{"id":3495,"date":"2017-06-06T15:52:17","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T15:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arknews.org\/?p=3495"},"modified":"2017-06-06T16:46:06","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T16:46:06","slug":"victims-of-predatory-foster-parent-sue-former-dhs-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arknews.org\/index.php\/2017\/06\/06\/victims-of-predatory-foster-parent-sue-former-dhs-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Victims of predatory foster parent sue former DHS employees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seven sexual assault victims of former Arkansas foster parent Clarence \u201cCharlie\u201d Garretson filed a federal lawsuit<\/a> Monday alleging negligence and due process violations on the part of several former employees of the Arkansas Department of Human Services as well as their assailant\u2019s wife, Lisa Garretson.<\/p>\n

The suit was filed in Fort Smith less than a week after Clarence Garretson was sentenced to life in federal prison for assaulting a series of minors in his care, most of them foster children placed in the Garretson household by DHS \u2014 the agency responsible for Arkansas\u2019s foster care system \u2014 between 1998 and 2004. DHS placed some 35 children in the home over that period, and prosecutors have said there is evidence that at least 14 of them were sexually abused by Garretson. At Garretson\u2019s sentencing hearing May 31, one victim \u2014 who is also one of the plaintiffs in the civil suit \u2014 told the court that she had repeatedly attempted to inform DHS authorities of the abuse, which began when she was 11.<\/p>\n

\u201cArkansas DHS put me and many others in the hands of a monster,\u201d she said at the hearing. U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes, who presided over the hearing, commented that the case constituted an \u201cextreme failure on the part of the Department of Human Services\u201d and said of Lisa Garretson, \u201cif she didn\u2019t know what was going on, she should have known.\u201d Holmes was also assigned the civil suit filed Monday.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs\u2019 allegations of DHS negligence go further. Their suit alleges that DHS approved the Garretsons to be foster parents despite DHS substantiating a report one year earlier that Clarence Garretson had sexually assaulted two children at knifepoint.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit names as defendants former DHS Director Kurt Knickrehm, who headed the agency from 1999 to 2005, and Richard Weiss, who served as interim director for six months in 1998. The other six DHS defendants are Debbie Williams, Nikkole Hurst, Carol Gillis, Patsy Chase and Robbie McKay, all of whom allegedly served as caseworkers for one or more of the children abused by Garretson, and Dick Pickarts, the DHS director of Logan County at the time of the abuse, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The complaint alleges that the DHS caseworkers and the county director \"obtained actual knowledge\" that at least one of the children in the Garretson home was sexually assaulted, but took no action.<\/p>\n

A long-haul truck driver, Garretson would take children on cross-country trips, sexually assault them in the cab of his truck and coerce them into silence afterward, according to federal prosecutors. DHS revoked the foster home\u2019s license in 2004 \u2014 yet Garretson was not charged with a crime until he raped another child in 2014. That victim reported the abuse to her mother in 2016, leading to an FBI investigation that uncovered the pattern of earlier assaults that occurred when the Garretsons operated their foster home a decade earlier.<\/p>\n

Garretson pleaded guilty in October to five counts of interstate transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. In exchange, federal prosecutors dropped six additional counts and agreed to not prosecute Lisa Garretson.<\/p>\n

Many of the facts of the criminal case against Clarence Garretson remain unknown to the public because key court documents are under seal. The civil suit filed Monday includes a detail that was not stated in the criminal case: The minor who reported Garretson\u2019s actions in 2016 was herself the child of a teenage victim of Garretson more than a decade earlier, who became pregnant by \u201ca relative of the Garretsons\u201d while she was living in the household as a foster child from 2000 to 2004. (How the minor daughter came to be in Garretson\u2019s company in 2014 is not made clear.)<\/p>\n

The complaint alleges negligence on the part of those defendants with direct contact with the former foster children \u2014 Williams, Pickarts, Hurst, Gillis, Chase, McKay and Lisa Garretson \u2014 stating that each \u201chad reasonable cause to suspect that Charlie was sexually abusing children\u201d and \u201chad a duty to report such abuse.\u201d Each \u201cwillfully and knowingly failed to report such abuse,\u201d which violated an Arkansas statute requiring foster parents and DHS employees to \u201cimmediately notify the Child Abuse Hotline if he or she has reasonable cause to suspect that a child has been subjected to child maltreatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to negligence, the complaint also states two separate causes of action against all defendants, including former DHS Director Knickrehm and former interim director Weiss. The first is a federal civil rights claim. Because foster children are in the custody of DHS, which has \u201cthe fundamental duty to ensure that each foster child is in an appropriate placement and confirm that each foster child \u2026 is safe and healthy,\u201d the agency\u2019s failure to do so constituted a violation of the children\u2019s \u201cfundamental rights to physical safety and to be free from the infliction of unnecessary pain.\u201d The complaint states that the defendants demonstrated \u201ca pervasive pattern of indifference\u201d to the victims and their due process rights. The second claim is based on a federal statute that allows minor victims of certain federal crimes (or those who were minors at the time the crime was committed) to seek civil remedies.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs are seeking damages that include the costs of medical expenses, pain and suffering, mental anguish and legal fees, along with punitive damages. An amount is not specified in the complaint. The plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial.<\/p>\n

DHS itself is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, and the agency typically does not comment on litigation. Confidentiality laws prohibit DHS from commenting on individual foster care cases, meaning the agency cannot publicly refute specific allegations of misconduct. When asked about the Garretson case in October, DHS spokeswoman Amy Webb said, \u201cThis is a tragic situation, and DHS would never intentionally put a child in harm\u2019s way. Sadly, there are people who prey upon children and may try to use the foster system to do so. When that happens today, we act swiftly to ensure youth in foster care are in safe homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system for vetting foster families is much stronger and more thorough today than it was 20 years ago. ... We conduct state and federal background checks, child maltreatment checks, home studies, and training. We also do re-evaluations of homes annually and new background and maltreatment checks every two years. In addition, we have a more sophisticated computer system. We also now have a system in place that automatically notifies [the DHS division responsible for foster care] when there is a call into the child abuse hotline that includes an allegation against a foster parent.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of Monday night, attempts to reach two of the named defendants for comment were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

This reporting is courtesy of the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network<\/a>, an independent, nonpartisan news project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawsuit says DHS staffers knew about abuse, did nothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[122],"class_list":["post-3495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-child-welfare","tag-clarence-garretson"],"yoast_head":"\nVictims of predatory foster parent sue former DHS employees - Arkansas Nonprofit News Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/index.php\/2017\/06\/06\/victims-of-predatory-foster-parent-sue-former-dhs-employees\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Victims of predatory foster parent sue former DHS employees - Arkansas Nonprofit News Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lawsuit says DHS staffers knew about abuse, did nothing.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/index.php\/2017\/06\/06\/victims-of-predatory-foster-parent-sue-former-dhs-employees\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Arkansas Nonprofit News Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-06-06T15:52:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-06-06T16:46:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Lindsey_millar\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lindsey Millar\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Arkansas Nonprofit News Network\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/\",\"sameAs\":[],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/annn_logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/annn_logo.png\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":900,\"caption\":\"Arkansas Nonprofit News Network\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/\",\"name\":\"Arkansas Nonprofit News Network\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/index.php\/2017\/06\/06\/victims-of-predatory-foster-parent-sue-former-dhs-employees\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/arknews.org\/index.php\/2017\/06\/06\/victims-of-predatory-foster-parent-sue-former-dhs-employees\/\",\"name\":\"Victims of predatory foster parent sue former DHS employees - 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