Records Sealed and Judge Tossed-Florida Sunblock in Barahona Case

By Rally on 3-02-2011 in Abuse in foster care, Carmen Barahona, Florida, Jorge Barahona, Nubia Barahona, Victor Barahona

You can forget about shining the light on some details of the case of Victor and Nubia. They won’t be getting any exposure at Thursday March 3rd’s panel meeting that is supposed to get to the bottom of all of the issues that led to this atrocious debacle.

You see, court administrators had an emergency hearing on Wednesday without notice. They tossed Judge Cindy Lederman from the case. Judge Lederman has demonstrated transparency in the past by releasing (the not-so-nice) thousands of pages of foster care records of another doomed Floridian girl, Rilya Wilson. (A synopsis of Rilya’s disappearance can be found at The Charley Project Rilya’s name, by the way, was an acronym for “Remember I Love You Always”.)

The newly-appointed judge to this case, Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia, “ordered that transcripts detailing a teacher and principal’s concerns about the welfare of Nubia Barahona in her foster home be kept out of the public eye.”

Why is this so important? Because the panel that was appointed ” to review missteps in the case, won’t hear the testimony.”

It is spelled out quite clearly in the DCF files that you can find a synopsis of here that the school knew many details and reported them in a timely fashion. It is clear that DCF overrode those concerns by closing out each complaint and allowing the Barahonas to adopt. ”

A DCF spokeswoman declined to specify who asked for the transcripts to be sealed, though the motion did not come from the agency.”