Advertisement

The Region - News from Sept. 6, 1985

Share

The parents of a 12-year-old boy who suffers from Down’s syndrome sued the Defense Department for $6.5 million in Los Angeles federal court because the youngster was denied special education classes while the family lived in the Marshall Islands. Gerard Cardillo and his wife, Delfina, of Goleta allege in their suit that U.S. Army authorities on Kwajalein atoll ordered them to return to the U.S. mainland last November after they asked for a meeting to discuss the government’s refusal to allow the use of a spare classroom to teach the boy. The family was asked to leave because the boy was a disciplinary problem, authorities said. But the parents claim that the sole reason that they were asked to leave was because the boy has Down’s syndrome, a genetic imbalance that can cause mental retardation. Army officials knew that the boy was mentally retarded and raised no objection when Cardillo was assigned to Kwajalein in 1977 as a civilian engineer, the suit said.

Advertisement