TURNING A BLIND EYE: Judy Taege isn’t talking to me.
http://www.independent.com/news/2007/jun/07/fighting-hand-bleeds-you/
If I were Judy Taege, I wouldn’t talk to me either. Or anybody else in
Santa Barbara, for that matter. And she’s not. At least not without a
lawyer from the State’s Attorney General’s office glued to her elbow.
Taege — who lives in Fresno — is of local interest because of her work
with the California Adoption Agency , where for many years she’s
struggled to find decent homes for some of the most abused, traumatized,
and hardest-to-place kids on the planet. She testified in Santa Barbara
a couple months ago during the trial of Sylvia Jovanna Vasquez , the
popular Santa Barbara childcare provider who pleaded guilty to four
felony counts of child endangerment for, among other things, locking up
three of her four adopted children, two in cages. It was Taege who gave
Vasquez the green light to adopt these children in the first place.
Throughout Vasquez’s five-week trial — not regarding her guilt, but as
to whether the charges should be reduced from felonies to
misdemeanors — Taege was much on my mind. Sitting in Judge Frank Ochoa
’s courtroom, I kept wondering how someone like Vasquez managed to adopt
not just one child, but four. Vasquez’s attorney, Bob Sanger , sought to
portray his client as a tragically misguided soul, heroically struggling
to impose loving boundaries on damaged kids determined to act out in the
most fecally and sexually disturbing ways possible. Ochoa conceded that
Vasquez did some good, but he definitely wasn’t buying Sanger’s pitch.
Insisting the felony charges stand, Ochoa ordered Vasquez hauled off to
county jail — as part of a 10-year suspended sentence — on the Friday
before Mother’s Day . Ochoa was moved by the tearful testimony of the
two child welfare workers who described the conditions uncovered in the
Vasquez home as “cruelty” and “torture.” There were the locked cages,
the white plastic buckets two of the kids had to poop in, the cold
rooms, the cold outside showers, substandard meals, and harsh
punishments. For all but the favored child — a gifted violin
prodigy — Ochoa found basic childhood needs, like exercise, could be
secured only by writing long homework essays “filled with contrition,
apology, self loathing, self blame, and self hate.” And while Vasquez’s
favorite enjoyed the run of the house, she was also injected with a drug
to block the onset of puberty . She was also the subject of nearly 100
nude and semi-nude photos. Even with the best of intentions, this was
some weird stuff.
Naturally, I assumed Vasquez had snuck through the bureaucratic cracks ,
a nasty surprise to an unsuspecting Judy Taege and all the state
officials who approved the adoptions. Vasquez is nothing if not
presentable. She drives nice cars. She owns a nice house. But it turns
out, that’s not the case. In fact, there were plenty of warning flags
— big bright ones that snapped loudly in the breeze. Yet, somehow, they
were ignored. Even before Taege approved the first of two sets of
adoptions to Vasquez, she was aware that Santa Barbara County law
enforcement, mental health , and Child Protective Service workers all
expressed serious concerns about Vasquez.
Taege had heard how in 1982 Vasquez had kidnapped a young girl named
Flor — then about nine years old — from Mexico and brought her to Santa
Barbara. Vasquez, who had been the girl’s tutor, went to Flor’s school
and took her with her. She bought Flor new clothes, spreading the ones
Flor had been wearing by a beach so that it appeared the girl had
drowned. When Vasquez mysteriously showed up at Child Protective
Services — where she worked as a receptionist — with her brand-new
nine-year-old daughter, her coworkers took note. When Mexican
authorities contacted the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department about the
missing girl, it didn’t take long to connect the dots . At the time,
Vasquez claimed she was rescuing Flor from the clutches of a sexually
abusive relative. Although Flor now denies any sexual abuse ever took
place, at the time, she did say an uncle had touched her improperly. But
investigators found it suspicious that Vasquez never obtained treatment
for Flor that would be suitable for a victim of sexual abuse.
Ultimately, the prosecutor assigned to the case — former DA Tom Sneddon
— declined to file charges. All the witnesses lived in Mexico and it
would have been a financial hardship, he concluded, for them to come to
Santa Barbara.
Taege was also aware of how, in 1986, Vasquez had written a letter on
Child Protective Services stationery that enabled her to remove three
children from a Mexican orphanage in Tijuana. She was exposed when the
orphanage called her work asking how the children were doing. According
to Laura Cleaves , who investigated the case for prosecutor Joyce Dudley
, Vasquez was not fired, but instead allowed to resign. Cleaves said she
knows Taege was aware of both these incidents before approving Vasquez
as an adoptive parent because Taege told her so. Cleaves said Taege
explained there was no paper trail — no charges filed, no conviction
obtained — to confirm these accounts. While Taege wouldn’t talk to me,
her superior, Mary Ault , deputy director for Children and Family
Services , would. Speaking only generally — and not about the specifics
of the Vasquez case — Ault said, “We are bound by documentation.
Anything that is not documented is hearsay. It continues to be an
allegation as opposed to a fact.”
It’s true Vasquez’s paper trail was less than clear-cut. The county’s
personnel records had been purged, and the sheriff’s record system had
changed, too, making it difficult, though not impossible, to track down
records of the 1982 investigation. But in the 1990s, Vasquez applied to
Santa Barbara County to obtain a foster home permit . Based on the
recollection of her former fellow employees at Child Protective
Services, she was rejected. Likewise, the county adoption agency
rejected Vasquez’s application to become an adoptive parent. When it
appeared that Vasquez might sue the county over these rejections, at
least one of Vasquez’s former coworkers was instructed to draft a memo
by the county counsel’s office detailing these concerns. Ain’t that
paper? One might think this memo would raise serious concerns in Taege’s
mind, but Taege’s not talking.
Then there are the documents from Santa Barbara juvenile court
proceedings regarding the fate of the four adopted children — documents
submitted to Judge Ochoa by Vasquez’s attorney — that indicate Taege was
given even more reason to wonder about Vasquez’s suitability. In these,
Taege admitted she was given a letter written by a psychiatrist then on
the county payroll — Sylvia Warholic — dated October 12, 1998,
indicating Vasquez had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and
borderline personality disorder — both serious mental illnesses — in
the 1980s. Warholic’s letter also indicated Vasquez had been
hospitalized because of these problems two separate times in 1983. These
documents indicate that Taege was troubled by Warholic’s letter and
referred the matter to her supervisors. But Taege also admitted she
never had Vasquez undergo any independent psychological evaluation prior
to the adoption of the kids to Vasquez. When asked if she ever asked
Vasquez about Warholic’s concerns, Taege is quoted in court documents
stating, “I don’t recall speaking to her about the letter.”
I’m the first to admit that the boulder Taege pushes uphill on a daily
basis makes mine look like a speck of sand . Her job is to juggle the
impossible with the desperate. The line of people willing to adopt the
soul-scarred kids of meth-heads and child beaters is getting shorter
every day. Still, there’s only so far you can look the other way before
you break your neck. Given this pitiful record, I can easily understand
why Judy Taege isn’t talking. But the real question remains why she
didn’t listen.
CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA / CIA
WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....
every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...
http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf
*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
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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