Father of abuser contests ruling

BY JACK MORAN

The Register-Guard

A Eugene man whose daughter is in prison for severely abusing her adopted son is formally disputing a state order that may prohibit him from gaining custody of the boy’s siblings.

Jesse McCurry, who is the father of Alona Hartwig, has filed a petition in Lane County Circuit Court that asks a judge to review a Department of Human Services ruling that accuses him of neglecting the 9-year-old boy whom his daughter abused.

The boy was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries in March. He spent about a month in a Portland hospital before being released.

In May, Lane County sheriff’s deputies arrested Alona Hartwig and her husband, Rodger, at McCurry’s west Eugene home. The couple pleaded guilty in July to assaulting the boy, whom they adopted after taking him into their home in 2005 as a foster child.

McCurry’s attorney, Max Mizejewski of Eugene, said Tuesday that his client is seeking to gain custody of four of the six children that were removed from the Hartwigs’ care when they were arrested. Two of those youngsters are the abused boy’s biological siblings. The other two are the Hartwigs’ biological children.

The state’s assertion that McCurry neglected the abused boy “is inhibiting his ability to be approved as a (foster home) placement option for four of his grandchildren,” the petition states.

All six of the children taken from the Hartwigs are living with foster families, state officials said.

State officials allege that McCurry failed to help the abused boy after he suffered life-threatening injuries that included third-degree burns to his foot and several broken bones, according to a letter that state Child Protective Services coordinator Deborah Carnaghi sent to McCurry in November. McCurry submitted the letter to the court along with his petition.

Documentation reviewed by state child welfare officials “clearly substantiates that while you were in a caretaking role for (the boy), you observed him limping, being quite sick, having a significant burn on the top of his foot … and telling you he had a lot of pain in his inner thigh,” Carnaghi wrote in her letter to McCurry.

“Despite all of this knowledge, you failed to protect (the boy) by not seeking medical care,” the letter states.

The Hartwigs told sheriff’s detectives that the boy burned his foot by touching hot water in a bathtub, but a doctor who treated the youngster at a Portland hospital concluded that was not possible, and that the boy was suffering from a severe case of sepsis as a result of the burn remaining untreated, according to court records.

Alona Hartwig, 46, is serving a mandatory prison term of 10 years and 10 months. Her 51-year-old husband is serving a mandatory sentence of five years and 10 months in the abuse case.

State DHS spokesman Gene Evans said Tuesday that he had no knowledge of McCurry’s court petition, which he filed Dec. 17. Mizejewski said he had not yet notified state officials of the court filing.

McCurry and his wife have cared for foster children in the past, court records show.