Criminal charges dismissed against Maryanne Godboldo

According to wxyz[dot]com, a judge has dismissed the charges against Maryanne Godboldo arising out of her standoff with police when they arrived with child welfare and a S.W.A.T. team to take her child into custody.

The reason cited was that the removal order was illegal. And it was, according to Federal law and state law.



Like that's a surprise? This is a typical shortcut taken by child welfare agencies nationwide, one that is easily proven and challenged by competent counsel for the parents and children. However, finding a courageous and competent attorney to challenge this kind of legal shortcut is virtually impossible, and the practice continues, unchallenged, in dependency court.

Hyper-vigilant child welfare agencies, their counsel and judges purposely err, citing that it is necessary to err on the side of the child rather than striving not to err. The practice of ignoring constitutional and procedural protections associated with child welfare seizures is institutionalized nationwide, all in the name of protecting children.

And, it would seem most people don't have a problem with this kind of rights violations. After all, we need to protect the kiddies from their abusive parents, even if we have to do violence to the constitution in the process, don't we?

Social Worker Charged with Faking Records

It is rare we see a criminal prosecution of any child welfare professional for any reason. Kentucky, as every state, has laws against tampering with public records, but no matter how many complaints are made, there is almost never a prosecution. In El Paso County, Colorado, several years ago, we held a press conference and presented the DA with proof of the crimes. She declined to prosecute, referring us to the impotent Citizen's Review Panel.

That's not to say caseworkers conduct themselves with the utmost integrity, because, for whatever reason, they often don't.

The most common complaint by parents who are involved with child welfare agencies is that case workers falsify reports to the court, that the child welfare files are full of false information.

My investigation into the accuracy of child welfare records is consistent with the complaints by parents. The records, for whatever reason, are inaccurate in varying degrees. Okay, fine, the caseworkers are overworked, and they get things wrong. I've seen them mix up facts between cases, surely an honest mistake. I've seen case records from one case misfiled in the record of another case. I've seen case files "disappear" and get lost.

And, as this story so clearly describes, they deliberately falsify records and reports to the court. It is very easy to falsify subjective evidence, like visitation reports or interviews with parents, children and collateral witnesse or in their conversations with service providers. In this kind of "he said, she said" situation, the judges always believe the caseworker.

But I've also seen caseworkers deliberately tamper with objective evidence, including the results of drug tests.

In this instance, as often happens with unscrupulous child welfare caseworkers, they misrepresent the visits they made to the family, or to the child, or discussion they had with service providers, or making referrals.

This is egregiously harmful to parents and children, because these records follow the parents AND THE CHILDREN for the rest of their lives, wherever they go. Any child welfare agency in any state has access to these records. And because there is absolutely no provision under any state law whereby errors in these records can be corrected. In fact, in many states, the parents suffer retribution when they try to have the errors corrected, up to and including termination of parental rights.

 But there is more involved with falsifying records. When caseworkers falsify that the child was in danger in the home, fraud against the federal government comes into play under Title IV E of the Social Security Act. This is presented to the court, which is perjury. This is much bigger than tampering with public records.

Hats off to Kentucky. I've seen plenty of bad child welfare practices in Kentucky, hopefully they won't back out of this prosecution. Hopefully, this is only the beginning of reigning in these abuses.

Another Abusive Adoptive Parent

Jeremiah Lovato gets 119.5 years

I have written quite a bit about El Paso County, Colorado Department of Human Services over the years, in part because their practices are so abysmally horrible, and in part because I live there.

So it comes as no surprise that they approved an adoption by the man pictured here. He adopted a teen boy. Nobody saw anything wrong with that. Then he proceeded to abuse and torture the boy.

For over two years.

Unnoticed.

Protected from scrutiny by DHS. Until the boy took matters into his own hands and ran away to avoid another beating. Way to go, El Paso County. Way to go Colorado. How many children sacrificed on the alter of saving children will it take before you get it through your thick heads that there is a better way to protect children than redistributing them to strangers?  Your tests, your inspections, your background checks are failing the children.

How about this. . .The real test would be if those strangers would adopt the kiddies without the adoption subsidy they get. If they don't want the kiddies sans the buck$$$, it should be a big clue. Oh, silly me, I'm not an "expert" on child welfare like you all are.

This man, Jeremiah Lovato, was just sentenced to 119 1/2 years for beating his adoptive son with implements like a meat tenderizer, and for stomping on his testicles, and more. This DHS-approved, artificially created father is pissed that his sentence is so harsh. What a shame he didn't feel any sympathy for the child that was redistributed by DHS and the court into his care as if the child were a puppy. The boy, his adopted son, gets life. . .a life sentence to live with the abuse this man inflicted upon him, and that DHS inflicted upon him, and the the Dependency Court judge inflicted upon him.

The real criminal is the caseworker who approved this monster as being a fit father, and the judge who granted the adoption. And most of all the attorney who was appointed to represent the best interests of this child, the bobble-headed Guardian ad litem who rubber stamped every recommendation the caseworker made instead of conducting his own investigation. Who are they? Why aren't they being held responsible? Oh, right, they have immunity from liability for their bad decisions, their bad practices and their bad judgement. Welcome to the twilight zone.

You can read the stories here, and here, and here.