County Urged to Pay Teens $1.2 Million in Abuse Case

Lawyers for Los Angeles County have recommended paying two teenagers almost $1.2 million because repeated negligence by social workers allowed one of them to be raped and both to be physically abused and threatened with death by a convicted felon who gained custody of them by claiming to be their half-brother.

According to a report by the Department of Children and Family Services, its social workers failed to do adequate background checks on Ronald Duran. Proper scrutiny would have revealed his record, county lawyers say.

The social workers, according to their department’s report, then ignored allegations that Duran was abusing the teenagers--a brother and sister known as Charles C., now 17, and Kristina C., now 16.

The alleged abuses, including the repeated rape of Kristina C., occurred in 1993. Duran gained custody of the children in January of that year.

Children and Family Services Director Peter Digre’s office referred calls regarding the case to a spokesman late Friday, and he could not be reached for comment. Neither could the children’s lawyer be reached.

The matter is set to go to the county claims board Monday. The county counsel’s office recommends that the claims board and the Board of Supervisors approve the settlement rather than risk a jury award that the county’s lawyers warn could reach $5 million.

In a tersely worded conclusion, county lawyers say only that “a jury will find that the Department of Children and Family Services was negligent,” including failing to check Duran’s background and properly investigate signs of abuse.

Authorities learned of Duran’s conduct when Charles C. called Inglewood police and reported that the ex-convict was, at that moment, raping Kristina.

The police found the rape in progress and arrested Duran, who is serving 19 years in prison for the sexual assaults on Kristina C., according to county claims board documents.

The documents show that social workers never bothered to check adequately into Duran’s background, even after determining that he had a lengthy record of arrests for violent crimes.

For instance, they did not check to see if Duran was really the children’s half-brother, as they are required to do. Duran and the children’s family had said that he was. Court documents do not elaborate on the relationship between Duran and the family.

If social workers had checked, they would have found that Duran was not a relative at all, senior assistant county counsel Lloyd W. Pellman said late Friday.

County documents indicate that Duran had only met the boy and girl two weeks before gaining custody in January 1993. He had recently been released from the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., after serving time for felonies he committed while in the military.

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Although the federal government does not release details of military records, county lawyers noted that a few phone calls would have turned up the information.

The social workers also failed to check the background of Duran’s mother, who was living with him and the children. She too, it was learned later, had “multiple arrests and convictions for a variety of crimes,” including welfare fraud and receiving stolen property.

The teenagers’ biological parents had neglected them, prompting a Juvenile Court judge to declare them wards of the county in December 1992.

According to county documents:

On March 9, 1993, two months after Duran got custody of the teenagers, their step-aunt informed the county social worker assigned to the case that Duran, his girlfriend and the two youths were all sleeping in the same bed at night and that the two were exposed to sexual activity. The step-aunt also reported that Duran was physically abusing Charles C.

A social worker made a phone call to investigate the allegations two weeks later--by calling Duran. He denied the allegations, and there is no evidence that the social worker attempted to independently investigate or interview either of the teenagers.

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The next month, during a home visit, the social worker noticed a large bruise on Charles C.’s face and confirmed that Duran had “inflicted” it. But the worker never interviewed the boy outside the presence of Duran--the normal procedure in child abuse cases--to verify the cause of the injury.

In May of that year, Duran was arrested for physically assaulting his mother. He informed the social worker that he was moving away from her and taking the two children with him. But he never mentioned the arrest to the social worker, who did not do a follow-up investigation nor asked anyone why Duran was moving.

By July 1993, the social worker observed that Kristina C. “appeared to be depressed.” But the worker failed to interview the child outside Duran’s presence.

In August, Charles C. heard his sister screaming in the bedroom, documents show. When he went to see what was wrong, he saw that she was being raped, and called police. Duran was arrested and it was later learned that he had raped the girl on prior occasions and threatened her with death if she told anyone.

During a search of Duran’s house after his arrest, police found large quantities of drugs and numerous guns. The teenagers have testified that Duran was dealing drugs out of the home and threatened them with the guns as a warning not to reveal any details of the abuse or other illegal activities.

Both Charles C. and Kristina C. have testified that despite all the evidence of problems, they were never interviewed by a social worker out of Duran’s presence.

The claims board documents indicate that the lawyers retained by the county--from the firm of Collins, Collins, Muir & Traver--were paid most of the $300,000 the county spent defending the case. In a joint memo, the firm and the county counsel attributed the costs to their “aggressive efforts,” which they said, “were a major factor in reducing [the children’s] demands.”

In particular, the lawyers did “extensive discovery” on the children, and contended that they both had “preexisting psychological problems, unrelated to the abuse they suffered at the hands of Ronald Duran.”