Machado Family Member Accused of Sex Abuse in Suit

A co-owner and manager of the Machado Family Homes for the severely retarded was accused in a lawsuit filed Wednesday of sexually abusing two adult patients for more than two years in one of his family’s three Cypress facilities.

Norlan Machado, who lives in the home at 9123 Evergreen Drive in Cypress and has not been charged with any crime, flatly denied the allegations through his attorney.

Machado is one of the owners of the four Machado Family Homes in Orange County, where a local agency alleged earlier that poor supervision led to sexual assaults on two patients and the severe burning of another.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Orange County Superior Court by the Developmental Disabilities Center contained the new allegations of sexual abuse. The two retarded adults were identified only by initials.

Cypress Police Lt. John Schaefer confirmed that a criminal investigation is under way but declined further comment.

Lawyers filed a sworn statement signed by Police Officer Bill McCullers, saying that one unidentified resident had said he had been molested. McCullers was unavailable for comment, and Schaefer declined comment on the statement.

Sworn statements by the alleged victim and his mother and sister were also filed by Rudolfo Montejano, attorney for the Developmental Disabilities Center, a nonprofit group that selects facilities for placement of the retarded and monitors their performance under contract with the state.

Douglas Otto, an attorney for Machado, ridiculed the center’s lawsuit as a ploy to get publicity.

Predicts Long Inquiry

Otto said the statement attributed to the victim “sounds like someone out of Harvard Law School, rather than a developmentally disabled person.”

Cypress police are weeks away from deciding whether there is enough evidence of a crime to warrant prosecution, Otto added.

In the lawsuit, Montejano asked the judge to prohibit Norlan Machado from having any contact with Machado Family Homes residents. But no order was issued after Montejano accepted Otto’s stipulation that Norlan Machado would not molest any patients.

Otto called it “a meaningless gesture.”

“Machado has never molested anybody, and he’s not going to molest anybody,” Otto said.

It was the fourth court appearance for both sides in the dispute since May 14, when the Machados alleged in court that the center was trying to persuade relatives of residents to remove them.

Montejano said the Disabilities Center lacks the power to close the homes or remove patients without consent.

Another Machado attorney, John D. Baker, alleged that the center’s slowness to act undercuts its claims of danger to residents.

Questions Agency

“They have been taking out two (residents) here, three there,” Baker said. “If they were that concerned about health and safety, they could have shut down the whole thing. The police can do it. The (state) Department of Social Services can do it. Why hasn’t it been done?”

Twenty residents remain in the Machados’ four Orange County homes; there were 36 before the legal battle began. Letters from a dozen relatives of residents praising the care and attention in the homes were filed by Machado lawyers earlier this month.

A sworn declaration filed Wednesday by a woman identified only as the mother of the victim alleged that the sexual abuse had occurred until, at her request, her son was removed May 15 from a Machado home.

“My son was very specific in his allegations . . . and notwithstanding his developmental disability, I have no doubt that these allegations are true,” the declaration read.

The mother said her son had never made similar allegations about anyone.