$1 Million OKd for Injured Foster Child

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved paying $1 million to a girl who suffered brain damage after being beaten by a foster mother, who previously had two children taken from her home because she allegedly abused them.

The payment is part of a wider settlement that includes $1.2 million from three private foster family agencies that also were responsible for monitoring foster mother Edith Fortuna, who attorneys said is serving a six-year sentence in state prison for her attack on Cathy Garcia when the girl was 2.

Nine months before Garcia was beaten so badly she had to be rushed to the emergency room, another foster child accused Fortuna of abuse. And three months later, two more foster children were whisked from Fortuna’s custody after school officials found them with black eyes and bruises, said Danilo Becerra, Cathy’s lawyer.

Yet the county agreed to place Cathy in Fortuna’s care in February 1996. One month later, the day after a social worker checked on her, Cathy suffered injuries so massive that doctors consulted by Becerra in the course of his litigation said they were comparable to those that might be sustained in a fall from a 20-story building.

“What this [case] shows more than anything at all,” Becerra said, “is that even when the county is given warning signs and even when the [foster family agencies] are given warning signs, they don’t act.”

Supervisors discussed the case in executive session Tuesday and Supervisor Mike Antonovich said the board directed county staff “to pursue action” against those responsible for what happened to Garcia.

“It’s tragic what the child went through, and will go through her entire life because of the Department of Children and Family Services’ failure to take action,” Antonovich said.

Officials at the department, which has changed leadership since the girl’s beating, said they have increased their computerized tracking systems to ensure complaints like those about Fortuna do not fall through the cracks again.

Cathy and two siblings were placed in foster care in January 1996. Becerra said their first home, a temporary stop for about 10 days, was a warm and caring place, where the foster parents read and sang to Garcia.

Then the girl and her siblings were moved to the Fortuna home in Baldwin Park, where Edith Fortuna and her husband were raising three children of their own, Becerra said.

Fortuna had become a foster parent after the company she worked for closed, Becerra said. In 1995 she had been affiliated with Hispanic Family Institute, a sort of clearinghouse for foster parents. Foster agencies locate parents for children detained by the county and monitor the care provided by those parents.

In July 1995, one of Fortuna’s foster children told her therapist that Fortuna had hit her with a broom handle and thrown her on the floor, Becerra said. An investigation by the county and Hispanic Family Institute, though, exonerated her.

Then in December the school officials raised red flags about injuries to two of Fortuna’s foster children.

In urging the settlement, county lawyers estimated that, should the case go to trial, a jury could award the girl $6.8 million.

Citing the two prior allegations against Fortuna, he said: “These were two strikes. And the third strike was an out.”