County Staffer’s Payments to 6 Foster Parents Probed

Los Angeles County auditors are investigating at least six foster parents and a county employee responsible for paying them to care for abused and neglected children, according to county documents and sources close to the criminal investigation.

The probe involves suspicions of questionable payments of so-called “respite care” funds to foster parents by Rosia Walker, who oversaw such funds for the county’s Department of Children and Family Services, according to county officials and other sources.

“Respite care” allows foster parents a break from their duties by providing other foster parents to temporarily care for the children assigned to them. Each foster parent has access to 72 hours of respite care annually, plus emergencies, foster parents say.

On Thursday, auditors and representatives of the district attorney’s office served search warrants at six foster parents’ homes and at Walker’s residence in the course of a “criminal investigation involving theft of public funds,” according to a memo from the county auditor-controller’s office obtained by The Times.

Walker could not be reached for comment Monday; a message on her work telephone referred callers to another, disconnected line.

The search warrants have disturbed foster parents who apparently are unconnected to the probe, said Lupe Ross, head of the Assn. of Foster Parents of Los Angeles County.

Ross cautioned against a rush to judgment in the case and stressed that the county authorizes all respite care payments, which she said equal about $174 for three days.

The Department of Children and Family Services’ payments for respite care have been suspended for the past year as the investigation went on, said agency spokesman Neil Rincover, who said that because of staff changes, figures on the amount of respite care funds paid out were not immediately available.

The disclosure of the investigation came as a county panel Monday recommended paying $88,000 to settle two lawsuits alleging that children in the agency’s protective charge were sexually molested.

In the first case, a female foster child alleged that an agency social worker had fondled her. The alleged molestation occurred in May 1997, when the social worker was driving the then 10-year-old child from the home of her aunt, who had physically abused her, to a foster home, according to a memo from county lawyers.

Though the worker denied the allegations, he did give the girl a photograph of himself without a shirt, according to county documents. “We felt a jury would look upon that very disfavorably,” said Roger Granbo, the attorney in the county counsel’s office who prepared the memo.

In his memo, Granbo recommended settling the case for $30,000, warning that a jury could find against the county for up to $100,000. He wrote that although what happened is in dispute, the child makes a “credible” witness.

In the second case, according to another memo from Granbo, the boyfriend of the adult daughter of a 14-year-old’s foster parents molested the foster child for six years. The assaults allegedly continued for several months after county social workers knew the man, a convicted sex offender, was visiting the foster home.

In January 1996, county social workers were warned that the man was inflicting “physical and emotional abuse” on the foster youth. The social worker found that the boyfriend was a convicted sex offender and ordered him to move out of the home. But no official action was taken until the boy complained of sexual abuse in June.

Granbo warned that the county could face up to a $250,000 judgment from a jury in the case and urged a $53,000 settlement. The two settlement proposals need approval from the Board of Supervisors, then from Superior Court judges, before being finalized.