Man files $5 mil suit against Farm Home
By Gwyneth Gibby
Gazette-Times reporter
http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2007/05/18/news/community/3aaa02_suit.txt
Plaintiff alleges sex abuse during his stay there in the 1970s
A Salem man has filed a $5 million lawsuit against the Children’s Farm
Home and its parent Trillium Family Services, claiming he was sexually
abused as a child there in the late 1970s.
The suit alleges former Farm Home Executive Director William “Hank”
Dufort abused the plaintiff, who is now 45, countless times over a
three-year period. As a sex-abuse victim, the plaintiff is not named in
the complaint, filed Tuesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
Dufort was tried in 1990 and convicted of multiple counts of sex abuse,
sodomy and contributing to the delinquency of a minor for abusing six
boys who had been clients at the Farm Home. He is serving a 48-year
prison sentence in the Snake River Correctional Facility for those crimes.
The suit does not name Dufort. According to the plaintiff’s attorney,
Kelly Clark, the Children’s Farm Home was responsible for monitoring the
actions of its employees.
“We would be asking a jury to find that it was the Farm Home that had
the best opportunity to prevent (the abuse),” Clark said.
Derenda Schubert, chief external affairs officer of Trillium Family
Services, said she learned of the lawsuit from the Gazette-Times and
would look into the matter and respond at the appropriate time.
“My client has got a lifetime of wreckage,” Clark said. “He is a sweet
man, not sophisticated, and came from a horrible home situation.”
Clark said his client, like many child sex-abuse victims, delayed for a
long time before disclosing what happened to him. Many victims have what
Clark called an “aha moment” or a triggering event that leads them to
finally tell someone what happened. In his client’s case, Clark said the
trigger was reading about cases of child sex abuse by Catholic priests.
At least 15 civil suits were filed by Dufort’s victims in the early
1990s, most of which were settled out of court for an undisclosed
amount. Those suits named Dufort, the Children’s Farm Home and the State
of Oregon’s Children’s Services Division, now known as Child Protective
Services, which placed children in the Farm Home in the 1980s.
Dufort had his first meeting with the Oregon Board of Parole on March 7.
During that meeting, he denied abusing the six boys who testified
against him at trial, but admitted to abusing more than two dozen other
boys in the years before he became executive director of the Farm Home.
Many of those victims have never been identified.
“He was one of the silent others,” Clark said of his client.
Clark said his client was abused during the three years he spent at the
home in 1977 to 1979. His client was not interviewed by investigators at
the time of the criminal proceedings in 1990, because the statute of
limitations on crimes committed during the 1970s had long run out.
A press release issued by Clark’s firm claims that “The Farm Home abuse
pattern often involved boys speaking out and making allegations of abuse
to other staff members,” and that those allegations went straight to
Dufort as executive director, and no further.
But Karen Zorn, then a Benton County deputy district attorney who
prosecuted Dufort, said during a recent interview that none of the boys
who testified against him at trial had ever told anyone at the Farm Home
that they were abused.
“Boys don’t tell,” said Scott Fels, then a Benton County sheriff’s
deputy and a lead investigator on the case.
Nevertheless, when investigators began to question staff members about
Dufort’s behavior, they began to see how Dufort had managed to avoid
being caught for so long. They cited his practice of visiting boys alone
in their rooms early in the morning, his giving them backrubs and
favoring certain boys.
“That’s when the whole incredible dysfunction of the Farm Home became
clearly obvious very quickly,” Zorn said.
The $5 million figure requested in the suit would be for compensatory
damages, Clark said, for suffering, loss of ability to earn a living,
and therapy.
“My client continues in counseling,” Clark said.
Trillium Family Services has 30 days after being served with the suit to
reply. After that, both sides will have the opportunity to depose
witnesses, including Dufort, and conduct further investigations
concerning the case.
CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL
SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....
CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.
every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...
http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf
http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com
Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS
*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*
Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5
Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that
are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per
100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse
and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the
citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold
parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY
government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and
death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more
human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which
they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that
they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when
children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a
bunch of social workers.
BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...
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