Carey couple surrenders foster care license

By Terry Smith

 February 3, 2009 / Idaho Mountain Express

A Carey couple whose son was convicted of having sex with a seventh-grader in their care has given up their license for foster children to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

"The Adamsons have closed their license," said Tom Shanahan, an IDHW spokesman in Boise. "They are not licensed foster parents in Idaho right now."

Shanahan said Monday that Craig and Betty Adamson surrendered their license voluntarily, thus avoiding the department having to make a determination.

"We would have had to look at that, and if they were negligent in their supervision, then we may have had to go that way," Shanahan said.

The Adamson's son, 21-year-old Brian Jake Adamson, was convicted by a jury last August of sexual abuse of a minor child under 16, a crime punishable in Idaho by up to 25 years in prison. He was tried on a charge of lewd conduct with a minor child, which is punishable by up to life, for having sex in October of 2007 with the 13-year-old foster child in his parent's home.

Adamson was sentenced last week in 5th District Court. Judge Barry Wood decided to give him a chance at rehabilitation and sentenced him to six months with the Idaho Department of Correction, which will like send him to the North Idaho Correctional Institution in Cottonwood. If rehabilitation fails, Adamson could up spend up to 10 years in prison, which was an alternative sentence that Wood imposed.

Adamson is now listed as a registered sex offender in Twin Falls County, where he lived and attended the College of Southern Idaho.

Craig and Betty Adamson's license for foster children was suspended after their son's arrest last April.

Betty Adamson told the Idaho Mountain Express last May that the couple were foster parents for four years and had 14 children in their care during that time.

She said the situation with the 13-year-old girl, who was a seventh-grader at Carey School, was the first time they'd ever had a problem involving a foster child.