First, State Sen. Eleanor Sobel accused the Department of Children and Families (DCF) of a “cover-up and a whitewash” after the agency said no records were generated during an internal investigation into a previous alleged cover-up, the Miami Herald reports.Second, there are questions about suspicious deaths of inmates at prisons in the state that were never investigated by the Department of Corrections, the Miami Herald reports in a separate article.
Regarding DCF, the genesis of the cover-up accusation was the discovery that a regional office that covers Broward, Palm Beach and three other counties failed to write and send in reports on the deaths of 30 children known to the agency as being at risk of harm. At the time, last fall and early 2014, the Herald was known to be preparing a report on such deaths.
That report, Innocents Lost, was published in March. It said 477 children supposedly under DCF watch had died in Florida over a six-year period. The series led to legislative hearings and bills to overhaul the agency.
More recently, the Herald reported that the 30 deaths from Southeast had been withheld from the total. DCF Deputy Secretary Pete Digre was assigned to investigate.
When he finished, Digre said Regional Administrator Dennis Miles may have violated the letter of the law, but didn’t intentionally “shield information from anyone,” the Herald reported. DCF Secretary Mike Carroll gave Miles two days of suspension without pay.
“I can assure you that no information was destroyed, and no child deaths were unaccounted for,” Carroll said.
When the Herald tried to obtain the records of the investigation, Digre and Carroll said there were not any — nothing on paper, nothing digital.
Sobel, a Democrat who chairs the Senate’s Children, Family and Elder Affairs Committee, said the agency is engaging in a huge cover-up to preserve its public image. “They are obstructing information, they are obstructing justice, and they are obstructing transparency,” she told the Herald.
Full Article and Source:
Sarasota Crooked Lawyers: 2 State Agencies on Hotseat
Innocents Lost
5 comments:
What about these agencies all across the country - why does their "reporting" put people nto guardianship unnecessarily?
And in Virginia, two attorneys with the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services, who together earn around $150,000 per year to oversee the public guardianship programs and to advise the associated Virginia Public Guardian and Conservator Advisory Board and the Council on Aging:
- illegally shift, interrupt, and truncate the time of public comments at Virginia Public Guardian and Conservator Advisory Board meetings to avoid citizen input and media scrutiny
- interrupt a citizen with a family member currently in a dangerous, dysfunctional guardianship with Jewish Family Service of Tidewater to preposterously claim that instances of wrongdoing were a long time ago (even though the incapacitated person and family member still suffer the serious consequences of that wrongdoing years later)
- maliciously defame citizens who bring the dangerous, filthy conditions in adult homes like the six facilities with 400 people operated by Scott Schuett as "crazy" and "exaggerating" and "facilities that SHE considered substandard," even though people have DIED as a result of these appalling conditions, which are PUBLICLY detailed on the Virginia Department of Social Services website
- claim that Board and Council members cannot discuss or address citizens during public comment time, even though the DARS attorney has herself interrupted the public comment in an attempt to downplay or dismiss the citizen's complaint
- absurdly mischaracterize SIX HUNDRED Jewish Family Service of Tidewater and Catholic Charities of Eastern Virginia guardianship cases as "private" and not "public," and falsely claim that DARS has NO AUTHORITY over the cases of these SIX HUNDRED unfortunate victims, who must continue to suffer in DARS-imposed silence
- stifle a yawn when presented with written documentation that Catholic Charities of Eastern Virginia remained in violation of a court order for seven agonizing months by dumping a sweet elderly lady with dementia in a Scott Schuett hellhole
- in response to a widespread citizen outcry over a well-publicized Jewish Family Service of Tidewater abuse of authority, scrub all STAFF CONTACT INFORMATION, as well as BOARD MEMBER INFORMATION, from the DARS website
- respond with a single phone call from a non-attorney staff member to a citizen complaint about Jewish Family Service of Tidewater ONLY after that family member contacts each and every member of the Virginia General Assembly, then preposterously claim that the DARS staff attorney will "investigate" WITHOUT TAKING ANY INFORMATION AT ALL FROM THAT FAMILY MEMBER, despite threats to the incapacitated person's medical care, dental care, and living situation
- canoodle and spoon with Gregory M. Pomije, the attorney for Jewish Family Service of Tidewater and with Colleen T. Dickerson, the unethical, hand-picked, ubiquitous guardian ad litem who is in the bag for Jewish Family Service of Tidewater
- attempt to shut off any communication between citizens and Board/Council members OUTSIDE Board meetings, falsely claiming that such communication is illegal
- as always, blame DARS' failure to oversee and supervise these programs on lack of funding.
In the hands of someone who actually cares about the elderly and disabled, ladies, how far would that $150,000 in scarce public funds go?
Keep them on the hotseat. That's exactly where they need to be.
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JFS Of Tidewater.They took my father out of assisted living as soon as they could."because the bill was up to $30,000, said we have to stop the bleeding" Within days had him in a nursing home where he died a few months later.They refuse to account for his money to the family. Army retirement, SS. VA payments.not one penny went to the $30.000 debt or any other credit cars ETC.They even cashing in his sons life insurance plan to get the cash value. What can we as a family do?
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