still keep her empty highchair. Even
after spending $350,000 in legal fees, they have not given up hope.
They've asked the Virginia Court of Appeals to return their child.
Meanwhile, every Arlington County employee involved should be put
under oath and questioned in public about their role in this outrage.
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