Abused adoptees' lawsuits fault DCF

The siblings' say the agency knowingly placed them in a "dangerous" foster home in Plant City.

CANDACE RONDEAUX

TAMPA - Whipped. Starved. Dunked under hot water. Those were the accusations.

Children who lived in Marjorie Moss' foster home told authorities that few left there unscarred.

Now several of Moss' former adopted children are demanding that Florida's Department of Children and Families help them heal. On Tuesday, an attorney for several young people who lived in Moss' Plant City home filed four separate lawsuits in a Hillsborough Circuit Court against DCF alleging the agency knowingly placed them in a "dangerous" foster home.

Filed four years after Moss pleaded guilty to one count of child neglect, the lawsuits are part of a string of claims lodged against DCF by children who lived with Moss and her husband, Charles. Karen Gievers, the Tallahassee attorney representing the children, said she expects to file lawsuits on behalf of two more of Moss' former adoptees.

"The abuses that were ongoing in that house were ignored by (DCF) for years to the further damage psychologically and physically to these children," Gievers said.

Tampa DCF spokesman Andy Ritter declined to comment on the lawsuits.

The Mosses looked after 35 foster children for the state between 1992 and 1996 and were paid $115,000 to do so. In 2001, the couple gave up their right to their seven adopted children after Marjorie Moss was sentenced to five years' probation. She and her husband were originally arrested on 40 counts of child abuse and neglect. Formal charges were never filed against her husband.

In 2002, another foster child took legal action against DCF after allegedly suffering years of abuse under Moss' care. Ashley Rhodes-Courter claimed in a separate Hillsborough lawsuit against DCF employees that the Mosses beat her with a paddle and denied her food. The claim was settled for an unspecified amount several months later.

Gievers said her clients, who are siblings, suffered similar abuses. She said she expects they will need long-term psychological counseling. The former foster home children range in age from 13 to early 20s and still live in Hillsborough County. Gievers said her clients decided to sue after they recently began to cope with the psychological effects of the abuse.

"It's not about the blame game; it's about let's do right by these children," Gievers said. "They are realizing that they want to do their part so that no other children will have to go through what they went through."