Kids locked up for hours, police say St. Francis father charged with child abuse
Author: DAVID DOEGE AND JAMAAL ABDUL-ALIM; Journal Sentinel staff
five adopted from foster care and two in foster care have been removed from a St. Francis couple after allegations that the adopted children were being beaten and locked inside dark, dreary bedrooms for 14 hours a day.
Ceiling light fixtures or bulbs were removed, the walls were bare, and the rooms were devoid of toys, according to a criminal complaint. The adopted children, all of whom had resided with the couple as foster children prior to adoption, were forced to urinate and defecate in buckets. The foster children did not appear to be the victims of any maltreatment, officials said.
The only thing to occupy the children's time was a bed or mattress, according to the complaint. A window in one room was nailed shut, one of the children told police, so those who slept there "could not get out." The closet doors were locked.
Police first learned about the children's circumstances on March 27, after receiving a report from a school nurse that one of the children claimed he had been beaten and bruised with a belt. That report came on the heels of a series of visits to the home by foster care workers. After a Feb. 15 visit, a county foster home inspector left the home with a "positive feeling," acknowledged Jeff Aiken, spokesman for the county Department of Human Services.
The father in the case, a 54-year-old factory worker, has been charged with felony child abuse and has been ordered to appear at a preliminary hearing next week. He also has been prohibited from having any contact with the adopted children without prior approval from a judge.
The mother in the case has not been charged.
All five of the adopted children are developmentally disabled. Three are brothers, ages 10, 9 and 8. The other two are girls, not related to each other or to the boys. They are ages 8 and 4.
The couple's two foster children a 3 1/2-year-old girl and a 3-month-old boy have been removed from the home, officials said.
How foster care workers visiting the home could fail to detect an environment of mistreatment "is a legitimate question that has to be answered," said Denise Revels Robinson, director of the state-run Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, which oversees foster care cases in Milwaukee County.
"I'm looking into the case personally to make sure we handled it correctly," she said.
The father and mother have been Milwaukee County foster parents since 1990. The criminal complaint says their home has been the subject of "prior investigations," and it gives one example: A 1998 investigation by the bureau after a report that the parents were locking the children in their rooms. That allegation was never substantiated.
The adopted children brought about $500 a month each into the home in adoption assistance payments, and the couple received additional payments for the two foster children they housed.
Other abuse cases
The case comes at a time when at least two other Milwaukee County foster parents have pending criminal cases emanating from child abuse allegations.
Eric Thompson, an attorney with New York-based Children's Rights Inc., said the St. Francis case "just confirms the evidence that we've already collected regarding widespread abuse of foster children."
Thompson is the lead lawyer in a class action lawsuit brought by the advocacy group that alleges the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare routinely fails to protect children in its care.
Colleen Ellingson, executive director of the Special Needs Adoption Network of Wisconsin, said agencies "look at as much information as possible about any family" before they are approved for adoption.
She called the St. Francis case "a tragedy."
According to the criminal complaint, when police entered the home, they detected a "strong odor of urine inside the home."
A hook-type latch was on the door outside one of the bedrooms, which contained buckets with residue.
"There were no dressers, chairs, clothes, toys, or pictures on the walls of the room," the complaint says.
The children told police they were forced into a strict regimen: supper at 4 p.m., then medicine, then locked inside their rooms from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m.
The St. Francis man's wife told police the hooks were on the doors when they bought the house. According to the criminal complaint, she "then offered to remove the hooks and began to unscrew them."
The woman said the children were given buckets to urinate in because the children "wake other children when they use the bathroom during the night."
The man admitted whipping one of the boys with a belt in a panic, the complaint says, but he vowed: "It will never happen again. I have to take responsibility. I did it. I will go to any classes you want me to go to."