How Could You? Hall of Shame-Michael Diaz UPDATED

Michael Diaz, 34, of Chelsea entered his plea in Suffolk Superior Court to 13 charges: four counts of aggravated rape of a child, six counts of indecent assault and battery on a child, and one count each of dissemination of material harmful to a minor, posing a child in a state of nudity, and possession of child pornography, according to District Attorney Rachael Rollins’s office.

Diaz was released on the $25,000 bail he had previously posted. He walked out of the courtroom Friday next to his lawyer and kept his head down and did not respond when a TV reporter asked, “Did you rape these two children?”

According to Rollins’s office, Diaz allegedly abused two foster daughters between 2017 and 2019. At the time of the alleged abuse, prosecutors said, Diaz was a DCF-approved foster parent.

In a statement, a DCF spokesperson said the agency “collaborated with law enforcement throughout this investigation and will continue to do so. The mistreatment of any child in a foster home is unacceptable, and in March 2019, DCF immediately removed the youths from the home and notified the District Attorney, consistent with the department’s policy to notify the District Attorney any time an allegation of sexual assault is filed.”

Rollins’s office, meanwhile, said Diaz allegedly exerted pressure on both girls to keep quiet about the alleged abuse.

“Both girls had been instructed by the defendant to keep this behavior a secret, and for a while they did so,” Rollins’s office said in a statement. “The defendant also gave the 12-year-old child two cellular phones and continued to communicate with her after she was removed from his foster home. Those phones are now in the care and custody of the Chelsea Police Department.”

A major break in the case came on June 29, 2019, Rollins’s office said. That’s when the 12-year-old girl told her biological mother that Diaz had sexually assaulted her repeatedly, according to prosecutors. The child also said she was concerned about her 11-year-old foster sister.

Both girls later disclosed the alleged abuse to investigators in separate interviews, Rollins’s office said.

“Forensic examinations of the defendant’s phone and the two phones given to the 12-year-old by the defendant have produced corroborative photographic evidence,” the statement said. “Photos on the defendant’s cellular phone depict the 12-year-old child unclothed. The defendant and victim’s phones also contain an image of the defendant and a grown woman engaging in oral sex.” Prosecutors said the act had been “described by the 11-year-old victim.”

“This is the most evil betrayal of trust I can imagine,’’ Rollins said in the statement. “I am revolted by the charges, not only as District Attorney but as a licensed foster parent and an emergency foster care provider.”

The county’s top prosecutor continued her withering criticism, saying that “foster children are brought into strangers’ homes during some of the darkest, most frightening times in their young lives.”

Foster parents, Rollins said, “are supposed to provide the children in their custody with the safety, support, stability, and care they need in order to move forward and recover from the trauma many have experienced prior to Department of Children and Families involvement. That an individual would further harm the most innocent and vulnerable among us represents unfathomable depravity.”

According to DCF, the agency has a specialized unit to investigate abuse and neglect allegations in foster homes, and the agency performs criminal background checks on all foster parents before they’re licensed, and every year thereafter.

In addition, officials said, 30 hours of training is required before someone can get licensed as a foster parent, and there are 4,300 foster homes throughout the state including kinship homes.“