Lawsuit: SCO Family of Services
“The troubled agency that placed foster care children into the care of an alleged sexual predator was slapped with a multi-million dollar lawsuit for allowing a worker to abuse a special needs resident.
A 14-year-old girl’s mother filed the $5.1 million lawsuit on Friday after prosecutors in the Bronx charged Yakubu Abdulazeez for inappropriately touching her daughter inside of The Christopher School.
The child who suffers from moderate intellectual disabilities, schizo-affective disorder, intermittent impulsive disorder and autism, lived at the state-certified… residence where Abdulazeez was a staff member.
The Bronx facility, which runs under the parent company SCO Family of Services, provides a therapeutic and residential setting for children with developmental disabilities who require 24-hour supervision, according to their website.
SCO is responsible for placing dozens of children from the Administration of Children’s Services into the care of alleged sex abuser Cesar Gonzales-Mugaburu.
ACS began an investigation against SCO earlier this month.
The teen said Abulazeez groped her private areas on April 10 and other dates during evening and overnight hours, according to court records.
Once the allegations came to light, SCO reported the serious allegations to authorities and immediately fired Abdulazeez, according to a spokeswoman with SCO.
Abdulazeez, 51, was charged on April 12 with sex abuse, forcible touching and endangering the welfare of a child — all misdemeanors.
A Bronx judge released Abdulazeez on his own recognizance.
The girl’s mother charged in the Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit that the school failed to do a proper background check on Abdulazeez and should have known he “had prior incidents regarding improper sexual contact, and/or physical contact with others.”
A spokeswoman with SCO denied that Abdulazeez wasn’t given a proper background check.
Abdulazeez declined to comment outside of his home Monday.
The victim’s attorney also declined to comment on the pending litigation.”
N.Y. family services agency sued over abuse of special needs child in Bronx [NY Daily News 4/18/16 by CHRISTINA CARREGA-WOODBY]
REFORM Puzzle Piece
My niece fell victim to SCO House manger suffer horrible abuses and I have documentation that they admitted that they did not do a background investigation an d her son almost they never knew she was pregnant till she went in labor and I feel she was given a very poor hearing because even a police report was never filed so he is free from his crime I believe it her story was never made public so there could have been awareness sooner we are trying to get her and her son out of the residential and home with family and that is becoming difficult because her money was place in a non profit org.