State Revokes Foster License of La Mesa Woman : Child Care: Following judge’s ruling that Mara Jo Grimes was negligent in allowing infant to die in van, Social Services bars her from having foster children.

The state Department of Social Services, following an administrative law judge’s ruling that La Mesa psychologist Mara Jo Grimes displayed “gross negligence” when she allowed an infant to die in a sun-baked van outside her home, has revoked Grimes’ foster care license, officials announced Friday.

Deputy Director Lawrence B. Bolton issued the decision Thursday, six days after administrative law judge Marguerite C. Geftakys ordered Grimes stripped of her right to take in foster children. Under state law, the final decision rests with the social services department.

“Although (the child’s) death was an isolated incident, it certainly could have been avoided with the exercise of even scant care,” Geftakys wrote in her decision, which was also released Friday. Grimes “failed to establish that she does not now present a risk to the public should she be permitted to operate a foster home at this time.”

County and state social services officials endorsed the decision, which came 4 1/2 months after 5-month-old Frank Martinez died of hyperthermia June 30, when he was left for three hours in a closed van whose temperature reached about 122 degrees.

“I think the judge’s decision spoke for itself,” said Dan Garcia, the attorney who argued for revocation of Grimes’ license in a four-day hearing before Geftakys last month. “I don’t think I could have said it any better.”

Grimes did not return a telephone call to her home. Her attorney, Sherri Sobel Sokoloff, did not return a call to her office.

The 46-year-old Grimes will be barred from taking in foster children for two years and would be required to reapply for a license after that, Garcia said. “In this case, I think she would have to demonstrate to a judge that she is a new person to get a new license,” Garcia said.

Frank, who suffered from Down’s syndrome and a heart defect, was left unattended in the van after Grimes, her brother and her sister-in-law returned from a trip to Alpine with the infant, three other foster children and Grimes’ adopted son.

According to Geftakys’ decision, none of the adults removed the sleeping infant from the van. Grimes, who had begun to do so but ran into the home because she became ill, lay down intending to rest for a few minutes. She awoke three hours later to the screams of her sister-in-law, who had discovered the unconscious child in the front passenger seat of the van.

In the chaos of settling five children after the outing, the couple, Ray and Deborah Grimes, apparently believed that Mara Grimes had taken Frank upstairs to nap with her.

After an investigation, the La Mesa police recommended that charges be filed against Grimes. But Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller determined Sept. 10 that Grimes’ actions “did not constitute provable criminal negligence.”

Geftakys wrote that Grimes “has been guilty of gross negligence in that she failed to exercise even scant care” for Frank that afternoon. “It is found that (Grimes) simply forgot about (Frank) when she went to sleep at 2:23 p.m.,” having walked past Frank’s customary spot in the living room just moments before.

Despite the accident, the evidence established Grimes as a “competent and loving foster mother,” one whom an evaluator found to be “bright, articulate and . . . assertive,” Geftakys wrote.

The judge maintained that Grimes’ comments about the incident during the hearing conflicted with a written statement she issued in July. She found that Grimes violated her foster care license by housing four foster children when she was approved for three.

In addition to caring for five children, Grimes “overextended herself to the point she was exhausted” on the day of the accident because of a busy schedule of work, teaching and church activities, Geftakys wrote.