How Could You? Hall of Shame-Joelle M. Barozzini UPDATED
This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.
From Greensburg, Pennsylvania, foster mother Joelle M. Barozzini,46, ” is accused of having sexual contact with a foster child from Greene County in her care.”
“The Greene County Children and Youth Services office knew about accusations of inappropriate behavior by a foster mom, but continued to place children in her care.”
“Barozzini turned herself in on Wednesday afternoon. She is charged with rape-forcible compulsion, institutional sexual assault, corruption of minors and endangering welfare of children. The investigation spans three counties.
Police said Barozzini is employed at Pressley Ridge. She worked at their Uniontown Foster Care program and she was placed on administrative leave once the agency learned of the allegations.
According to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday, police said the school knew about an allegation related to Barozzini, placed kids in her care and never contacted officials.
Detectives tell Channel 11 they are going to meet with prosecutors in the coming days to see if any further action will be taken.
The victim was 16 years old when the initial incident reportedly happened in 2009 at Barozzini’s Greensburg home. The sexual abuse continued for years, sometimes while Barozzini’s husband was home, investigators said.
Police said Barozzini would text the boy, “Hurry home so I can text you.” The boy told police that was code for sex.
During their investigation, police conducted multiple interviews. When members of the boy’s family were interviewed, they told detectives that Barozzini often bought the victim expensive gifts. Detectives also spoke with other children Barozzini fostered, and Children and Youth Services case workers from Greene County, because that’s where the alleged victim is from.
Investigators said one case worker reported her suspicions of an inappropriate relationship to a supervisor, but the case worker was reprimanded for “gossip,” required to attend ethics training and removed from the case. Police interviewed that supervisor, and said the allegation was never reported to Child Line or law enforcement officials.
Pressley Ridge told Channel 11 Barozzini was immediately placed on leave for months, pending a resolution of the investigation. A representative went on to say the safety and well-being of the children is their highest priority.
Greene County CYS told Channel 11 in a statement: “The Agency is aware of the investigation and we are cooperating fully with law enforcement. I cannot comment any further due to the on-going investigation.”
Barozzini’s attorney did not comment on the case, but told Channel 11 this has been hanging over his client’s head since she first learned of the investigation in November.
Police say had a state trooper not made a Child Line report last November, law enforcement would’ve never known about the allegations.
Barozzini was ordered to surrender her passport and was released on $50,000 unsecured bond.”
Woman accused of sex crimes against foster child turns herself in
[WPXI 5/25/17 ]
REFORM Puzzle Piece
Update: “The sister of a young man who was allegedly raped hundreds of times by his foster mother is speaking out for the first time.
Joelle Barozzini, 46, of Greensburg, is accused of having sexual contact with the teen while he was a foster child in her care.
The teen’s sister said she tried to get officials to take her seriously when she repeatedly claimed Barozzini had an unusual relationship with her then-16-year-old brother. She said she spoke to her brother’s CYS caseworker years ago, but thought no action was taken.
“I had mentioned it didn’t seem right. It was off. So clingy together,” she said.
She said Barozzini insisted he call her “mother” and didn’t allow him to use that term for his biological mother. She also said Barozzini was constantly buying him expensive gifts and wouldn’t leave his side, whenever his biological relatives came to visit.
In a complaint against Barozzini last week, police said that the teen’s former CYS caseworker did speak up and reported her suspicions to her supervisor. However the caseworker was reprimanded for gossiping.
On Wednesday, the teen’s sister told Channel 11 she never knew that the caseworker had taken her concerns to a supervisor.
“i don’t think should have been punished, especially coming from us, his family. They should have looked into it,” she said.
Police said former Greene County CYS Director Dee Dee Blosnich-Gooden required the caseworker to take ethics training and never investigated the allegation.
“You would have to go through all these documents, all this paperwork and all this investigating. I think she just didn’t want to do it,” she said.
Blosnich-Gooden, who was currently working for Washington County, resigned after the court documents were filed last week.
She said she feels relief that the first steps towards justice for her brother are in the works. She says what Barozzini allegedly did has scarred her brother for life. The alleged victim is now 24 years old.
“I hope you rot in jail for the rest of your life. I hope your family is as broken as ours is, and that you get the full punishment for everything you did to us,” she said. ”
Sister of alleged victim in foster mom sex abuse case reveals new details
[WPXI 6/1/17]
Update 2: “A former foster mother applied “psychological coercion” to keep a Greene County teenager in her care from telling anyone about their sexual relationship, the prosecutor in the case argued Thursday.
Westmoreland County Assistant District Attorney Jim Lazar also accused Joelle Barozzini, 46, of Greensburg, of telling the alleged victim people would have doubts if he told anyone about having sex with her, beginning when he was 16 years old.
“He was trying to make the best of it,” Lazar said at Barozzini’s preliminary hearing in Greensburg, where District Judge James Albert ordered her to stand trial on rape and related charges.
The former foster child, who is now 24, told his side of the story while he was on the witness stand for more than two hours, saying he and Barozzini had sex nearly 500 times before he moved out of her home in 2013.
“She said she had a career, a job where people looked up to her,” he said. “She said no one would believe me.” Barozzini worked at Pressley Ridge in Uniontown as a supervisor for the foster child agency when she took the teen into her home. The arrangement involved therapeutic foster care because the teen had bounced between foster homes and wilderness camps, and along the way he reported other cases of abuse.
Barozzini is accused of starting the relationship by slipping his hand up her thigh on a basement couch during a party where a group had gathered to watch a movie.
“I was nervous. She kissed me,” the alleged victim testified. “She grabbed me and pulled me into her room.”
The bedroom door was open and Barozzini’s then-husband was asleep on a couch, he said. “I was kind of frightened. I really didn’t know what to do,” he said.
He also said he feared that his foster mother’s husband would kill him if he found out about the relationship.
He said Barozzini would say things such as, “We’re boyfriend and girlfriend.” He said she took him away for weekends where they would stay together in motels.
“There were sweet moments,” said the alleged victim, who is awaiting trial in Westmoreland County on charges of aggravated assault and child endangerment.
He also accused her of providing him with alcohol.
Barozzini’s attorney, William J. McCabe of Greensburg, argued that the prosecution failed to show evidence that the teen had been forced into having sex with his client.
“It didn’t sound like force to me,” McCabe said.
McCabe said the former foster son stole a diamond ring from Barozzini and took it to a pawn shop, that he also stole a banking card from Barozzini.
He also accused the man of never telling authorities about the sexual relationship until he spoke about it to a state trooper when he was being driven from a jail in Greene County to one in Westmoreland after being arrested in the assault case in April 2016.
Lazar replied, saying the foster son was aware that complaints had been made about Barozzini to Greene County Children and Youth Services and that “nothing happened.”
A Greene County CYS administrator was told by another employee in February 2012 about her concerns that Barozzini was involved in a sexual relationship with the boy. That administrator, Dee Dee Blosnich-Gooden, allegedly accused the employee of gossiping and she never notified authorities about the complaint.
Blosnich-Gooden later left that job to become deputy administrator of Washington County CYS, and she resigned from that position in May within days of the charges being filed against Barozzini.
A Pressley Ridge official has said that Barozzini was placed on administrative leave after the rape allegations surfaced. The state Department of Human Services no longer allows her to accept foster children.
Barozzini, of 28 Morningside Drive, was initially charged by Greensburg police with rape by forcible compulsion, institutional sexual assault, corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children. The prosecution added a charge of sexual assault against her Thursday.
She remains free on $50,000 unsecured bond that was set by Albert at her May 24 arraignment.”
Former foster mother to stand trial for having sex with Greene County teen in her care
[Observer-Reporter 7/20/17 by Scott Beveridge]
“A foster mother allegedly raped a boy in her care more than 500 times – even claiming she was his girlfriend suffering from a premature ageing disease, a court has heard.
Married Joelle Barozzini allegedly raped the boy, who was 16 when he began living with her, while she was working for an agency that deals with troubled youth in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
The 46-year-old is charged with rape, institutional sexual assault, corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children.
The abuse was said to have taken place between 2009 and 2013 with the victim, now 24, testifying during a preliminary hearing that the pair had sex “hundreds of times”.”
“She is also accused of referring to their relationship as that of boyfriend-girlfriend and sending him nude photos and giving him alcohol.
The victim claimed that he had tried to tell a relative about the sexual abuse but they did not believe him. The allegations surfaced after a state trooper made a ChildLine report in November 2016.”
[International Business Times 7/21/17 by William Watkinson]
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