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 Anchorage, Alaska, adoptive parent Anya James, 50, was arrested “following an 8 month investigation into criminal offenses against her adopted children. Anya James was arrested yesterday and charged with 10 counts of kidnapping and 6 counts of assault in the first degree.
In early October 2010, APD Detective Chris Thomas received information and was assigned to investigate an alleged claim of child abuse against four of James’ children who were living in her home.
The APD investigation revealed between 2000 and 2010, James fostered and adopted six children, collecting over $750,000 in adoption subsidies from the State of Alaska. James moved from the Eagle River area to a home [in affluent] Anchorage Hillside in 2001. James homeschooled her adopted children and severely restricted their contact with the outside world.
All of the children were subjected to years of emotional and physical abuse. They were confined to small rooms with doors and windows alarmed to notify James if the children tried to escape. James also had video and audio monitors so James could monitor the children’s activities and conversations. Inside the rooms, the children were forced to toilet [defecate] in a kitty litter bucket, despite three working bathrooms in the home.
James also restricted their diets which led them to become severely malnourished, stunting their growth and preventing them from going through puberty during their teenage years. Several of the children removed from James’s house in October 2010 were so malnourished they had to be hospitalized.
James was booked into the Anchorage Jail with bail set at $100,000 cash plus third party custodian with conditions that James have no contact with any of her adopted children or minors under 16 years of age. James is due to be arraigned in Superior Court today at the Nesbitt Courthouse at 1:45 p.m.
Detectives believe James may have adopted additional children prior to the year 2000. If you have any information about children living in the James home before 2000, call Anchorage Police Detective Chris Thomas at 786-2628.”
It was not clear whether Anya James has an attorney.
“”Two children were grown and no longer living at home, said police spokeswoman Anita Shell. Thomas declined to provide many details about the case, including the children’s ages, because it is ongoing in court.
Thomas said James also ran a dog-and-cat kennel business on the Hillside property. The animals were well-cared for and well-nourished, he said.
The home is on about an acre and secluded, the detective said. Some of the neighbors didn’t even know James had children for the first years that she lived there. Some eventually became suspicious but each saw different things and no one put it all together, he said.
Some of the children had run away before, the detective said. Thomas said he couldn’t provide details other than to say the police handled the cases properly.”
“James moved from the Eagle River area in 2001 to a home on the Anchorage Hillside that is currently assessed at more than $560,000.”
Reuters gives the AP’s side of the story via her lawyer: “”Outside court her attorney, Rex Butler, told reporters that prosecutors had presented a grossly distorted picture of his client and her home life.
Butler said James took in children with emotional problems, who needed extra care and would not have been accepted by many adoptive or foster parents.
“There were a lot of psychological and emotional issues, and these were tough children to deal with, and yet she dealt with them well and in good faith,” he said.
There were no locks on bedroom doors, but the children needed extra watching because they were so troubled, he said. Buckets used as toilets were merely optional, in case children did not want to walk to bathrooms, he said.”
Prosecutors add the following: “The youngest are teenagers and the oldest is now 20, she said.”
“”There were some photos in her house of some other children that we could not identify,” she said. “We don’t know who the kids are.”
Update 2: “Two of the children that 50-year-old Anya James is accused of abusing told their stories to Channel 2 News and KTUU.com Thursday.
Commenting on her adoptive mother’s arrest, 21 year old Alice James said, “It’s kind of a hard thing to explain because, I loved her, I thought. I thought she loved me, I thought she was the only person who cared about me, and then I slowly realized she didn’t.”
Alice says James was never married, and there was never a constant father figure living with them in the home.
Alice and her adopted sibling, Leeaster Collins — who currently lives in Tennessee — talked about the abuse that went on at the home.
Collins says she was never abused herself, because she says James was afraid of Collins’ biological mother, but Collins said she had to watch the abuse take place for years.
Alice James and Collins talked about how they were forced to fill out page after page in “writing books,” in which they would describe their feelings. If they didn’t write enough, they would be punished.
Collins said the children in the home were constantly deprived of food.
“I’ve never seen them eat a full — how we eat — regular food. They always had a powermeal, an apple or orange or something like that.”
Collins says a “powermeal” would consist of a variety of foods like oatmeal, refried beans, uncooked eggs and rice warmed together in a microwave.
“It was disgusting, it made me projectile vomit just sitting there looking at it,” Collins said.
Collins moved out of the home in 2003, but kept tabs on her adopted siblings from Tennessee. She says about four years ago, she would hear from them that the physical abuse was getting worse.
“That’s what really bothered me the most,” Collins said. “It went from not just restraining and putting your body weight on them, but it was going to punching and slamming people into the wall. I was very worried.”
That’s when Collins says she notified the Alaska Office of Children’s Services, the agency that oversees adoption in the state, but Collins says the complaint got nowhere.
“I guess they supposedly sent someone out there, when I talked to Alice, Alice said Anya had some bogus story or whatever and it was so convincing they didn’t even take the time to go in and check,” Collins said. “They believed Anya and walked away.”
“They interviewed us all in front of each other, with Anya right there, and they expect us to say something?” said Alice James. “Of course we couldn’t say anything.”
Alice James moved out of the home in 2009.
The two adoptive sisters say that James is lying to Rex Butler, her defense attorney.
On Wednesday, Butler commented on what the police called “kitty litter buckets” that the kids were allegedly forced to toilet in.
“The honey buckets were optional for those who felt like they didn’t want to go to the bathroom,” said Butler. “It was no requirement to use them.”
“They’d say, ‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ — but they didn’t get that,” Collins said. “They stayed in that room and they peed and they pooped in that honey pot, until Anya was ready to come and get them, so that’s a lie.”
In response to the children becoming what the police called “extremely malnourished,” on Wednesday, Butler told Channel 2, “Ms. James is a vegetarian, and she raised her family as vegetarians as well, so its not a situation where she’s not feeding them or giving them adequate food.”
Alice James says she continued to be a vegetarian after she left the home in 2009.
“As a vegetarian on my own, I still wasn’t starving, I actually gained weight, so his statement there doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m just hurt, more than anything,” said Collins. “I want her to figure out why she did what she did, because it was not OK, we’ve been through enough in our lifetime not to go through all this.”
Neighbors say the dogs barked often, and they saw dozens of cats.
“When my husband went to the front step he said he was overwhelmed with the stench of animal feces and urine,” Regina Woods, a neighbor, said.
The children were confined to small rooms, which were fitted with audio and video monitors as well as alarms on the doors and windows. They were forced to defecate in cat-litter buckets, despite the house having three bathrooms.
Neighbors say they saw the children so few times, it was only a few years ago they realized James had children.
In addition, APD says James so severely malnourished the children that their growth was stunted and they didn’t experience puberty as they entered their teenage years. Several had to be hospitalized when they were removed from the home in October.
Neighbors say they called authorities before, but nothing was done.
“Well I feel I could have helped save some children if I would have pursued it because they would have come and gotten them out. I just really feel bad for the kids,” a neighbor said.
James’ attorney says not to rush to judgment because the whole story hasn’t been told.
“Ms. James took in a number of children who were mentally and emotionally needed a lot of watching and care and this business of locking them in their rooms there were no locks on the bedroom doors,” Rex Butler, her attorney, said.
Officials say James collected over $750,000 in State of Alaska adoption subsidies for the six children over her decade as a foster parent. She also collected the children’s permanent fund dividend checks as well as the checks for her children who were shareholders in Alaska Native corporations.”
“The head of the State of Alaska Office of Children’s Services says it’s too early to tell if the system failed six children whose adoptive mom is now charged with their abuse.”
“Anya James was a foster mom for more then ten years and state officials say she passed every check and balance required to keep children in her care.”
After James finalized the adoption of her sixth child, the state says they had no legal reason to keep tabs on the family.
“At that point it’s as if the children are biologically theirs,” says OCS Director Christy Lawton, “and we have no more right to intervene in their family then we would have in the average person’s family.”
But Lawton’s agency is charged with protecting children and also to respond to reports of suspected abuse, and they got them.
Lawton says in the last two years they received several complaints from neighbors, which she says they didn’t hesitate to check out.
“We did receive calls and we did go out and do a number of assessments and I can tell you in general terms that if we had allegations of malnutrition or that a child had suffered sexual abuse or physical abuse then it would be a routine part of our evaluations to get some medical evaluations,” says Lawton. “ And we would also look for some medical recommendations as to whether it really was abuse causing what we were seeing or not.”
“Too early to tell if the system failed” is the same phrase uttered by the Florida DCS in the Nubia Barahona case.
Update 3: “The Alaska Office of Children’s Services receives thousands of complaints every year regarding potential child abuse in the community, and say the alleged abuse involving Anya Ardin James, 51, was not overlooked contrary to what neighbors believe. ”
“Several neighbors who live near the Anchorage hillside home where the alleged abuse of six adopted children took place said they filed numerous complaints to OCS over the last two years, but say nothing was done. OCS Director Christy Lawton said the case was investigated.
“Every single time we’re doing an investigation or an assessment for safety it requires that we’re in the home and that we’re interviewing the children separately,” she said. “Away from their caregiver, so their not being influenced by their caretaker.”
Officials say when they respond to complaints they make unannounced visits to a family, which can sometimes seem normal at the time.
“We’re getting just a little tiny snapshot window picture when we’re there on that day, things might be great, things might look different than if we’re there a week later,” said Lawton.
How Alaska OCS portrays themselves is quite different than those who reported the incidents.
“Child welfare, police and other authorities had numerous opportunities over the years to discover and stop the abusive discipline, over-medication, hunger and other harmful practices that Anya James is alleged to have inflicted on six of her adopted children.
But the officials, along with a neighbor who blew the whistle and two of James’ adopted children, said that James was able to forestall authorities through her own skills at using the jargon of psychology and social work. And rather than the image projected in criminal charges as that of a cruel and controlling witch, she had convincingly presented herself as a heroic figure who adopted special-needs children and rescued unwanted cats and dogs.
While officials appeared to have dismissed some complaints without serious investigation, police and child welfare officials did confront James at least four times before the big raid on her Hillside home in 2010, when the four children still there were removed. In some of those earlier cases, starting in 2003, the children themselves disputed claims of a sibling that James was starving or harming them, and the family remained intact.
Today, James, 50, is in jail charged in a state indictment with 10 counts of kidnapping and six counts of first degree assault, all felonies. She has pleaded not guilty and faces trial later this year. Her initial bail was set at $100,000.
After James’ arraignment Wednesday, her attorney, Rex Butler, met briefly with reporters and urged the public to withhold judgment. He said that James took in difficult children who many people couldn’t handle, kids who “mentally and emotionally needed a lot of watching and care.”
Two of the adopted children, Alice James and Leeaster Collins, now adults, said they were offended by that remark, but recognized it as an assertion often made by James herself.
“No one really understands what it’s like there, no one can unless you lived there,” said Alice, now 21. She lived with James from age 9 to 19.
She was one of the children who told police, back in 2008, that nothing bad was happening in the house.
But it also was Alice who precipitated the raid and the criminal charges with a formal complaint to the Alaska Office of Children’s Services in October 2010. It took her more than 18 months after running away to a neighbor in March 2009 to overcome her guilt at leaving James and her other siblings and understand that what was happening at the big house on Homestead Trail was not normal, she said.
“SHE MADE THEM HATE HER”
James used a system of beggarly rewards and draconian discipline to run the household, according to the charges and interviews. Bread and a visit to the bathroom were privileges that could be revoked, replaced with lumpy “power meals” of oatmeal-based gruel and buckets for toilets. While the siblings, from several different biological families, could pull together to support each other, Alice said, the system also encouraged them to quibble for favor from James and to snitch on each other.
At the request of Alice and others, the Daily News is not naming the two underage siblings cited in the charges, nor two of the three others who couldn’t be reached to give their consent.
The oldest of the adopted James sibling, Leeaster, 27, is now in Tennessee. Leeaster was not cited as a victim in the indictment, though she said in an interview she too was abused by James and filed an official complaint on behalf of the other children that went nowhere.
An additional sibling not cited in the indictment, between the ages of Leeaster and Alice, could not be located for comment.
Christy Lawton, the head of children’s services, said some 25 children passed through James’ homes on the Hillside and in Eagle River since she became a licensed foster parent in 1994.
Alice and Leeaster said their lives are relatively normal now. Alice is engaged and Leeaster is married and has a child herself. Leeaster has a college degree and Alice is taking classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Both work.
But some of the other siblings are not so well off. One, Julia James, 21, said she is a resident of Brother Francis Shelter. She said of her life with James: “It was a tough time.”
Another sibling lives in Covenant House, the downtown shelter for runaways. A third is institutionalized in a residential facility in Utah. The state says the two youngest children, age 13 and 15, are in state custody and are safe.
It’s true that all the children arrived at James’ home with problems stemming from their biological families, Leeaster Collins said.
“She made these kids worse than what they were,” Leeaster said. “She did not better them. She made them hate her.”
REINVENTING HERSELF
Little has emerged so far of Anya James’ background. She grew up in New Hampshire, where her name was Cynthia May Jones. Leeaster recalls the first visit the family took to James’ parents there. It was confusing hearing the mother she knew as “Anya” being called “Cynthia” or “Cindy.”
Neighbor Lorri Davis said she remembers learning that James went to college in Boston but doesn’t know which college or what she studied.
Cynthia May Jones wouldn’t be the first Alaskan to reinvent herself, but her change went particularly deep.
She changed all three names, becoming Anya Arlin James. (Anchorage prosecutors said last week she had no prior criminal record under either identity.) She grew up a Catholic but adopted Judaism.
Rabbi Michael Oblath of Congregation Beth Sholom, the reform synagogue in Anchorage, said last week he didn’t know if James had formally converted, but she was a member of the congregation for a number of years, though not recently. She sent the children to religious school there and gave most of them Hebrew first or middle names as part of their adoption.
Many of the Facebook friends of James’ children are kids, volunteers and staff they met at the synagogue. Because they were homeschooled and insular, the synagogue was one of the few places they socialized with other children, Alice said. But as homelife deteriorated in the last few years, even the synagogue was withdrawn from them, she said.
In Eagle River, where James lived until 2001, she briefly had a business license for The Art of Healing Counseling Center, though she was not a professionally licensed therapist.
Leeaster moved in with James when she was 12 and was officially adopted Oct. 29, 1997. The others followed.
“These kids came to her just fine,” Leeaster said. “When they got there, she was nice to them for a while, then all of a sudden they started having these problems.”
Unlike the later children, Leeaster attended school outside the home. As time passed, conditions grew more restrictive. Leeaster observed James get physical, wrestling one of the boys to the floor and pinning him if he was inappropriately loud. Restrictions on food began when they moved to the Hillside, Leeaster said.
In April 2003, that boy, then 12, dashed out of the house, ran through the backyard and into the yard of a neighbor on Jollipan Court. The boy told the neighbor he “was being abused by his mother. He didn’t want to go home, was being deprived of food,” Anchorage Police spokeswoman Marlene Lammers said last week.
The neighbor called the police, who checked out the James home.
Reading from a police report prepared at the time, Lammers said the home had “some odors of animals, but it still appeared to be a well-kept home.”
The two refrigerators were stocked with food. James told police the boy was severely emotionally disturbed. The police officer sent a copy of the report to state child welfare authorities.
Lawson, the director of the Office of Children’s Services, said she couldn’t discuss individual complaints because of the pending criminal case.
“The Office of Children’s Services certainly did receive some reports of concern. Those were things we did look into,” Lawson said.
Leeaster left the house around the time of her high school graduation that June and never came back.
Though the upstairs of the house was expansive, the children were mainly confined to a converted garage on the lower floor, Alice said. A previous owner had made a bedroom there, and James divided that room into thirds — a large room for girls and a smaller one for the boys, the third, even smaller, used for punishment. They were once carpeted, but the carpet was pulled up after a plumbing flood, leaving just bare concrete, Alice said.
Breakfast had to wait until each child wrote 10 pages by hand in the logs. If they were punished, they might have to write five or 10 more pages before food, or be forced to slurp the power-meal gruel, Alice said. Sometimes they’d have to write page after page with just the lead from a pencil.
“Our breakfast was a piece of fruit,” Alice said. “If you didn’t get it by noon, you were allowed to ask. If you asked before that, it was considered begging and you didn’t get it at all.”
They’d have to wait until 5 or 6 p.m. for lunch, she said.
“Dinner would come around 11. We were already asleep. We’d hear the door open, we’d all wake like dogs — like dogs hear the bowls moving and know dinner’s coming. I remember I’d be in the middle of sleeping and hear the door open, I’d wake up like that. I knew that door meant Anya was bringing down food — that’s the only reason she ever came downstairs.”
Everyone had different food, based on their privileges — unless they were all on power meals. They’d squabble over who got more. If they were allowed upstairs and were alone in the kitchen, they might snatch some food. Alice learned she could steal a slice of bread undetected if she lifted it from the middle of the loaf.
On some levels, the family life might appear rich. An upstairs library was packed to the ceiling with 17,000 books, paid in part from homeschool subsidies, Alice said. James took the children to the Grand Canyon, Washington, D.C., and historical sites in the South. But even on vacation, James would not tolerate a misstep by a child. For punishment at the Grand Canyon, Alice had to look down as spectacular scenery passed outside the van window.
But mainly the children spent day and night in the divided bedroom downstairs, doing their writing. The doors were alarmed and they could only go to the bathroom when James came down and turned off the alarm for bathroom break. They’d have to leave the bathroom door open so James could see if they were hiding food or other contraband in their underwear, Alice said. If it wasn’t official bathroom time, they’d have to go in a bucket.
Alice once decided she had enough and refused to use the bucket.
“I didn’t go to the bathroom for 28 hours because I would not use it,” Alice said.
Did she win?
“No. Finally I caved. It hurts.”
TURNING POINT
Leeaster got married in Tennessee on April 21, 2007, and James brought the kids to the wedding. The groom’s family thought the children looked sick and wondered why they stood by themselves and wouldn’t join the party, Leeaster said. She told them they didn’t feel good. “I had to create a lie,” Leeaster said.
But that was also a turning point. While Leeaster had seen the beginnings of the family’s decline, it had gotten much worse since she left the house in 2003.
“When we went to her wedding, we weren’t allowed to move or sit or eat anything,” Alice said.
“People were asking questions.” Prosecutors have pictures from the wedding showing the children standing in the background, looking wan and out of sorts, she said.
Leeaster was upset. Later, the other sister who had moved out, the one in age between her and Alice, told Leeaster that things were getting worse still. She said James had shoved Alice down the steps and injured her.
Leeaster phoned the Office of Children’s Services.
“Told them everything she knew — we’re on medications, we’re all skinny, we all look like we’re dead, and the bedrooms,” Alice said.
It was 2007 or 2008. Two women from OCS showed up at the house, Alice said. James wouldn’t let them inside, so they talked to the children on the front porch.
“They interviewed all of us in front of one another and Anya was in earshot, and they didn’t even go inside where Leeaster told them the bedrooms were,” Alice said. “If there’s abuse, you really think you can interview the kid in front of the parent? That’s just stupid.”
Nothing happened.
In July 2008, James and three of the kids, including Alice, were walking on the track at Trailside Elementary School when one of the girls, then 16, saw an off-duty police officer and broke away, according to spokeswoman Lammers from the police department.
“(She) approaches him and starts explaining to him that she’s being abused by her mother, she’s not being fed,” Lammers said. The officer called for someone on-duty to take the report.
“She relays the same information to him, indicating that Mom is not feeding them, and that there’s other forms of abuse that are going on,” Lammers said.
The officer then interviewed the other two children there, Alice and Julia.
“They provide conflicting statements. They don’t corroborate this juvenile’s allegations at all. In fact they state there’s nothing going on at all,” Lammers said.
James told the officer the complaining child is “high special needs, that there is no abuse going on in the home.” The case appeared to have been closed with no further action, Lammers said.
Alice remembers that day, and agreed that the officer accurately reported what she said.
“I knew we were all hungry and everything, but even if I did say something, they wouldn’t have done anything then anyway — it would’ve taken a long time, and Anya would’ve questioned us. It’s just really not worth it.”
That was part of the internal struggle Alice was going through at the time.
“There are times around that time that I wanted to leave — I knew things were wrong. And then it was, no, nothing’s wrong, I don’t want to leave, because you don’t know what the rest of the world is like, you’ve never been out in the rest of the world. It’s very hard to explain. She says she’s a good mom, like it’s our fault.”
What Alice didn’t know was that the neighbor across the street, Lorri Davis, was beginning to document the goings on.
‘AM I BLOWING THIS OUT OF PROPORTION’
Leeaster said Davis, over the years, was like the James kids’ den mother. She had three active children of her own. But Davis said James was very cautious in allowing the adopted children to visit.
In March 2009, Alice ran across the street and knocked on Davis’ door. She was sobbing.
Alice had gotten “upstairs privileges” that allowed her to remain on the main floor during the day. She had to care for the 20 or so dogs and 50 cats in the house, but as tough as that was, it was better than being trapped in the tiny bedroom all day, she said.
But Alice suspected her privileges were over. She had taken a call from a boy against the rules. Her sister told on her, in revenge for Alice telling James that the sister had eaten dog biscuits.
Alice decided she wasn’t going back downstairs, but breaking away wasn’t easy.
“I felt so guilty because the last thing I said was, ‘I hate you and everything about you’ before I slammed the door.”
Davis told Alice she could spend the night.
“She felt very guilty, she felt like she was the one that was wrong,” Davis said. “She felt very protective of Anya.”
Davis called James to tell her Alice was OK and spending the night there.
“And Anya’s answer to me was, ‘You don’t know what you have in your house. You have a ticking time bomb in your house.’ ” James said Alice was off her medications and was capable of “being very disastrous.”
Davis listened but didn’t pay any heed. Alice said she didn’t want to go home. Davis said, “Fine.”
For the first time, Alice began telling her the details of life the house across the street and of the six medications she was taking, prescribed by an Anchorage psychiatrist. Davis was shocked. In the next few days, Alice moved in with her natural uncle and aunt in Midtown, but stayed in touch with Davis. Davis took her to the school district to finish her education and get her high school diploma. She never lived in the house again.
Davis also began paying closer attention.
“You’d look at them bringing the garbage out, and they were skinny as all get out. They looked terrible.”
Without telling Alice, Davis begin calling authorities: children’s services, the medical board, even animal control — anything to get an official into the house to see what was going on. No one seemed very interested, she said.
When she spoke to someone at OCS after Alice ran away, “the response was pretty weird,” Davis said. ” ‘Well, did you see any bruises? What else can you tell me?’ I said, ‘(The kids) look bad, I hate to say it, but they smell really bad. They looked sick. They looked like zombies.’ ”
Nothing happened. She sent emails. Nothing happened. The principal from the district’s home school program called, Davis said, and nothing seemed to happen.
“After a while, I felt, am I just nosy? Am I blowing this out of proportion?”
‘I NEVER SAW MYSELF AS A VICTIM’
In June 2009, the same teen who complained to the off-duty officer at the school ran to the backyard neighbor’s house on Jollipan Circle, who again called police.
The cops knocked on James’ door just as James was reporting the teen as a runaway, spokeswoman Lammers said. Again, James said the girl had “very special needs” and was on medications.
“The mom was very convincing in all of these cases,” Lammers said. And the teen “had no outward injuries to substantiate her claims of abuse,” Lammers said.
Alice once got to hear a recording of James talking to police dispatch about her.
“Anya is very good at making herself sound like a hero and making us sound like we’re very bad,” she said. “She had the dispatch officer drooling over her and making me sound like I was a pyromaniac. ‘Oh, yes, I’m a therapist and I adopted eight children,’ and the dispatch officer is saying, ‘You adopted eight children? Wow.’ ”
After moving out, Alice got her diploma. She stopped taking her psychiatric medications cold turkey. “I was sick for weeks because my body was addicted to it, but I haven’t been on meds for two years and I’m just fine,” she said. “I always knew I never needed medication.”
Apparently prosecutors believe that, too. One element of the kidnapping charges is that James used drugs to restrain the children, according to assistant district attorney Talitha Henry.
By October 2010, Alice no longer felt guilty about leaving.
“I never saw myself as a victim until I started realizing, hey, that’s not normal. Why do people act so shocked when I tell them some small thing that was so normal in our life there, like the honeypots or the writing? For me it was so part of my everyday life that I didn’t see it as crazy, and slowly started seeing it as, this isn’t OK.”
Once again, she turned to Davis. “Lorri’s helped me finish school, encouraged me emotionally during a lot of things, encouraged the education part like going back to college.” She knew Davis wanted her to report James.
“Lorri, she didn’t push it, but she made hints for a long time.” And besides, four of her siblings were still in the house.
The two went to the OCS office and spoke with an investigator. Within days, the children were taken from the house. Then more than a dozen officers executed a search warrant. The investigation continued for eight months, and on May 11, after hearing testimony from the six adopted children, Davis, medical providers, police and child welfare officials, a grand jury returned a true bill — a 16-count indictment. She was arrested last week.
Update 4:“The biological mother of three of six adopted children who Anchorage police say were abused by 51-year-old Anya Ardin James is speaking out about the alleged abuse.
Priscilla Dipola, 38, who now lives in Tennessee said she never knew what happened to her three children when she gave up custody over to the state a decade ago because of a drinking problem. She said James was supposed to take care of the children, give them a good home, and it breaks her heart to hear about the alleged abuse.
The three children, now adults, were placed together in James’ home back in 1999 along with three other adopted children. Dipola said she regrets ever giving her children away, and said she would have fought for them if she’d known how they were going to be treated.
Charging documents allege that James severely malnourished her six adopted children, and forced them to live in five-feet-by-six-feet size rooms in the basement of the house. Police also allege the children were severely malnourished and had minimal contact with the outside world.
Neighbors, including Shayna Mcginty, said she heard stories from one of the oldest children who spoke out about the abuse to the Office of Children’s Services, which her mother confirmed.
“A lot of crazy stories that [the oldest child] had said was going on there and she thought this was normal…some pretty heartbreaking stuff,” said Mcginty.
She said the fenced home was always quiet, and it never seemed like children lived inside.
In the charging documents, Anchorage police were called on two separate occasions to the home, and neighbors say they’ve complained several times to OCS, but OCS officials say they didn’t have enough evidence to take the children from the home. Police were not available for comment.”
Update 5: “Judge Michael Spaan lowered Anya Ardin James’ bail from $100,000 to $75,000, saying he considered her a flight risk, but trusted that an ankle monitoring program would keep her in Anchorage.”
“Officials say James collected over $750,000 in State of Alaska adoption subsidies for the six children over her decade as an adoptive parent. She also collected the children’s permanent fund dividend checks as may have collected checks for her children who were shareholders in Alaska Native corporations.
Prosecutors said that Anya James had reinvented herself when she moved to Alaska — changing her name completely and beginning to adopt children in the late 1990s.
If she posts bail she will have to wear an ankle monitor device and submit to drug and alcohol testing, and will be allowed to leave her house for doctor visits, grocery shopping and court appearances. Other requirements include no contact with any of her adopted children or minors under the age of 16.”
“Both the prosecution and defense privately showed the judge photographs of the children at Thursday’s hearing.
The photographs showed two sides of the story, Spaan said: Some pictured seemingly happy family vacations, others “supported the state’s theory” of the abuse.
Rex Butler, James’ attorney, said that the photos of “elaborate and expensive” vacations to places like Disneyland were signs that the abuse claims against James were false.
“Ms. James treated these children very well,” he said.
Anya James’ adopted daughter Alice James, now 21, told the courtroom that appearances were not what they seemed.
“We may have pictures of Disneyland and everything but it wasn’t exactly like that when we went there,” said Alice James. “Just because we had certain pictures of those places doesn’t mean we were allowed to participate.”
Update 6: From a therapeutic foster parent who has parented one of Anya’s former foster children:
“As a therapeutic foster parent, I am disturbed about Anya James’ alleged treatment of her adoptive children. We have had children in our home who were considered “severely emotionally disturbed” and never did we need to employ any of the severe “behavior management” that Ms. James apparently employed.
In the past, we parented a child for two years who had been removed from her home. We listened to the stories of a very restrictive parenting style in the home. Later, I learned in passing that OCS was not using the James home any more. It was too late for those already adopted, however.
The part that really upsets me (in addition to the abuse) is that Ms. James will continue receiving the stipend for the children under 18 that she adopted even while she is awaiting trial. Attention, legislators: This law needs to be changed.”
Update 7: The director of OCS, Christy Lawton speaks out about this case in typical wringing-hands style.
“Personally, I’ve stayed for the families. I serve them first and foremost. The families we serve, by and large, are just like you and me. They love their children; they desire to have safe and loving homes. But, they are struggling with addictions, mental illness, racial discrimination, poverty and domestic violence.”
Perhaps she should think specifically of the child since her service is called Office of Children’s Services.
“”In the last weeks the question I’ve been asked most frequently is, “how could this happen?” Does the Office of Children’s Services (OCS) need more staff? Is OCS staff trained well enough? Did OCS do all that we could have and should have done? Should OCS monitor adoptive placements until the child is 18?”
“Once a family adopts, I believe that they are due the same rights and respect as any birth family. That means there is an assumption that they are safely parenting their children, until or if we ever learn differently. Then they, like anybody else, would be reported to OCS and we would respond accordingly.
Hundreds of families adopt every year in Alaska and with the exception of a very small number, do so with good hearts. Some families, not all, receive continued subsidies from the state. These subsidies are available in cases where children have special needs that require ongoing care and treatment, above and beyond what normal insurance might support”
We will answer your questions. How could this happen? You don’t have good enough training for APs or staff, tracking or checking. Does the OCS need more staff? Probably. But they also need to be quality people that are trained and can use critical thinking skills. Is the OCS staff trained well enough? Um…no. Did OCS do all that it could have or should have done? No. Should OCS monitor adoptive families until the child is 18? Ding.Ding. Ding. We have a winner. YES! It is not rocket science, especially when APs are receiving money from the State as she did in this case.
Update 8: Pre-trial hearings and trial scheduled .
On 7/5/11 the pre-trial hearing was continued.
On 7/6/11 the pre-trial hearing was continued: late discovery
On 8/15/11 scheduled trial week hearing was continued
Hearing 10/4/11:Pre-Trial Conference: Superior Court Criminal reset 10/11/11 Pre-Trial Conference: Superior Court Criminal Scheduled Trial week 10/31/11 Alaska Court Records
Update 9: According to the Update 8 link to court records, the following has occurred in this case:
On 10/31/11, the hearing was continued
On 11/15/11, continued: Motion practice
On 12/12/11, hearing continued
On 1/3/12, continued: Motion practice
2/13/12 was scheduled to be trial week and hearing was continued again. Now trial is scheduled for week of 3/12/12
Additionally, a lawsuit has been filed by one of the adopted children against “Alaska Office of Child Services and the Anchorage Police Department, accusing the agencies of failing to investigate foster mom Anya James thoroughly before placing children in her care and of failing to investigate further after repeatedly hearing reports of abuse and neglect going on inside James’s Hillside home. The lawsuit was filed in mid-January on behalf of one of James’ adopted children, identified only by initials in the civil case.”
“The police alleged James severely restricted childrens’ contact with the outside world, withheld food and toilet-use for punishment, and kept alarms on doors and windows so children could not escape the home. The press release may be characteristic of a police department trying to put the best spin possible on its intervention into a human tragedy. The charges were described as stemming from a months-long investigation that began shortly before the children were removed from the home in October 2010. But the new civil suit sheds a different light on the story, claiming police who were too slow to act.
The adopted child who is suing was able to run away from Anya James several times, the lawsuit says, “But each time she was placed back into the home, even after she ran right into a police officer’s arms and to neighbor’s homes, who called APD and reported their concerns.”
The lawsuit claims police and OCS caseworkers ignored several reports made by the girl and by neighbors. The plaintiff’s state-appointed guardian, Beth Russo, says the plaintiff is an adult now.
Russo declined to answer further questions about the lawsuit. Court documents indicate the former foster child filed the lawsuit on her own behalf, without an attorney.
The suit seeks damages in excess of $100,000 and other relief that court may find proper. It stops short of asking for specific reforms to Child Services or the police department. It does not name any police officers or other city employees as defendants.
One state employee, Phillip Kaufman, is named as a defendant in the civil suit. The suit says Kaufman was the OCS social worker assigned to the lead plaintiff, the girl who fled the James home. Kaufman still works for the State of Alaska, but is now the safety officer at Alaska Psychiatric Institute. When contacted for this story, Kaufman confirmed he was a former OCS employee but said he couldn’t comment on the lawsuit. “I can’t acknowledge even that a case exists,” Kaufman said. His former job involved, he said, “all protected information.”
Kaufman is one of several state employees implicated in the lawsuit, but the others have yet to be named. The suit seeks to hold 10 unnamed OCS employees accountable, giving them the pseudonym “Doe” and saying they include Kaufman’s supervisor, as well as case workers assigned to other children from the James home and supervisors of those caseworkers.
The city, the police, and OCS have yet to file answer documents in the lawsuit.
When they first announced the charges, Anchorage Police said Anya James had collected more than $750,000 in adoption subsidies between 2000 and 2011. The charging documents say she restricted the children’s diets so much they were prevented from going through puberty in their teen years.
The civil suit mirrors the criminal case, but provides a few more details. James home-schooled the children and the woman who brought the lawsuit claims that prevented her from completing high school on time. It also isolated the children from school officials who would have recognized abuse and neglect. The lawsuit alleges James physically abused children with punching, shoving and forced laxatives and that she over-medicated the children with psychiatric meds. Punishment in the household included taking away clothing and bedding. If a child attempted to run away, the lawsuit claims, they would be threatened with admission to an in-patient psychiatric facility.
The criminal case against Anya James criminal case still awaits trial. The defendant is out of jail, having posted $75,000 and agreed to house-arrest-style monitoring with an ankle bracelet and restrictions on when she may leave her home. (A phone number for James, gleaned from the court file, was answered by what sounded like a modem Monday and Tuesday.)
James faces 15 felony charges of assault and kidnapping-along with pre-trial filings and requests for extensions. Six of James’ foster and adopted children are identified as victims but named only by initials. The criminal trial is currently set for March 12.
James’ defense attorney is Rex Butler, whose law office said he was in a trial this week and could not return calls. In a filing to request a relaxed trial schedule from Superior Court Judge Michael Spaan, Butler told the judge the case is complex and the defense has received reams-2,500 pages so far, along with “numerous” media discs. Butler told the judge the defense expects still more discovered evidence before the trial.
Judge Spaan has also heard from lawyers for the state intervening on behalf of OCS. The agency asked to comb the criminal evidence for privacy reasons and Spaan is allowing certain items to be redacted from records OCS is being required to produce. The state will be allowed to scrub the records of social security numbers, the names of people who reported abuse or neglect, names of “unrelated children” and information that may violate attorney-client privilege between OCS and its lawyers, according to an order Spaan signed Jan. 29.
Complaints from as early as 2009 are described in the civil suit. Each time complaints were heard, the lawsuit says, “OCS and APD failed to properly investigate.” The children were never allowed to be interviewed by police officers or OCS workers outside Anya James’ presence and both cops and OCS caseworkers visited the house without going inside, the lawsuit says.
Anya James did not work outside her home. She operated a kennel under the business name Sarah’s Sanctuary and Boarding, keeping dogs and cats for clients. One claim in the lawsuit is that James took in “numerous” animals until the house was unsuitable for children.
That the Anya James’ home was a danger would have been obvious, the lawsuit claims. “APD would have discovered that the house was filthy and smelled if it had conducted any investigation into [the girl’s] complaints of abuse and neglect before returning her to James’ care without investigation.””
She collected $750,000 from the State for these kids! Surely many things were missed in this homestudy. Dog breeding/hoarding needs to be part of the checklist for raising the bar on approval that should include extra monitoring or outrightdenial. There, I said it. Too many of these cases involve dog breeding. Animal therapy is good, but there is something about the hoarding animal behavior that carries over into abuse of kids.
Why were allegations not followed up on? Neighbors even tried to get these kids out of the home!The allegations combined with the ridiculously large amount of money she was receiving should have triggered a few more red flags. This is an Epic FAIL on Alaska’s OCS.
The trial was continued on 3/12/12
The Pre-trial conference was continued on 3/20/12 /late discovery
A new Pre-trial conference was continued to 5/1/12 The trial is now scheduled for 8/6/12
Update 11/August 12, 2013
According to Alaska Court Records, Anya has had the trial continued six times. The pretrial conference is reset for October 8, 2013. The trial is set for November 4, 2013. The 10 counts of kidnapping and 6 counts of assault in the first degree still stand as charges.
Update 12:According to Alaska Court Records, Anya has had the trial Continued 3 more times> The pretrial Conference is reset for March 18, 2014 and the trial is set for April 21,2014.
Update 13: According to Alaska Court Records, Anya has a trial scheduled for June 30,2014.
Update 14:According to Alaska Court Records, Anya now has a pre-trial conference on July 15,2014 and a trial scheduled for August,18,2014.
Update 15: According to Alaska Court Records, Anya now has a pre-trial conference on 11/18/14 and a trial scheduled for December 22. 2014.
Update 16: According to Alaska Court Records, Anya now has a pre-trial conference on 02/24/15 and a trial scheduled for March 23, 2015.
Update 17: According to Alaska Court Records, Anya now has a trial scheduled for 10/5/15.
Update 18:“Zemira James was a bone-thin 15-year-old when she was rescued from the home of the woman who had adopted her from Alaska’s foster care system.
That was back in October 2010.
When Anya James was arrested seven months later, in May 2011, the case made headlines. Prosecutors alleged the Anchorage woman forced a bleak, isolated existence on her six adoptive children in a sprawling Hillside home, locking them in bare basement partitions with concrete floors, forcing them to use kitty litter buckets as toilets, feeding them “power meals” of oatmeal gruel, ground-up spaghetti and raw eggs, or withholding food until some of the teenagers and young adults showed signs of starvation.
Anya James was charged with 16 felony counts in which she is accused of assaulting and kidnapping the six children, all while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in state adoption subsidies.
More than four years after she was arrested, the criminal case against Anya James still hasn’t gone to trial. The 55-year-old James is out on bail and on her fourth defense attorney.
Her trial date has been rescheduled 22 times.
Today, Zemira James is a striking, healthy-looking 20-year-old who lives with her boyfriend and has dreams that include working with animals or writing a book about her life. She wears mostly black, a tangle of rubber bracelets and a spiked cuff on her wrist. She says the black is symbolic of grief.
Without a trial, Zemira says, she is tethered to the past, Zemira says. She can’t go into a Fred Meyer or drive past a McDonald’s or dental office in Anchorage without a flood of memories. She wonders if she’ll run into her former adoptive mother at the grocery store. Even her name, changed at the time of her adoption, is a daily reminder of the eight years she spent with Anya James.
After the trial is over, “I’d look at the city probably in a very different way,” she said. “I’d rejoice. I’d walk out of the courtroom crying and smiling at the same time.”
Until then, she said, “I feel like I’m drowning.”
Two civil cases against the Office of Children’s Services — which placed the children in the home and which attorneys say failed to investigate claims of abuse — are stalled until the criminal case is resolved, attorneys say. The civil cases represent the best chance the victims will receive money or other restitution from the state.
“(Zemira) was 15 years old when she was rescued basically from a cage in a garage of a half-million dollar mansion on the Hillside,” said Mike Kramer, Zemira’s attorney in a civil case against the Office of Children’s Services that names Anya James as a third-party defendant. “She lives every day with nightmares that she’s going to run into Anya James, who has been out on bail for four-and-a-half years.”
Meanwhile, James is “living in a mansion and getting a series of free lawyers,” Kramer said.
Lawyers and the judge involved in the case say they are frustrated by the way the case has festered in the system.
Still, there’s no clear end in sight.
Zemira says the delays don’t surprise her: The system has been failing her for a long time.
“All my life,” she said. “I just haven’t seen any good. I know they could do a lot better than what they are doing.”
‘What’s keeping me back is fear’
When she was placed in Ames home at age 8, Zemira had already been in foster care for much of her life. Her first placement was with a woman in her 50s named Fran, when she was about 4 years old. That was a happy experience.
“She would always dress me up, buy me dresses. I had nice long hair, and she’d put me in these white nice gowns. She was a really nice lady,” Zemira said. “I love her a lot.”
But the woman moved out of state, and Zemira was placed in an emergency foster home. By then, her biological brother was already with James, she said. In a phone conversation, Zemira remembers him telling her about the big house he was living in. There were lots of cats and dogs. Prosecutors later said the children at James’ home lived with more than 60 animals, part of a pet boarding business.
“He said, ‘it’s a big mansion. It looks like a castle,’” Zemira said. “He was 6 years old. He still had his baby teeth. I decided to stay there because of him. I had already created such a strong bond with him.”
James legally adopted them and changed their names. She also withdrew Zemira from Kasuun Elementary — where Zemira says she had thrived — and started homeschooling the girl instead.
Life in the home started out OK, but escalated to physical abuse and the isolation and deprivation documented in hundreds of pages of court filings, Zemira said.
One of the biggest lingering effects of her eight years in the home is a sense of isolation and difficulty connecting to people, especially peers her age.
“What’s keeping me back is fear. Fear of being around people, fear of talking to people I don’t know.”
‘This has gone on too long’
On a Monday afternoon in August, James took her seat behind the defendant’s table in a third-floor courtroom in downtown Anchorage. She wore a pink sweatshirt and blue pants, her hair in a ponytail.
Anchorage Superior Court Judge Michael Spaan asked her current attorney, a court-appointed lawyer contracted by the Office of Public Advocacy named Jason Gazewood, how realistic the latest scheduled trial date in October would be.
Given the volume of evidence, that didn’t seem realistic, Gazewood said.
In Alaska, crime victims have a constitutional right to a “timely disposition” of the case “following the arrest of the accused.” But that doesn’t always happen.
Serious, complex cases often take years to get to trial, said Taylor Winston, the head of the state Office of Victims Rights. As a prosecutor, she worked on a few homicide cases that stretched into the five-year range before ever going to trial or seeing resolution.
Time is necessary to allow attorneys on both sides to sift through evidence and prepare a strong a case for trial, she said.
“(These cases) deserve not to be shoved through a system quickly,” she said.
But there are costs to victims and the system when trials are delayed for years. Beyond the time of judges and attorneys, victims often put education, trips and other plans on hold in order to be available to testify for a constantly shifting court date, Winston said.
“It keeps them chained to the criminal justice system and to the case,” she said. “They really can’t be free until its over.”
So why is Anya James’ case taking so long to reach trial?
Part of the issue is a revolving door of attorneys paired with a mountain of evidence.
Because each of the six children were placed in the home by the Office of Children’s Services and received an array of services — all documented — there are tens of thousands of pages of documents to sift through.
The criminal and civil cases against Anya James her span multivolume files that are inches thick. An index that simply lists OCS files referenced in the civil lawsuits is more than 40 pages alone.
Those documents could be crucial to James’ defense. Her lawyers have argued that James took in severely emotionally disturbed and disabled children and tried her best to care for them, despite violent behaviors.
James was represented for more than three years by Rex Butler, a private attorney in Anchorage known for defending high-profile clients.
Court filings by Butler said James’ elderly parents were initially financing her legal defense and paid $75,000 in bail money to get her out of jail. They were also paying the mortgage on her home and living expenses.
In February 2014, Butler pulled out of the case, saying James had run out of money and could no longer pay him. Her trial date at the time was three months away.
In a contentious hearing, Spaan chastised Butler for spending three years on the case and then leaving it months before trial.
“You took her $100,000 and you withdraw,” Spaan said, according to a courtroom transcript from the hearing.
“I shouldn’t do any trial in your courtroom because of your view of me,” Butler responded.
Spaan said he respected Butler’s skill as an attorney but was “distressed” by his actions in the case.
After that, James was appointed an attorney from the Public Defender Agency. Court-appointed attorneys are supposed to go to indigent defendants who have no means to hire a lawyer on their own.
Usually, judges simply ask defendants about whether they can afford a lawyer. If they say no, they are assigned a public defender.
At the time of the alleged abuse, James and the children lived in a 4,000-square-foot Hillside home valued at more than $600,000. Public records still list her as the owner of the home.
Anya James’ case was soon transferred to an attorney from the state Office of Public Advocacy, which also represents indigent clients. Gazewood, a different contract attorney with OPA, recently took on the case, making him James’ fourth defense lawyer.
At the August status hearing, Gazewood said he’d worked his way through about 8,000 of 50,000 pages of evidence; all parties agreed to another status hearing in September.
“This has just gone on too long,” Spaan said.
Anya James and a friend walked out of the courtroom together. She declined to comment, saying she couldn’t tell her side of the story right then.
Zemira says she and the other children have spent the years since they were removed from the home trying to forge new lives.
But she is certain she will testify at the trial, when it comes.
“I am mad at Anya. I am very hurt,” she said. “But she must be feeling scared right now, just the way I was.”
Update 19: According to Alaska Court Records, Anya now has a trial scheduled for 6/20/16.
Update 20: According to Alaska Court Records, Anya now has a pre-trial conference on 10/11/16 and a trial on 2/6/17.
Update 21: “An Anchorage Superior Court judge on Thursday denied the request of Anya James’ fifth defense attorney to quit the case, saying her long-delayed criminal trial needs to proceed as scheduled, even if the defendant and her lawyer aren’t on speaking terms.
James is the 56-year-old Anchorage woman arrested in 2011 for allegedly beating, starving and abusing six of the children she adopted from foster care at a sprawling Hillside home while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in state subsidies for their care. She faces 16 felony counts of assault and kidnapping.
James has been out on bail for more than five years, awaiting a trial that has been rescheduled 27 times.
At Thursday’s hearing, attorney Lance C. Wells said he has seldom asked to withdraw from a case but communication with his client had broken down, making it impossible for him to prepare for a complex trial now scheduled for February 2017.
Wells is a private attorney who is representing James as her court-appointed lawyer through a contract with the state Office of Public Advocacy.
He told the judge that he and his client couldn’t share information or communicate and that she had made it clear she wouldn’t work with him to prepare for trial, according to court log notes from the hearing.
In an opposition to Wells’ motion to withdraw, an attorney with the state Office of Victims’ Rights wrote that James’ case is the “oldest on the criminal docket” and that its continued delay means civil litigation on behalf of the victims is also on hold. In Alaska, crime victims have a constitutional right to a “timely disposition” of their case.
“If the court permits defense attorney Lance Wells to withdraw, Ms. James will similarly be permitted to control and manipulate the proceedings,” the attorneys wrote. “She could have future defense attorneys serially removed by refusing to communicate with them at strategically advantageous moments. Disposition could be delayed indefinitely.”
Delays in the case have in part festered because of the massive trove of evidence involved. At the hearing, Wells said the evidence in the case filled 17 banker boxes and two hard drives. Most attorneys have needed almost a year to review all the evidence, assistant district attorney Jenna Gruenstein said at the hearing.
Anchorage Superior Court Judge Paul Olson said refusing to communicate with her attorney didn’t entitle James to a new attorney provided by the state.
The trial has a “firm” date of February 2017. He called the case a prime example of why victims are supposed to be guaranteed a “timely disposition” of their case, according to the log notes.
Olson is due to retire in January. That means the trial, when it happens, will happen before a different judge.”
<Update 22: According to Alaska Court Records, Anya pleaded guilty to 2 cahrge as “Class C FelonyAS11.51.100(a)(4): Endanger Walfare Child 1-Inadeq“. The following Charges were Dismissed by Prosecutor Charge(s) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 disposed with a disposition of Charge Dismissed.by Prosecutor Charge #1: Indicted – AS11.41.200(a)(3): Assault 1- Serious Injury, Extreme Indif on 1/31/17. Sentencing will be on 10/13/2017 09:00 AM.
Update 23: Sentencing rescheduled to 10/24/17.
Update 24:Sentencing hearing continued to 11/2/17.
Update 25:“The adopted children of an Anchorage woman accused of abusing them for years in a Hillside home finally confronted her in Anchorage criminal court at a sentencing hearing Tuesday.
It was a moment six years, five months and 12 days in the making.
Anya James was charged with abusing six children she adopted from foster care in May 2011. Now young adults, most of them were older children or young teenagers when they were placed with James.
In victim impact statements, the former adopted children — many of whom still have the last name James — described a life of torment, humiliation, deprivation and punishments with their adoptive mother in a house on Homestead Drive on the Anchorage Hillside.
Some said they were both fearful and relieved to have a chance to speak in court.
“Six and a half years later we’re finally in this room,” former adopted child Solomon “Tommy” James told the court. “We’re finally getting a sentencing. It’s absurd.”
The criminal case against Anya James had stretched on for longer than almost any other case in the Anchorage system.
It has been through three judges, three prosecutors and five defense attorneys. Before James entered into a plea agreement in January, her trial had been rescheduled 27 times.
James was originally charged with 16 felony counts in which she was accused of assaulting and kidnapping the six children, while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in state adoption subsidies.
In a January plea agreement, the charges were dismissed in exchange for James pleading guilty to two counts of “endangering the welfare of a child,” a Class C felony.
Prosecutors did not elaborate on what led to the plea agreement at Tuesday’s hearing.
Much of the testimony at Wednesday’s sentencing described abuse that James has not admitted to.
In her plea agreement, James stipulated only that she “recklessly failed to provide an adequate quantity of food or liquids to her adopted children,” which “caused protracted impairment of her health.”
Solomon “Tommy” James described much more when he stood to deliver a victim impact statement.
“I was the original lab rat,” he said. “The punishments all started on me.”
He said he went days without eating, and slept on a concrete floor in a 4-by-6-foot basement room. When his bones ached from the cold, he’d perch precariously on a heater to sleep. To this day, he said, his ankles are malformed from so much time spent curled into a ball for warmth.
Now a strapping 26-year-old car salesman, he told the court that at age 18 he weighed 90 pounds and stood 4-foot-8.
Some of the scars have lingered, he said: “I’m 26 years old and I’m scared of the dark.”
Tommy James told the court that just about every system designed to protect vulnerable children in Alaska — from the Office of Children’s Services that allowed James to adopt the children to the court that let the case stretch out for nearly seven years — had failed him and his siblings.
“She played the system,” he said. “Simple as that.”
Alice Tijerina, who said she was placed with James as a child, described siblings fighting over food like a mix of kidney beans, raw eggs, canned spinach and oatmeal served in Tupperware containers no one ever washed because they were licked clean by underfed teenagers.
The former adopted children described being given heavy doses of anti-psychotics and tranquilizers to make them compliant. They said they were kept away from school and not allowed to talk to counselors and psychologists alone. They talked about being forced to use buckets instead of toilets in front of their siblings and being stripped naked as a punishment.
Ahava James spoke about being unprepared to make friends or work at a job as a young adult because she’d been so isolated during her childhood.
“I’m 25 and I’m still scared,” she said. “My world revolves around my past.”
Eula Parent, the biological mother of two of the children who lived in James’ house, said she was told by the Office of Children’s Services that her children were better off in James’ fancy Hillside house than with her.
Some said they were both fearful and relieved to have a chance to speak in court.
“Six and a half years later we’re finally in this room,” former adopted child Solomon “Tommy” James told the court. “We’re finally getting a sentencing. It’s absurd.”
The criminal case against Anya James had stretched on for longer than almost any other case in the Anchorage system.
It has been through three judges, three prosecutors and five defense attorneys. Before James entered into a plea agreement in January, her trial had been rescheduled 27 times.
James was originally charged with 16 felony counts in which she was accused of assaulting and kidnapping the six children, while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in state adoption subsidies.
In a January plea agreement, the charges were dismissed in exchange for James pleading guilty to two counts of “endangering the welfare of a child,” a Class C felony.
Prosecutors did not elaborate on what led to the plea agreement at Tuesday’s hearing.
Much of the testimony at Wednesday’s sentencing described abuse that James has not admitted to.
In her plea agreement, James stipulated only that she “recklessly failed to provide an adequate quantity of food or liquids to her adopted children,” which “caused protracted impairment of her health.”
Solomon “Tommy” James described much more when he stood to deliver a victim impact statement
“I was the original lab rat,” he said. “The punishments all started on me.”
He said he went days without eating, and slept on a concrete floor in a 4-by-6-foot basement room. When his bones ached from the cold, he’d perch precariously on a heater to sleep. To this day, he said, his ankles are malformed from so much time spent curled into a ball for warmth.
Now a strapping 26-year-old car salesman, he told the court that at age 18 he weighed 90 pounds and stood 4-foot-8.
Some of the scars have lingered, he said: “I’m 26 years old and I’m scared of the dark.”
Tommy James told the court that just about every system designed to protect vulnerable children in Alaska — from the Office of Children’s Services that allowed James to adopt the children to the court that let the case stretch out for nearly seven years — had failed him and his siblings.
“She played the system,” he said. “Simple as that.”
Alice Tijerina, who said she was placed with James as a child, described siblings fighting over food like a mix of kidney beans, raw eggs, canned spinach and oatmeal served in Tupperware containers no one ever washed because they were licked clean by underfed teenagers.
The former adopted children described being given heavy doses of anti-psychotics and tranquilizers to make them compliant. They said they were kept away from school and not allowed to talk to counselors and psychologists alone. They talked about being forced to use buckets instead of toilets in front of their siblings and being stripped naked as a punishment.
Ahava James spoke about being unprepared to make friends or work at a job as a young adult because she’d been so isolated during her childhood.
“I’m 25 and I’m still scared,” she said. “My world revolves around my past.”
Eula Parent, the biological mother of two of the children who lived in James’ house, said she was told by the Office of Children’s Services that her children were better off in James’ fancy Hillside house than with her.
“They said my daughter’s bedroom is bigger than your living room,” Parent told the court.
She described searching the internet to find James’ address and driving the ice cream truck she owned through the neighborhood, hoping to catch a glimpse of her children.
“You did not deserve to be their mother,” Parent told James, who sat at the defense table with her attorney and didn’t speak during the hearing.
It’s possible that James will not do any time in jail.
She has been out on electronic monitoring for more than six years, which her attorney could ask to count as time served on her sentence. The sentencing range for a C felony is between 18 months of suspended time with probation and five years, per count.
The hearing ended without a sentence: Because the court ran out of time on Tuesday to finish the hearing, it was rescheduled for next week.
Judge Michael Wolverton asked the former adopted children if they would be able to come back to court one more time, on Thursday, Nov. 2.
[Anchorage Daily News 10/25/17 by Michelle Theriault Boots]
“A woman whose parenting of six adopted children on the Anchorage Hillside included abuse, deprivation, humiliation and torment finally faced judgment Thursday.
Anchorage Superior Court Judge Michael Wolverton ordered Anya James to serve eight years, with another two years suspended, plus five years of probation.
James, now 57, earlier this year pleaded guilty to two felonies for endangering children through a secret and bizarre world she created in her large home. She originally faced 16 more serious charges of first-degree assault and kidnapping. They’ve been dismissed.
Whether she will end up in prison isn’t yet clear. She gets credit for the time she served on house arrest with an ankle monitor — a more than six-year stretch that allowed her freedoms not granted to prisoners, such as four hours a week for personal needs. She still owns the same Hillside home where she kept the children in isolation.
That time on the ankle monitor is subtracted from the sentence handed down Thursday.
Five of six now-grown children, their blood relatives and advocates crowded into the courtroom on the Nesbett Courthouse’s fifth floor to hear the resolution. Most of the victims already had testified about their hellacious childhood.
What James did is the worst type of behavior classified as child endangerment, Assistant District Attorney Laura Dulic told Wolverton.
James subdued the children with psychiatric drugs and cut their hair as punishment, the prosecutor said. She starved them, feeding them a concoction made with beans and rice — but never enough. She took them out of school and isolated them from others. She kept them mainly in a converted garage with a bare concrete floor. They had only buckets for toilets. She locked away their childhood mementos.
“The conduct … represents a decade of abuse, control and power over multiple victims,” Dulic said.
At the time of James’ arrest, police said she had collected over $750,000 in adoption payments sometimes granted to parents.
The criminal case is one of the longest-running in Anchorage. The sentencing came six years, five months and 22 days after charges were filed on May 11, 2011. All along there has been a betrayal of trust, Dulic said.
The children and the state agency that was supposed to protect them trusted that she would provide good care, Dulic said. The public trusted that the government would do its job and protect children in state custody.
“And the victims back in 2011 put their trust in the justice system,” hoping for quick resolution, Dulic said. “For many parties this case represents the failings and betrayals of six long years.”
One young man who hadn’t testified before got his chance Thursday.
“She treated us like we were mental patients or animals,” Brandon James told the judge. His long bangs shielded his glasses. He wore a black hoodie with a belt around his waist. “Whenever she would get mad, she would take her anger out on us. It was oftentimes very brutal and extremely bloody.”
The hurts are deep and always there, he said. He doesn’t have a lot of friends and was behind in school after his years with James.
“She deserves nothing more than the death penalty, in my opinion, but that is not fair either,” Brandon said.
As the hearing went on, a box of tissues made its way through the crowd.
“This is some of the most deeply disturbing, Machiavellian behavior I have ever seen,” said Wolverton, who spoke with emotion in his voice.
Before the sentencing, he read a report about James that laid it all out. Then he corrected himself.
“Well, not all,” he said. “That would be a pretty big book.”
In 40 years as a lawyer and judge, he said, he’s never seen anything like this.
“These were mean, vicious, carefully plotted, cruel crimes,” the judge said.
Yet, the young people are working through the past to lead full, productive lives, Wolverton said.
“Clearly the most stunning thing for me has been for each and every one of you how articulate and thoughtful and gracious you’ve been in this process,” he said. “Just remarkable, given what you’ve been through.”
One of the adopted boys, Solomon “Tommy” James, is a sturdy man now, age 26, and working as a car salesman. After the hearing, with the courtroom crowd now gathered in the hallway, he said he was shocked when James showed up at his work about a month ago. She isn’t supposed to have contact with any of her victims, he said.
He isn’t satisfied with the case’s resolution.
“There is no justice. Something like this, it’s not justice,” said Tommy, wearing a black vest and bow tie.
“There can never be justice,” said sister Ahava, now 25.
“Collectively we’ve had over 50 years taken from us. Fifty years of pain collectively, between all the time each one of us spent,” Tommy said.
A civil lawsuit against the state Office of Children’s Services, which brought in Anya James as a defendant, was on hold during the criminal case. Tommy said he didn’t want to say too much until that case was resolved, too.
The law firm Kramer and Associates, which is suing on behalf of one of the children, said: “The years of horrific abuse that our client suffered in the Anya James home could not have happened without Ms. James but it also could not have happened without OCS.”
Ahava, who still uses the name she picked with Anya James, said she is glad this chapter is over. She has forgiven her adoptive mother, at last.
“Ahava in Hebrew means beloved, or one who is loved,” she said. “And that’s what I wanted.”
It was unclear on Thursday whether James will return to jail. With the sentencing just completed, the Department of Corrections still must process her time sheet and come up with a release date, said spokeswoman Megan Edge.
Lance Wells, the most recent of James’ five defense lawyers, noted that she had no prior record and that she had already served more than six years on an ankle monitor plus 12 days locked up. Under an eight-year sentence, with time off for good behavior, she’d serve less than that, he said. She should be released from custody, he said.
The prosecutor disagreed with the defense’s math.
There is no time off for good behavior while on an ankle monitor, though it does count toward prison time, Dulic said. James was allowed to leave for work. (Tommy said James had an animal care business.) She could drive her car. She could use a phone.
That was far less restrictive than the rules she put on the children, Dulic said.
The prosecutor recommended the sentence, which includes probation plus restitution that has not yet been calculated. Someone without a record normally wouldn’t get so many years for child endangerment, but the circumstances with multiple victims support that, she said.
Given a chance to speak in court Thursday, James declined. The biological grandmother of three of the children, in court in her wheelchair, started to cry.
“I just couldn’t believe she didn’t say she was sorry, not just to my children,” Melody McPherson said. “To all the children.”
Wolverton ordered James to turn herself in Dec. 4.“
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