How Could You? Hall of Shame-Leslie Boyd Hayden

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 Portland, Oregon, foster parent Leslie Boyd Hayden, 71, was sentenced back in March of 2011 for molesting a 6-year-old foster daughter.

“Hayden’s family — in the courtroom’s back row — watched, a woman crying softly and rubbing her eyes while a man jotted down notes on a pad of paper.

Not 20 feet away from her, the little girl’s father, who had taken off work to be in the courtroom, bowed his head. When deputies had brought Hayden — shackled and in a blue jail uniform — into the courtroom, the father could not bear to look at him. He kept his head down. He glanced up only when a sheriff’s deputy tapped him on the shoulder with a box of tissues.

The father nodded, and bowed his head again as the courtroom fell silent, waiting for Hayden to speak.

Hayden cleared his throat.

“I am sorry it happened,” he said. “It was never meant to be sexual. What I did, I apologize to the court.”

And then it was time for Walker to hand down a sentence. He sat forward, his voice needing no amplification. It boomed through the courtroom.

“You may believe those things, but I don’t,” he said. “It is inexcusable and unacceptable.”

When he’d come into the courtroom, Walker said, he was not sure what sentence to hand down. And then Hayden spoke.

“You didn’t help yourself telling me that,” the judge said.

He said that his role in the system was administering justice.

So he handed out two sentences, each just over six years. They will be served concurrently. After he leaves prison he’ll spend another four years in post prison supervision.

The case over, deputies led Hayden from the courtroom. Hayden looked at his family, but never bothered to glance at the father at the end of the row.

If he had, he would have seen the man’s face upturned, waiting to meet his.”

Portland man, 71, sentenced to 6 years in prison for sexually abusing 6-year-old

[Oregon Live 3/9/11 by Tom Hallman Jr]

June 2012: “An attorney has filed a $1 million lawsuit against the Oregon Department of Human Services on behalf of an 8-year-old girl who was molested by her North Portland foster dad.

The suit, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court on Monday, faults DHS for failing to adequately respond to reports that something was wrong in the home.

According to the lawsuit and Josh Lamborn, the Portland attorney who represents the girl:

The girl and her younger brother were placed in the home in August 2009, after their mother was locked up in jail. In October 2009, the girl, then 6, told her biological father that foster father Leslie Boyd Hayden had rubbed her back and stomach. Her dad told her caseworker, who told Hayden to stop the massages.

“Hayden says it’s no big deal, and they (DHS workers) drop it,” Lamborn said.

Ten days later, the biological father complained to the caseworker that his son told him he was bleeding from the penis. The caseworker interviewed the children and Hayden’s wife later that day. The children were allowed to stay in the Hayden home.

Four days after that, the caseworker learned from a non-profit worker that the girl had said her foster dad had touched her inappropriately. The caseworker responded by saying “he had already addressed that issue and it would no longer be an issue,” according to the suit.

About a month after that, the girl told her biological father that Hayden, then 70, had kissed her on the mouth and molested her with his hands. The biological father called police, who started an investigation and notified DHS. Child-protective workers removed the children from the home that day.

Lamborn said the father turned to police because he’d “lost faith in the caseworker because he’d told him twice before that something was wrong” and nothing happened.

In an email earlier this week about abuse by foster parents, DHS spokesman Gene Evans said DHS has improved its screening and investigation of reports of abuse and neglect. It also has instituted “more comprehensive background checks of foster parents before they are ever certified to care for a child.”

After a trial, Hayden was found guilty of two counts of first-degree sexual abuse. He was sentenced in 2011 to more than 12 years in prison.

The suit seeks $1 million in non-economic damages for the girl’s physical injuries and “permanent psychological damage.” The suit also seeks $55,000 for past and future counseling and “psychiatric and psychological medical treatment.”

The children are now living with their father.”
DHS sued for $1 million after Portland foster father molested girl

[Oregon Live  6/12/12 by Aimee Green]

REFORM Puzzle Pieces

 The second lawsuit against OR DHS in two days!