Abuse Was Reported Before Toddler’s Death

When Claudia Merlos brought her 2-year-old son to Northridge Hospital Medical Center in September with a broken leg, her explanation didn’t ring true to the nurse on duty. Hospital workers summoned a social worker and police to investigate.

It was the fifth time someone had called the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services to accuse the Merlos family of neglect or abuse, according to internal records obtained by The Times. The calls triggered brief, often superficial, inquiries by social workers, with any doubts quickly put to rest by Claudia’s denials.

At the hospital, Merlos was questioned again and again as her story shifted. But in the end, the 19-year-old mother was allowed to take her son, a spirited toddler named Ivan, back home to their Canoga Park apartment.

Two weeks later, Ivan was dead. Police say Merlos beat the boy so badly that he suffered massive internal bleeding. Merlos has been arrested and charged with murder. She has pleaded not guilty.

A review of Ivan’s DCFS case file, obtained this week after The Times petitioned the juvenile court for access to the confidential records, shows that social workers were told that Claudia Merlos was hitting and kicking her child.

“Claudia hits the baby on the head whenever she wants to,” her brother, Jesus Merlos, told one social worker in January 2003. Her sister had said Claudia “hits him every day,” according to the worker’s notes.

But time after time, social workers judged the complaints unfounded. They took the young mother at her word and dismissed suggestions of neglect, angry outbursts and violence. They failed to thoroughly question her relatives and friends. And they kept sparse records of each contact with the troubled family, leaving mounting problems for the next social worker to uncover.

“I think it’s an injustice, what they did,” said Antonia Rodriguez, the boy’s maternal grandmother. “They could do so much, but they did so little.”

David Sanders, director of the Department of Children and Family Services, found the casework so shoddy that he recently fired a social worker and that person’s supervisor and suspended another pair.

Sanders said Ivan’s case highlighted the meager investigations, paltry note-taking and poor supervision that are “systemic problems” in his department. The lack of critical information in the case, he said, makes it impossible to judge whether his agency should have taken the boy from his mother in the months before he died.

“If we miss information, it’s impossible to make the right decision,” Sanders said.

Ivan’s DCFS file shows that at least nine social workers and supervisors were involved in his case. It does not identify them all, and the social workers named in this story are not necessarily those who were disciplined in the case. Sanders refused to identify which employees he fired or suspended because, under civil service rules, they can still appeal the decision.

According to the case file, Ivan was first referred to the child welfare agency just four days after he was born, in May 2001. A complaint came into the child-abuse hotline and the agency decided it did not warrant intervention. The file contains no details of the complaint.

In December 2001, social worker Grissell Jovar responded to Tarzana Hospital to investigate a complaint that the baby, who had been hospitalized with a high temperature, was being neglected. On meeting Merlos, Jovar noted that the young mother “has some limitation.”

Merlos, then 17, suffered from a bone and tissue disease that stunted her growth and usually confined her to a wheelchair.

“She also mentioned she can barely carry the baby and her mother helps her with the care of her baby,” Jovar wrote in her report. The social worker referred Merlos to El Nido Family Centers, a social services agency that provides counseling and other support to at-risk families.

During the next year, the family appeared to be doing well. Records show no DCFS referrals in 2002, and interviews with family members and service providers indicate that Rodriguez, then 38, was providing most of Ivan’s care.

“The grandma was the caregiver,” said Gina Hariri, owner of Creative Care, a Canoga Park day-care center that Ivan attended for about a year. Hariri said she rarely saw the boy’s mother.

Hariri remembers Ivan as a happy child who appeared healthy and well-loved. “His bag was always full of nice, clean clothes,” she said.

But in January 2003, a caseworker at El Nido in Mission Hills referred Ivan to DCFS, alleging he was “the victim of emotional abuse,” according to DCFS records.

The caseworker was concerned that the boy had seen Claudia being slapped “on the mouth” by her mother and her brother. Social worker Michelle A. Farias visited the family’s apartment and interviewed Claudia, her mother, brother and sister.

“Antonia Rodriguez denied the allegations,” Farias wrote in a Jan. 14, 2003, report. “Jesus Merlos said he tapped her mouth to stop her from being disrespectful to their mother.... All the family members stated that Claudia was always angry and yells all the time. While this [social worker] was conducting the interview, Claudia yelled at her mother whenever they were in the room together.”

Farias asked each family member how Ivan was treated. “All said that Claudia hits and kicks him,” Farias wrote. “Claudia denied this allegation and said that her family is mad at her so they were making this up.” The social worker noted that Ivan had no marks on his body and seemed well-cared for. Instead of pursuing allegations that the toddler was being beaten, Farias asked El Nido to provide joint therapy for Merlos and her mother.

Two months later, another social worker, Sandra P. Florian, went to the home to investigate a complaint of child neglect. Merlos was not home, but her younger sister told the social worker that “she has seen [Merlos] slap the child” when she gets frustrated. Merlos later denied hitting her son, Florian wrote in a March 31, 2003, report. The social worker judged the complaint unfounded.

Over the summer, Merlos moved into an apartment with another single mother. About the same time that she left her family, the boy stopped attending day care. At 19, poor and disabled, Claudia Merlos was virtually on her own.

On Sept. 15, she took Ivan, who was limping, to see Dr. Justin Morgan at the Northridge Family Practice Center. In an interview this week, Morgan said Merlos appeared to be “a normal, concerned mother.” She told him she did not know how Ivan hurt his leg, which Morgan said did not appear to be broken.

But at the hospital the next day, doctors determined that Ivan’s leg was broken. Nurse Cheryl Adams was skeptical of Merlos’ story. Social worker Christian S. Lopez was called to the hospital, along with Officers Fred Cueto and Itzchack Schefres of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire Division, according to DCFS records.

Merlos told both Lopez and Cueto that she did not know how Ivan was injured, but she changed her story when Schefres questioned her. She said Ivan had been riding on the back of her wheelchair and his leg “got stuck between the spokes.” The officers and social worker then met with Dr. Helen Petroff, who was treating Ivan. Petroff “believed that the victim’s injuries were consistent with the mother’s explanation,” Lopez wrote in a DCFS report. No charges were filed, and Merlos was allowed to take Ivan home.

Petroff, a first-year resident, declined to discuss the case through her supervisor, Dr. Pamela Davis, director of Northridge Hospital’s family practice residency program.

“This was very, very hard for everyone here,” Davis said. “I think everything we legally could do was done. The physicians made all the appropriate referrals and it was turned over to the departments that both investigate and monitor child abuse.” Officers Cueto and Schefres also declined to discuss the case through their superiors.

Two weeks later, Merlos’ roommate called paramedics after Ivan, who had been badly beaten, stopped breathing. Merlos was arrested that night after she allegedly admitted to detectives that she had punched the boy in the stomach.

Ivan died the next day. Merlos is now in jail, awaiting trial. For Rodriguez, the grief over her grandson’s death is salted with anger at the many social workers she believes could have protected him. She does not believe Merlos killed him, but she is certain that Ivan would be healthy and safe had he stayed with Rodriguez.

“If they discussed it so many times, why didn’t they take the baby away from her if she wasn’t taking care of him?” she asked through her tears.