Lawsuit: Shasta County Sheriff, Shasta County Health and Human Services et. al.

“A young woman who said she was sexually abused by two men for years while living in a Shasta County foster home has sued her former foster parents as well as a second man who she said repeatedly raped her.

Two lawsuits she recently filed in Shasta County Superior Court also allege that two county agencies failed to protect her from being “preyed upon by sexual predators.”

The young woman is referred to as “Jane Doe” in the two complaints.

Because of her age at the time of the abuse and the nature of the allegations, her real name was not used to protect her privacy, the complaints say.

Both lawsuits were filed against the two foster parents, James Kenneth Carney of Fall River Mills and his wife, Forrest Carney. Both lawsuits name Uriah S. Wells, who is also accused of sexually abusing the young woman.

In addition to the alleged abusers, one lawsuit names the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, while the second names the Shasta County Health and Human Services Agency.

Both lawsuits were filed in late December 2025 and are set for trial in December 2026, court documents said.

Based on dates given in the lawsuits, the young woman is now in her early 30s.

The lawsuit naming the Sheriff’s Office said that as a teen, the victim was sexually abused while living in Wells’ home in Anaheim from 2004 to 2005. Her sexual abuse continued from 2005 to 2014, after Wells was living in Burney, the lawsuit said.

From 2005 to 2012, while she lived alternately in Wells’ home on the weekends and the Carney’s Fall River Mills home on weekdays, the victim claims she was sexually abused by both Wells and James Carney, the lawsuit said.

The girl was placed in foster care in the Carney’s home in 2007 — when she was 13 years old — until 2012 and was subjected to “daily sexual abuse, assault, battery, false imprisonment, neglect, exploitation and severe emotional distress,” the lawsuit said.

Foster mother Forrest Carney “knew or should have known” about the sexual abuse the teen was being subjected to in their home by her husband “on a daily basis,” the lawsuit said.

The Carney’s did not enroll the girl in school and Shasta County officials failed to investigate, “as was required by state law,” alleged the lawsuit naming the Health and Human Services agency.

Since county officials placed her in the Carney’s home, the teen “reasonably believed she was not free to leave” until she reached adulthood, the lawsuit said.

From 2012 to 2014, the young woman lived with Wells in his home in Burney, where the sex abuse continued, the lawsuit naming the Sheriff’s Office said.

In one instance, the lawsuit alleged, the young woman was raped by Wells after she’d been in a severe car accident that resulted in a traumatic brain injury and broken hips.

Allegations of sexual abuse were made to authorities on three separate occasions, the lawsuit naming the Sheriff’s Office said.

The victim’s aunt and her psychotherapist made reports to county officials in 2014, the lawsuit naming the Sheriff’s Office said. No action was taken to investigate their claims, the suit alleged.

At one point, the teen tried to tell a Shasta County official making a routine visit to the foster home in 2008 about the ongoing sexual abuse, said the lawsuit naming HHSA. The unidentified official who came to the home called her “a liar,” the lawsuit said, and told her if any abuse was happening, she had been “asking for it.”

After that, the lawsuit said officials interviewed her “only in the presence of her abusers, essentially and effectively silencing her cries for help.”

Pointing to the young woman’s depression and suicide attempts, the lawsuit said, “The injuries suffered by plaintiff Jane Doe are substantial, continuing and permanent.”

A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office said the agency could not comment on the allegations “due to pending litigation.”

The Health and Human Services Agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment made on Tuesday, Feb. 10.

The attorney for the plaintiff, Mary Caruso of the Los Angeles-based Wilshire Law Firm, did not respond to an email seeking comment on Tuesday, Feb. 10.

Neither complaint asks for a specific dollar amount, but requests other damages including past and future medical expenses and loss of earnings and earnings capacity. The suits also ask for punitive damages.”

Shasta County accused of not protecting foster child from sex abuse
[Record Searchlight 2/11/26 by Michele Chandler]

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