http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/nyregion/eight-in-adoption-abuse-case-agree-to-17-5-million-settlement-with-foster-agencies.html?_r=0
Eight
young adults with disabilities who were fraudulently adopted by a
Queens woman and subjected to years of abuse have agreed to a $17.5
million settlement of their lawsuit against three private New York
foster care agencies that had placed them with the woman, a new court
filing shows.
The
woman, Judith Leekin, 69, who adopted the children in the 1980s and
’90s, was arrested in 2007 in Florida, where she had moved with them.
She was later convicted of fraud and abuse charges and is serving a
lengthy prison sentence.
The
case has long been seen as a horrific breakdown in the city’s foster
care system. The authorities said Ms. Leekin used false names to adopt
11 children — one disappeared while in her care and is presumed dead —
and she collected $1.68 million in subsidies from New York that were
intended for their care but went to support her own lavish lifestyle.
In December 2012, New York agreed to pay $9.7 million
to settle its portion of the 2009 lawsuit, including claims by two of
the children; they had been placed with Ms. Leekin through a city-run
adoption unit. The city denied liability in the case.
The
combined settlements in the case now total just over $27 million,
including legal fees and costs. The children, most of whom are now in
their 20s, had physical, emotional or developmental disabilities,
including autism and blindness. In a January ruling that allowed the
lawsuit against the private agencies to proceed, Judge Eric N.
Vitaliano, of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, offered what he called
“a glimpse of life in Leekin’s house of horrors.”
“The
story is undisputedly sad and tragic,” the judge wrote, citing findings
by Peg McCartt Hess, a former Columbia University social work professor
who had been retained by the plaintiffs to review the cases.
The
judge said Ms. Leekin had routinely denied the children access to food
and a toilet; handcuffed and restrained them for hours; trapped them in
cribs that were held shut with boards and heavy objects; beat them with a
belt, a nightstick and other objects; forced them to stand for hours,
sometimes with their hands above their heads; failed to protect them
from sexual abuse; and repeatedly threatened them with a gun or with
being beaten to death.
When
they were removed from her care in 2007, only three could read (at a
third-grade level), and six were declared either “totally incapacitated”
or “vulnerable adults,” the judge noted, citing Dr. Hess’s findings.
The
latest settlement, detailed in the court filing on Monday, covers the
eight children who were placed with Ms. Leekin by the private agencies.
Judge Vitaliano must still approve the deal, which was reached in June
with the assistance of a mediator, the filing said.
A
vast majority of the net proceeds, said Howard M. Talenfeld, a lawyer
for the plaintiffs, will be paid through annuities or trusts “to ensure
that these children will have the support and therapeutic services
necessary to address the lifetime of challenges they face after
surviving their appalling abuse by Judith Leekin.”
The
private agencies that were defendants in the suit are HeartShare Human
Services of New York, SCO Family of Services and the now-closed St.
Joseph Services for Children and Families. The agencies denied
liability. HeartShare said it “chooses not to make any comment” about
the settlement, while SCO referred a reporter to the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, which oversees the foster care system. The two private agencies still have foster care contracts with the city.
A
Children’s Services spokesman declined to comment on Wednesday, but
when the city settled in 2012, the agency said, “There are much more
sophisticated systems in place today that would never allow this kind of
fraud to be perpetrated on the city or our children.”
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