Lawyers for Children Say County Fails to Cooperate

Attorneys representing more than a dozen Los Angeles County children allegedly abused while in foster care have accused the county counsel’s office of stonewalling court-ordered efforts to investigate the cases.

The accusations, which will be heard Sept. 4 in an unusual hearing before Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Terry Friedman, involve various allegations of abuse.

In one case, according to records and interviews, an infant was permanently brain damaged by injuries allegedly inflicted by foster parents a week after the county Department of Children and Family Services opted not to remove the baby from the household. The court-appointed attorney in the case wrote to Friedman that the county counsel’s office had not responded to two written requests for records.

Another case involves a 5-year-old girl and her 4-year-old brother who allegedly were removed by the department without cause from a relative’s home in December and placed in foster care. Within weeks, the toddlers allegedly were sexually assaulted by their children’s department caseworker.

Both cases are also under criminal investigation by law enforcement agencies.

Assistant County Counsel Ada Gardiner disputed claims that the office has not turned over the records it is required to by law.

“There is no stonewalling,” she said Friday. “There are confidentiality problems, and the [private] attorneys have been provided” information to which they are entitled, she said.

Anita Bock, director of the children’s department, said she was not aware of accusations of county records being withheld.

In all, five attorneys appointed by Juvenile Court judges to investigate claims say they have been thwarted by the county counsel’s office in trying to obtain basic information, including medical records.

“I have never seen a case where a party is thumbing its nose like this at opposing counsel and a court order,” said Tarzana attorney Jack D. Hull, who was appointed to handle the case of the brain-damaged infant.

Access to Records Crucial, Lawyer Says

Los Angeles attorney Linda Wallace Pate, assigned to the case of the siblings, said that when documents were provided by the county, numerous pages were missing. In addition, there were more than 5,000 deletions of material, she said.

“If attorneys cannot get access to these records, they are not going to take cases,” she said. “And if they don’t take these cases, no one is going to protect the kids.”

In an Aug. 10 letter to Friedman, attorney Sanford Jossen of Manhattan Beach said the county counsel’s office had refused to comply with court orders requiring access to medical, psychological and other records for 11 children he was appointed to represent in separate injury and abuse cases.

“This makes it impossible for me to investigate or proceed with these minors’ cases,” Jossen wrote.

Citing the case of a teenage girl bitten by a runaway dog, Jossen said Deputy County Counsel Richard Bloom refused to provide him with any original files in the case or any medical or psychological files without the consent of the minor, the minor’s parents and the therapist.

“This is a simple dog-bite case,” Jossen said. “The county of Los Angeles has nothing to protect on its own behalf in that case, and if they are going to act in the best interest of the child, then the records should be produced so I can obtain the medical records substantiating the girl’s injuries.”

Bloom countered Friday that the office has withheld only information deemed confidential under state law. And, he said, the office has proposed that the disclosure matter be resolved by court adoption of a new policy that would allow it to review all the documents and decide “which parts of the file are confidential and which parts are not.”

The county’s position in the dog-bite and other cases, Jossen said, not only violated court orders to turn over information but made it impossible for him to document injuries, locate witnesses or take other actions to investigate the claims. Further, he said, the county’s “unlimited access” to the same files he was seeking put him at a clear disadvantage in litigating the case.

“What is at stake here is the best interest of these children, and for the county of Los Angeles . . . to obstruct the minors’ attorneys from investigating these cases is unconscionable,” Jossen said in an interview.

“I think the county counsel’s office should be significantly [fined], because there is absolutely no legal basis for what it is doing,” he said.

In the alleged sexual abuse case involving the siblings, Los Angeles attorney R. Brian Kramer gave the court a written chronology of the county’s alleged refusal to turn over documents.

On June 15, a month after being appointed to the case by the Juvenile Court, Kramer said, he reviewed the original children’s department file and found that interview notes and investigation reports about the alleged sex abuse were missing.

That same day, Kramer said, he wrote to Deputy County Counsel Roger H. Granbo about the missing documents and asked that they be supplied.

Twelve days later, according to Kramer’s letter, Granbo responded that the information was confidential because it was part of the accused caseworker’s personnel record and an internal investigation.

Judge Is Asked to Intervene

Over the next three weeks, Kramer added, he and Granbo exchanged more letters with the same result: The county refused to turn over the documents.

Granbo did not return calls seeking comment.

Finally, Kramer said, he asked Friedman this month to intervene.

“This case involves a very tragic situation where a child protection services worker abused . . . his official authority and violated the public trust by having inappropriate contact with two children he was mandated to protect,” Kramer said.

“This type of conduct erodes the community’s confidence in the integrity of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services,” he said.

Attorney Wallace Pate added that the county’s response to the case underscores another, bigger concern.

“The county is adept at obscuring the truth, and it has a lot of skeletons in its closet,” she said. “And I think this is just a desperate attempt by the county to avoid the inevitable--which is that the public will find out what kind of care these children are receiving.”