Nubia Barahona’s Sister Sues DCF updated-SB48

Nubia’s Case can be followed here.

“The adoptive sister of Nubia Barahona, the child whose gruesome death while under the care of her adoptive father and mother shook Florida a few years ago, filed a lawsuit on Monday against the Florida Department of Children & Families, a child welfare worker, and two former DCF investigators.

The lawsuit alleges that Nubia Barahona’s now 11-year-old adoptive sister, referred to as “J.B.” in the complaint, is a “survivor of severe child abuse” and accuses DCF and its employees and agents of “negligence and wanton misconduct.”

J.B. was “abused physically, sexually, and emotionally” by her adoptive parents, Carmen and Jorge Barahona, and she was also “forced to witness” the Barahonas’ abuse of her adoptive siblings, according to the complaint, filed in state court. The Barahonas, awaiting trial, face the death penalty if convicted on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and neglect for Nubia’s death and the alleged mistreatment of her twin brother, Victor.

Nubia was found dead at the age of 10 on Valentine’s Day 2011, her decomposing body swimming in chemicals and stuffed in a garbage bag in the flatbed of her adoptive father’s pest control truck. Victor was in the cab of the truck with Jorge Barahona, alive but unconscious, with chemical burns on his body. Victor later told police that he and his sister had been routinely and repeatedly abused — beaten, tied up, screamed at — by the Barahonas.

He said he heard his adoptive parents beating his twin to death as he lay tied up in a bathtub at the family home in West Miami-Dade. Later, Nubia would be loaded into the back of the truck, with Jorge and Victor riding in the front. The vehicle was found on the side of Interstate 95.

Nubia’s death, reported on extensively by the Miami Herald, prompted the creation of a task force to recommend reforms, such as hiring more child-abuse investigators and making changes to the state’s abuse and neglect hotline.

Monday’s lawsuit states that DCF “repeatedly ignored red flags of abuse in the household,” even though the agency had “ample cause” to remove J.B. and her adoptive siblings. Educators reported that the twins showed up at school bruised or famished, but DCF ignored or downplayed the complaints. Finally the children were removed from school by the family, purportedly so they could be home-schooled.

Todd Falzone, J.B.’s lawyer, called the case a “systemic failure.”

“These people shouldn’t have had any children in their home,” he said. For instance, the Barahonas were allowed to adopt Nubia and Victor despite the misgivings of a guardian ad litem, an individual who represents children in the court system, who felt the parents were unfit.

“One of our main goals in pursuing cases like this is not only to compensate the kids, but to try to fix a system that is ridiculously broken and just never seems to get fixed,” Falzone said.

Also named as defendants in the lawsuit are Lacheryl Harris, a family services Counselor for the Barahona children, and two child protective investigators who had looked into allegations of abuse and neglect in the home, Jean Lacroix and Eunice Guillot.

In an unrelated incident after Nubia’s death, Lacroix was charged with engaging in sex with a foster child. He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.

DCF placed J.B. with the Barahonas in 2004 when she was 7 months old, and they adopted her in 2007. J.B. was removed from the Barahonas’ home after Nubia’s death and has been in therapeutic foster homes ever since, Falzone said.

DCF declined to comment on the case.”

 

Nubia Barahona’s adoptive sister sues DCF[Miami Herald 9/15/14 by Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

 

 

Update: “The state has agreed to pay $5 million to settle claims arising out of the 2011 death of 10-year-old Nubia Barahona and the horrific injuries suffered by her twin brother, Victor, at the hands of their adoptive parents.

But there’s a catch.

The Florida Department of Children and Families already has paid $1.25 million to Nubia’s estate and to Victor to repair the deep psychological wounds he suffered even before he was found near death alongside his sister’s decomposing body in their adopted father’s pesticide van on Interstate 95 in West Palm Beach.

However, to get the remaining $3.75 million, agency officials told those representing the children they must get the historically tight-fisted state Legislature to approve.

Further, the parents accused of killing Nubia are first in line for some of the payout.

State lawmakers this year ignored a bill that would have authorized the $3.75 million payment.

“We hope that the new Senate and House leadership will show more compassion,” said Coral Gables attorney Neal Roth, who negotiated the settlement.

The bill, that has been filed again in the Senate, recounts the “systematic failure” of DCF over six years to investigate reports of the brutality that punctuated the twin’s lives during the six years they lived with Jorge and Carmen Barahona.

Only after Nubia’s death, the bill says, did an investigation finally reveal that the children routinely were choked, beaten, forced to eat cockroaches and food that contained feces and forced to watch as plastic bags were placed over each others’ heads.

While the sought-after payment will come too late to help Nubia, the money from her estate can be used to help Victor and two other children the Barahonas adopted who also endured similar abuse, Roth said. DCF quietly agreed to the settlement in 2013.

But even discounting the vagaries of capitol politics, he said there are myriad legal hurdles in the way of assuring Victor and his two surviving adoptive siblings get the money.

As Nubia’s legal parents at the time of her death, by law, the Miami couple would inherit any money in her estate. However, because both are charged with first-degree murder and are facing the death penalty for causing her death, the state’s “Slayer Statute” would bar them from collecting any of the cash.

Even if they are acquitted by a jury in Miami-Dade County, a civil lawsuit could be filed against them, claiming they were responsible for her death. If successful, that, too, would block them from getting any of the money, Roth said.

“First we must deal with the Barahonas,” he said.

Those who have dealt with the Legislature on what are known as “claims bills” said getting the $3.75 million will be an uphill task. By law, governmental agencies are protected from paying more than $200,000 for wrongdoing unless the Legislature agrees to lift the cap.

It took the guardians of Marissa Amora years to persuade the Legislature to give the youngster the millions a Palm Beach County jury said DCF should pay for putting her in an abusive Lake Worth foster home, where a beating left her severely mentally disabled and unable to walk. Nearly 10 years after the beating, the Legislature finally agreed to pay her $18 million over 10 years. But, a year later, it failed to budget money, which required additional legislative wrangling before payments resumed.

Likewise, a former Boynton Beach couple that wasn’t told of the severe sexual abuse suffered by three boys before they adopted them from DCF faced similar legislative foot-dragging. Stymied in their efforts to get treatment for the boys, who molested other children, killed family pets and tried to poison their adoptive mother, they finally filed a lawsuit against the agency in 2002. Although they settled the suit for $10 million, the Legislature didn’t approve a $9.5 million payment until 2009.

In the last two years, under the leadership of Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, the chamber has refused to hear any claims bills. Some have been languishing for years, such as one that would provide $1.9 million for a 73-year-old North Palm Beach man severely injured when he was run over by a Palm Beach County school bus in 2008.

Still, Roth said, it appears incoming Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, has different views on claims bills. Attorney Lance Block, who for 15 years has tried to push claims bills through the Legislature, said he is “cautiously optimistic” that Gardiner will allow the bills to be heard.

It is also likely that the bill filed on behalf of Nubia and Victor won’t be the last. Roth and attorney Todd Falzone this month filed lawsuits on behalf of the two other children the Barahonas adopted. Both attorneys said they had hoped DCF would agree to settle the cases, as they did for Victor and Nubia, before the lawyers were forced to file lawsuits.

“I am mystified by their behavior,” Roth said. “Are they so caught up in all the bad things that continue to happen that they’re not focused on (these lawsuits)? They should make this right as part of their efforts to get their house in order.””

DCF agrees to pay $5 million to Barahona children[Palm Beach Post 9/17/14 by Jane Musgrave]

Update 2:“Officials in Florida are withholding millions worth of compensation it was ordered to pay a young boy who was tortured by his adopted parents and found close to death next to the decomposing body of his twin sister.

The state settled a lawsuit following the gruesome deaths of Victor and Nubia Barahona in Palm Beach County in 2011, admitting they were at fault.

But the Florida Department of Children and Families and lawyers for the state Legislature want to put the deal on hold and delay final payments indefinitely, according to the Miami Herald.

The state senate has stopped the payments, claiming that if a decision is passed it may imply that the father was liable in the abuse  , even though he is on trial for his daughter’s murder and is facing the death penalty.

The youngsters were sexually abused, starved and forced to sleep in a bathtub for years by Jorge and Carmen Barahona.

It was also revealed that they were forced to eat cockroaches consume food that contained feces.

In a report published in 2011, the state said that there had been a ‘systematic failure’ in their safety net, after Nubia and Victor entered the welfare system as youngsters.

The document stated that the tragic case showed a ‘failure in common sense, critical thinking, ownership, follow-through and timely and accurate information sharing.’

Nubia’s naked body was found in the back of Jorge’s trunk in February 2011, with a badly injured Victor in the front seat. The boy was also covered in pesticides.

The young boy was put into the care of another foster family after spending several weeks in the hospital.

His new foster mother told investigators that the sight of her putting on false eyelashes makes Victor remember how he lost his own lashes when his adoptive father glued his eyes shut.

He has a similar reaction when his new foster father filled up a pitcher of ice water: it brought Victor back to the days when his adoptive father Jorge Barahona would bind him and his twin sister Nubia up, put them in the tub, and douse them with ice.

The state initially approved a check for $1.25 million and sent it to help Victor and his new adoptive parents deal with the psychological trauma.

According to the Herald they did not accept liability in the claim, but did agree not to oppose having the remaining $3.75 million in settlement funds come from the Legislature, in the form of a claim bill.

However the DCF has stopped the payments to the family following a change of heart.

State senate spokesman Katie Betta: ‘At this point in time, as a matter of law, the father’s rights have not been terminated. That is a valid concern the Senate has to consider.’

Under state sovereign immunity laws, the state is shielded from having to pay more than $200,000 when it injures someone, unless the Legislature agrees to lift the cap.

General counsel of Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, George Levesque, was appointed to conduct a ‘mini-trial’ to assess the state’s liability.

He decided that legislators would not vote on the claim bill this year as it may damage other cases related to child abuse at the hands of the Barahonas.

‘The adverse finding of fact or conclusion contained in a claim bill could be used against [DCF] in the pending litigation,’ Levesque said in an email to the lawyers for the family which was seen by the Herald.

He added that Jorge and Carmen Barahona were Nubia’s legal parents at the time of her death. While Carmen’s rights have been taken away, Jorge could inherit any money in the child’s estate.

Neal Roth, the lawyer who negotiated the settlement claimed the decision was utter nonsense and said: ‘The claim bill will be referred to at least one committee and that can easily be addressed by amending the bill to specifically exclude Mr. Barahona from ever receiving any money from the settlement of this case.’

‘This is, in my experience, one of the saddest commentaries on the human condition that I’ve ever seen,’ James Loftus, director of the Miami-Dade police, said previously about the family.

‘It’s depressing, it’s sickening to think about the circumstances that led two people, working in concert, to perpetrate this kind of horror on their own children, adopted or not.’

He described the case as ‘depressing [and] sickening.’

After Victor was hospitalized for several weeks after the incident, he was moved into the care of foster mother Katia Garcia.

 

Mrs Garcia met with police in June to discuss what she had learned from Victor about the extent of his abuse, and the horror of his experiences appears never-ending.

‘He really didn’t want to remember, perhaps, but he did,’ she told investigators in a taped interview.

Victor is the most upset when talking about his sister Nubia, who was found wrapped in a garbage bag in the back of Jorge Barahona’s pick-up truck after being doused with chemicals.

 

He stutters when he talks. He can’t finish his sentences,’ Mrs Garcia said.

‘He has nervous twitches with his eyes. He had one with his mouth. He doesn’t want to talk about what his sister went through.’

Both of the twins were both starved while living in the Barahona house. They were only given a piece of bread and a glass of milk once a week while their parents and their two other adopted children dined on shredded beef and rice”

Florida withholds millions in compensation payments to boy who was tortured by his adoptive parents and found dying alongside his twins sister’s decomposing body because it would violate the father’s rights[Daily Mail 12/14/14 by Wills Robinson]

Update 3:“A South Florida senator filed a proposal Friday that calls for the state to pay $3.75 million in a settlement stemming from the high-profile 2011 murder of 10-year-old Nubia Barahona and injuries suffered by her twin brother, Victor.

The bill (SB 48), filed by Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, will be considered during the 2016 legislative session and cites negligence by the Department of Children and Families.

The twins were placed as foster children in the home of Jorge and Carmen Barahona and were later adopted by the couple.

The bill said, in part, that before the adoption “significant events occurred which the Department of Children and Families knew or should have known were indicative of the perpetration of abuse.”

Jorge and Carmen Barahona were charged with murder and other offenses after Nubia Barahona’s decomposing body was found in February 2011 in a garbage bag in the bed of her father’s pickup truck on Interstate 95 in Palm Beach County. Victor Barahona was convulsing in the truck, as both children had been doused with toxic chemicals, authorities said.

The criminal charges remain pending. State and federal lawsuits were filed on behalf of Victor Barahona and the estate of Nubia Barahona, according to Flores’ bill, which does not mention the children by name.

A $5 million settlement was reached, but the Department of Children and Families could only pay $1.25 million without passage of a legislative “claim” bill directing payment of the rest.”

Bill Calls For State To Pay $3.75M In Barahona Case[CBS Miami 7/31/15 by CBS Miami]