Reports of child deaths at issue
Protective services in counties find ways to avoid scrutiny in making reviews of cases public
After 3-year-old Brook Stagles was beaten to death in 2016, damning accusations emerged about the inaction of child welfare investigators in Rochester: In the three weeks prior to the killing, Monroe County Child Protective Services workers had allegedly made numerous missteps — including ignoring countless phone calls warning of escalating abuse.
When similar child deaths occur in New York, the state Office of Children and Family Services is required to create a report detail
ing whether caseworkers followed protocol in investigating any allegations of abuse.
But after five recent highprofile child deaths, including three in the Capital Region, the state has sidestepped public release of the reviews of county CPS actions. In several cases, the Times Union found reviews had been suppressed at the urging of county governments that were the subjects of the reports’ scrutiny and possible criticism.
Before a report is released to the public, county CPS offices at times urge the state agency to keep the reviews under wraps, through a process that is itself secretive.
When a member of the public requests a copy of a child fatality report, OCFS asks the relevant county social service agency for a written recommendation as to whether the release is in the best interest of surviving siblings or other children in the household. That is the lone exemption in state law allowing a report’s suppression by the commissioner of OCFS.
In making such recommendations, counties also may have their own interests in mind — including negligence lawsuits from grieving families or desire to avoid public criticism. All provide incentive to exaggerate the harm a report’s release might cause to the child’s surviving siblings.
Criticism of the rule’s use is long-standing: A 2008 report issued by the Children’s Advocacy Institute, an arm of University of San Diego Law School, called the exemption a “severely restrictive, substantive limitation” of the law. A follow-up report cited the 2010 murder of Marchella Pierce in Brooklyn as a possible consequence.
“Perhaps if New York’s Office of Children and Family Services had not been working to limit access to case reports ... further system reforms could have occurred before Marchella’s tragic death,” the report stated.
After receiving the requested recommendation from Monroe County, OCFS decided to keep the report on Brook Stagles’ 2016 death a secret under the rationale that suppressing the information was in the best interest of Brook’s surviving siblings. While the reasoning behind that determination is unknown — Monroe County and OCFS both declined to provide any further information — suppressing the report was also likely in the interest of Monroe County CPS officials, whose actions may well have been criticized.
The idea that suppressing the report was in the best interest of Brook’s siblings came as news to John Geer, the child’s maternal grandfather, who was among the family members who repeatedly called Monroe County CPS before Brook died.
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Geer said.
Citing the same rationale in response to requests from the Times Union, OCFS has suppressed its review of the 2014 death of 5-year-old Kenneth White in an Albany County hilltown, and the 2019 death of 6-week-old Eli Harmon-ojeda in Cohoes.
In a somewhat different scenario, a report on the 2017 death of 1-year-old Luka Patrick in Albany County was publicly released. The report stated, however, that the OCFS fatality review team had not examined the matter and would meet “retrospectively,” pending a criminal investigation.
But after the criminal proceedings played out, the report was never updated with any new findings concerning Albany CPS workers’ conduct.
The OCFS report on the 2018 death of 2-year-old Gabriella Boyd in Westchester simply bypassed the most controversial aspects of CPS’ alleged actions — conduct that was later the subject of a negligence lawsuit brought against Westchester County CPS.
The OCFS reports don’t identify anyone by name, including the person accused of killing, the surviving siblings, or the child welfare officials involved in the case. At times, the reports find caseworkers performed their jobs correctly. In other instances, the reviews can be scathing.
Because the process is so secretive, it’s difficult to access the validity of the “best interest” recommendations made by counties and adopted by OCFS. The agency refused to provide copies of counties’ recommendations that preceded its decision to suppress reports; so did several counties, also citing privacy restrictions. OCFS likewise refused to release any records detailing OCFS Commissioner Sheila Poole’s rationales for suppressing reviews.
An OCFS spokeswoman, Monica Mahaffey, confirmed that a two-level review of a “best interest determination” is conducted — first at the county level, then by the state.
“This determination is based solely on an assessment of the potential for further trauma and public humiliation for surviving siblings,” Mahaffey said. “Pending litigation or criminal investigations are not part of the best interest determination. When OCFS disagrees with the best interest determination conducted at the county level, the agency publicly releases the report.”
Mahaffey declined to provide any specific example of OCFS going against a county’s recommendation. She also declined to say if OCFS — before it suppresses a report in the “best interest” of a dead child’s siblings — ever consulted the families, or only asked for the opinion of counties that might have vested interests.
Mahaffey called the idea that OCFS would ever intentionally suppress a report in order to protect a county government from scrutiny “outrageous and without basis in fact,” and accused the Times Union editorial board of recently making such an implication in the case of the death of Eli
Harmon-ojeda.
Brook Stagles
On Nov. 14, 2016, Brook Stagles died after beatings from her father’s girlfriend, Erica Bell, who was convicted of second-degree murder. Brook’s father, Michael Stagles, would plead guilty to criminally negligent homicide.
John Geer, Brook’s maternal grandfather, filed a lawsuit several months after Brook’s death, alleging that Monroe County
CPS was responsible.
According to the lawsuit, three weeks before Brook’s death, Geer’s wife — Brook’s grandmother — filed an abuse complaint with Monroe CPS. Along with Brook’s mother, she then met with Colleen Cufari, a Monroe County CPS caseworker. At the meeting, the family raised concerns about bruising on Brook’s body that showed up while in the care of her father, bruising that was “increasing in severity” since Michael Stagles began dating Bell.
The Geers advised that Bell had been duct-taping Brook’s mouth shut to keep her from speaking. They reported that Brook was sleeping on a mattress in the basement of Stagles’ residence and “regularly and routinely” being bitten by insects.
At the meeting, according to the lawsuit, Cufari refused to look at photographs documenting the injuries and “went after” Brook’s mother as the suspected source of abuse.
Two days after the meeting, Cufari went to Michael Stagles’ house and spoke with him at the doorway, but did not go inside because Stagles said that he was moving. Cufari did not speak with Bell, the lawsuit alleged.
CPS workers are required to evaluate the child’s living environment when a complaint is filed, and to interview the person accused of abuse. Whether such requirements were followed would be exactly the types of matters typically reviewed in the OCFS reports.
The lawsuit maintained that if Cufari had examined the basement in which Brook was sleeping, that alone would have warranted emergency removal from her father’s home. Over the next three weeks, Cufari ignored repeated phone calls detailing new instances of abuse, according to the lawsuit.
When Brook died, she was bruised head to toe.
OCFS would not say when the agency made its decision to suppress its review of Brook’s death, a decision that could have been triggered by the Times Union asking for the report this year, or by an earlier request from someone else.
It’s not clear, therefore, if Monroe County’s recommendation to OCFS was made while the county was facing a negligence and wrongful death lawsuit, or afterward.
On Oct. 11, 2018, state Supreme Court Justice Scott Odorisi ruled that despite Monroe County
CPS’ “botched probe” into whether Brook was being abused, the county was on its face not liable for such behavior.
“Although this Court heartedly disagrees with how CPS and/or Cufari handled the investigation, including the failure to ensure (Brook’s) safety, there is no way to classify that botched probe as
anything but protected, discretionary governmental actions/inactions,” Odorisi found.
Monroe County refused to say whether the OCFS review contained negative conclusions concerning the county’s handling of Brook’s case. Commissioner of Human Services Thalia Wright said that the county by law “is prohibited from discussing or commenting on any CPS case, open or closed.”
Yet in October 2017, Monroe County did issue a lengthy news release defending CPS’ actions. In that statement, which provided many specifics about CPS conduct, the county said that in the three weeks before Brook died, CPS made “three inperson home visits.”
At Michael Stagles’ sentencing, according to reporting by the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Monroe County Court Judge Christopher Ciaccio said that CPS workers visiting Stagles’ home before the death discovered the girl living in “deplorable” conditions with more than a dozen spider bites on her body.
Eli Harmon-ojeda
When 6-week-old
Eli Harmon-ojeda died last year after ingesting methamphetamine in his father’s apartment, questions immediately arose about whether social services workers in Rensselaer County had done enough to protect the infant.
But OCFS, citing the “best interest” of Eli’s siblings, is keeping that report secret as well.
Rensselaer County refused to say whether the OCFS review contained negative conclusions concerning the county’s handling of Eli’s case, stating only that the county believed its workers “fulfilled their duties and obligations.”
Since Eli’s death, Rensselaer County has been in conflict with various entities seeking the county’s CPS records, including Cohoes police, and later a defense attorney representing the man who claimed to be Eli’s father, Anthony Ojeda, who is facing criminal charges related to the infant’s death.
Upon the OCFS report’s completion, Rensselaer County submitted a threepage document to OCFS arguing against the review’s release. The county refused to provide a copy of the document with the Times Union.
In a statement to the Times Union, Rensselaer County Department of Social Services Commissioner Theresa Beaudoin said there are two siblings of Eli’s, ages 15 and 8, and a third child, 11, whose “paternity is in question.” The OCFS review of Eli’s case should therefore be suppressed, the county argued.
It’s not clear how Eli’s four siblings on his mother’s side are relevant to the OCFS report, since they did not live with Eli and his father. Beaudoin said only that the OCFS report “details information about the family and the conditions in the household and within the family.”
In recommending against the report’s release, Beaudoin also said Rensselaer County was also concerned about “public disclosure of information before the criminal trial involving Mr. Ojeda.”
Beaudoin declined to say why Rensselaer County social services was concerning itself with the outcome of a criminal case in Albany County.
Albany District Attorney David Soares’ office, which is prosecuting Ojeda, told the Times Union it played no role in Rensselaer County’s recommendation that the report be suppressed.
Kenneth White
OCFS also declined to release its review of 5-year-old Kenneth White’s death in 2014, again citing the “best interest” of his surviving siblings.
Albany County, which had handled White’s child welfare case, said it had no record of having submitted a “best interest” recommendation form to OCFS concerning the release of White’s review. OCFS does have a copy, but declined to provide any information about Albany County’s recommendation.
Kenneth was killed by his then-19-year-old cousin, Tiffany Vanalstyne, who strangled him in the family’s trailer.
Caseworkers from Albany County’s Child Protective Services visited the trailer three times, according to Kenneth’s aunt, and declared it a safe living environment.
In 2019, their foster mother officially adopted Kenneth’s sisters.
Luka Patrick
In May 2018, an Albany County jury convicted Troy resident David Bridges of first-degree manslaughter for using “blunt force trauma” in the killing of 1-year-old Luka Patrick. About two months earlier, Bridges had begun dating Luka’s mother, Rebecca Patrick.
Ten months before David Bridges’ conviction, OCFS issued a partially completed report containing information about the death provided by Albany County CPS. But the report stated that OCFS’ child fatality review team never met before its issuance.
“At the time of the fatality notification to the district attorney’s office,” the report stated, “it was decided the Child Fatality Review Team will be meeting retrospectively due to the pending criminal investigation.”
Yet a spokeswoman for Soares’ office — which also handled the Bridges prosecution — said the office never advised OCFS to delay that review, either.
Following David Bridges’ manslaughter conviction, it is unclear if any further review of Albany CPS’ actions was conducted.
OCFS officials said that there was “no updated fatality report” and that any investigation records “outside of the fatality report would be confidential.” The agency offered no further explanation.
Rebecca Patrick — who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment — testified against Bridges.
CPS workers made three home visits in the 10 days before Luka’s death Feb. 6, 2017, according to the 19-word “OCFS review” that is contained in the report. The home visits were prompted by a complaint called to the CPS central hotline stating that Patrick and Bridges were making Luka stand in a corner “facing a wall for 30 minutes while they acted aggressively and screamed.” The complaint also stated the home was infested with cockroaches.
“This report was under investigation” at the time of Luka’s death, Albany County CPS said in a statement published in the original OCFS review. “There was some credible evidence gathered through home visits and interviews to substantiate the allegations.”
Records from David Bridges’ criminal case include an interview that an Albany CPS caseworker conducted with Rebecca Patrick following Luka’s death. According to the interview, David Bridges moved into the home Dec. 14, 2016. About two weeks after, Luka “started having bruises.” She subsequently would leave Luka at home in order to hide the bruises.
Ten days before Luka died, an Albany CPS caseworker filed a report stating that the child was observed in diaper only and “free of visible marks and bruises.”
Whether Albany CPS erred in any way is not clear, since no review was released.
Gabriella Boyd
Two-year-old Gabriella Boyd was killed by her mother, Cynthia Arce, April 28, 2018, in an attempted murder-suicide in Westchester County.
The day before, a Westchester County Family Court judge issued an order giving Gabriella’s father, Stephen Boyd, temporary custody and barring the mother from seeing her child after the father had raised concerns that Arce’s mental health problems were placing the girl in jeopardy.
That afternoon, Village of Mamaroneck Police served Arce with a copy of the protective order, yet the mother refused to relinquish custody of Gabriella and slammed the door in the officers’ faces. Still, the officers did not arrest Arce, and the Westchester district attorney’s office also declined to take action. Police then gave a copy of the protective order to Westchester County Child Protective Services, which made a follow-up visit that night.
The CPS workers arrived at the residence, knocked, saw the residence was dark and “despite their knowledge of the mandates of the protective order” left the residence and never returned, according to a federal lawsuit Gabriella’s father filed against Westchester County CPS and others.
The CPS workers were unable to get Mamaroneck police to accompany them. They could have asked Westchester County police to come instead, but did not, the lawsuit states.
The OCFS review of the Gabriella Boyd case was issued Oct. 19, 2018 — nine months before Stephen Boyd filed the federal lawsuit. Gabriella did not have any siblings whose wellbeing could have justified suppressing the report.
The state review, however, brushes past the CPS visit to Arce’s home entirely. It states that CPS workers made diligent efforts to conduct interviews following Gabriella’s death, while not accessing the CPS visit to the home the night before.
If the OCFS report had weighed in CPS’ visit to the home, the findings certainly could have been evidence in the lawsuit against Westchester County, said Martin Rosen, an attorney representing Gabriella’s father.
“Absolutely,” Rosen said. “It should have been addressed.”
cbragg@timesunion. com - 518-454-5619