Lawsuit: Another Washington DSHS case UPDATED Bittersweet Justice

Another week. Another case.

“Two children sexually assaulted by a state-paid foster parent now say child services workers ignored an earlier report of abuse in the Snohomish County home.

Attorneys for the girls claim Department of Social and Health Services workers failed to act on a 2012 report of sexual behavior in foster father John Phillips’ home.

Months later, Phillips began raping two foster daughters and a third child. Phillips, now 45, was found out in 2014 and is currently serving a 25-year prison term.

“Sadly, once again we see two innocent young children horrifically abused in our state’s foster care system,” attorney Michael Pfau said Friday. “This lawsuit is hopefully the beginning of a long journey toward healing for them.

“Our state meanwhile must address the problems in its foster care system now so tragic cases like this are a rare occurrence not something we continually read about in the news media.”

Pfau, a Seattle attorney with the firm Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala, filed a lawsuit on the girls’ behalf earlier in March. They are seeking compensation for harm they claim was caused by state negligence.

A Department of Social and Health Services spokesperson declined to comment on the claims, citing a DSHS policy against speaking about pending lawsuits.

The Washington girls, then 9 and 14, were placed in Phillips’ Granite Falls home after being physically and sexually abused elsewhere. Phillips, aware of what the girls had already endured, won their trust and then sexually exploited them.

Two years before that, though, child services workers received a report that a 4-year-old who had been placed at Phillips home reported sexual activity there, attorneys for the girls said in the lawsuit. The child told her foster mother an individual in the home had exposed himself to “exercise … on someone’s butt.”

The girls’ attorneys claim the state didn’t properly investigate the strange report and instead allowed three children to be raped by Phillips.

Investigators would ultimately learn that Phillips had been raping the girls regularly at the home he shared with his wife and biological children. The abuse continued throughout the girls’ time at Phillips’ home.

The abuse came to light in August 2014, when the younger foster daughter when to Phillips’ wife and said she had “done something bad.” The girl went on to say Phillips had touched her sexually.

Phillips’ wife called the other foster daughter and a third girl into the room and asked them if Phillips had abused them. They said he had.

Phillips walked in a moment later. Confronted, he admitted to abusing the girls, though he would later make nonsensical claims that the children enticed him into raping them.

“Although he readily admits to his actions he refuses to take actual responsibility for choosing to do what he did,” a Snohomish County community corrections officer who interviewed Phillips said in court papers.

Phillip turned himself in after his wife said she was going to report the abuse. He later said he didn’t know what he would’ve done had his wife not threatened to turn him in.

Authorities arrested Phillips and removed the foster children from his former home. He ultimately pleaded guilty to four child rape and child molestation counts, and is currently imprisoned at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.

In court papers filed in Phillips criminal case, a social worker assisting the girls after their ordeal with Phillips said both have struggled because of the betrayal.

“They both trusted John and (his wife) to be their adoptive parents,” the social worker said in the June memo. “It’s been hard trying to build that trust again.”

Attorneys for the state have not yet responded to the girls’ lawsuit, which is filed in King County Superior Court.”

Lawsuit: State could’ve saved children raped by foster dad [Seatlle Post-Intelligencer 3/6/16 by Levi Pulkkinen]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update: “Washington state will pay two foster children $8.5 million after they claimed the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) failed to protect them from being sexually abused by their foster parent.

The two foster children, who are identified in court documents as R.O. and S.O., sued DSHS in Snohomish County Superior Court in 2016. R.O. and S.O claim DSHS didn’t fully investigate reports that foster parent John Phillips exposed himself to a foster child before they were placed in the home in 2013.

“The state has one job to do when it receives a complaint of abuse and that is to investigate and keep children safe,” R.O. and S.O’s attorney Michael Pfau said in a statement. “In this regard, the state failed miserably.”

Phillips is serving prison time for sexually abusing R.O. and S.O. for 14 months while they were under his care.

Before R.O. and S.O. were placed in the home, another 4-year-old foster girl reported in 2012 that Phillips exposed himself to her and may have sodomized another child in her presence.

Lawyers for R.O. and S.O. say Child Protective Services (CPS) looked into the allegations, but the case was handed off to a foster home licensor when CPS didn’t take action, because the girl’s report was too “vague.” The licensor interviewed Phillips and his wife, but didn’t interview the girl, and a DSHS supervisor told the licensor to close the file, according to R.O. and S.O.’s lawyers.

Pfau said his clients hope the settlement will keep this from happening to another foster child.

“More than anything else our clients hope that by speaking out and holding the State accountable, DSHS will better train and equip its social workers to make certain such obviously preventable atrocities can never happen again in our foster care system,” Pfau said in a statement.

The Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), which was created in 2018 and now handles foster care in the state, said it has policies in place to investigate allegations of abuse and neglect in out-of-home care. However, it agreed to consider policy changes as part of the settlement.

“The agency and its leadership are committed to reviewing the effectiveness of our practices and adopting new ones when needed to protect children,” a DCYF spokesperson said in a statement.”

Washington to pay $8.5 million in foster care sex abuse case

[King 5 11/22/19]