Report says Riverside County failed the 13 Turpin children
Outside probe concludes 13 siblings were hurt by flaws in local safety net
The 13 Turpin siblings found chained and horribly abused in a Perris home often got the care they needed from Riverside County, but “all too often the social services system failed them,” concludes a massive report released Friday by a law firm hired by the county.
In addition, the county's Public Guardian office, which looks after vulnerable adults, failed to obtain and distribute more than $1 million raised for the Turpin children's benefit, which “may have resulted in food and housing insecurity for at least some of the Turpin siblings, in direct contravention of the donors' wishes,” the report from Larson LLP read.
The county contracted with the firm to investigate the Turpins' care and recommend improvements to the safety net for at-risk children and adults.
The 634-page report, released about noon, caps a monthslong investigation that began after revelations that the Turpins — already subjected to a lifetime of torture and neglect — were further victimized by the county's adult and child protective services, which have been the target of severe criticism and lawsuits in recent years.
The Board of Supervisors, which hired the firm of attorney and retired federal judge Stephen Larson, will hear a public presentation on the report at its Tuesday meeting that starts at 9:30 a.m. Larson's firm received $868,000 to do the investigation, county spokesperson Brooke Federico said via email.
Riverside County Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen, in an emailed statement, thanked county employees for cooperating so Larson could do an “independent and thorough” probe.
“I appreciate the unflinching review and recognition that good people are doing good work,” he wrote. “The recommendations will guide our continuing efforts to improve outcomes in the days, weeks and months to come.”
The same statement quoted Supervisor Karen Spiegel as saying that, “as public servants, our duty is to ensure that our most vulnerable communities are receiving the care and protection they deserve.”
“I am dedicated to making sure we have the tools, resources and staffing to provide that care. This is the time to act and I will support all efforts to meet the challenge.”
Supervisor Kevin Jeffries said via email that the report “reveals that we have a huge bureaucracy, providing vital safety net services under conflicting and sometimes counterproductive state regulations, carried out by front line county employees who are overworked, most are underpaid, and yet the vast majority of them remain truly dedicated to serving the public.”
While state regulations “appear to push back on coordinating efforts, we need to remember that our most vulnerable need immediate and effective help — not delays or inaction because of a fear of violating some overzealous regulation or a bureaucrat's hard line interpretation of the law,” added the supervisor, who with Spiegel sits on a committee formed to oversee the investigation.
Supervisor Chuck Washington said via email that the report “highlights many of the complex issues that the county has already begun to address and provides a blueprint for continued improvement.”
Supervisors V. Manuel Perez and Jeff Hewitt could not be reached Friday.
John Hall, a spokesperson for the Riverside County District Attorney's Office, said DA Mike Hestrin will not comment on Larson's report until after Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting. In an interview with “20/20” last year, Hestrin said the Turpins “have been victimized again by the system.”
Only county supervisors or certain county officials can read the full story of what happened to the Turpins on the county's watch. Sections of the report dealing specifically with the Turpins were redacted — entire pages feature nothing but black rectangles — to comply with a court ruling protecting the Turpins' privacy.
Larson's firm made the redactions to follow the court order, Federico said.
What's unredacted finds fault with the attorneys and county agencies tasked with caring for and guiding the Turpins since they were found in January 2018.
Sheriff's deputies discovered the Turpin siblings chained to their beds, abused, malnourished and neglected to the point that their physical and mental development was stunted. Deputies arrived after 17-yearold Jordan snuck out of the home and called 911.
Parents David and Louise Turpin pleaded guilty to 14 felony counts and are serving sentences of 25 years to life in state prison.
After the children — Jennifer, Jordan, Joshua, Jonathan, Julissa, Joy, Jessica, Julianne, Jeanetta, Joanna, Jolinda, James and Janna — were freed, the younger siblings went into foster care while the Public Guardian's office, which is tasked with protecting vulnerable adults, looked after the adults.
The county announced Larson's hiring the day an ABC News “20/20” report about the Turpins aired in November.
In the interview, two of the adult children said they struggled to find money for food, were forced to live in bad neighborhoods and were cast into society with few life skills or regard for their wellbeing, an assertion backed by Hestrin. Despite an outpouring of community support that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the children, Joshua Turpin said the Public Guardian denied his request for money to buy a bicycle.
The Larson report confirmed that some of the Turpin minors were placed with a foster family that was later charged with child abuse. Three members of a Perris family, Marcelino Olguin, wife Rosa and their daughter Lennys, have pleaded not guilty to about a dozen felony charges combined.
If there was mention in the report of how the foster family was vetted, and whether any Turpin children raised alarms about that care, those details were redacted. But some of the report's recommendations suggest there is a lack of oversight by the county Department of Social Services of the organizations that place foster children.
Those recommendations include:
• Increase county oversight of Foster Family Agencies.
• Modify FFA contracts to require continuous access to FFA social workers' notes and visit and service logs.
• Develop protocols when one or more critical incidents occur.
• Substantially increase the number of foster homes.
Gene Kennedy, a spokesperson for the Department of Social Services, said Friday that his agency would not be commenting on the report.
The report also touched on “heated conflicts” between the Brown White & Osborn law firm appointed to represent seven of the Turpins, the District Attorney's Office and the County Counsel's office, which serves as county government's inhouse law firm.
The Turpin adults, citing mistrust of Brown White & Osborn, particularly Jack Osborn, asked for new attorneys. The District Attorney's Office petitioned a judge to remove the firm — a request that was denied — because of what it said was interference with its criminal investigators and victim-services advocates.
“The aggravated disagreements among these entities often involved important issues that were legally germane to the siblings' interests,” the report states. “However, they were conducted in such a way that the siblings were confused and unsettled.”
“(Redacted) the siblings were caught in the midst of this legal turf war, and were trying their hardest to understand the issues and do the right thing. Clearly, it detracted from a constructive focus on protecting them from harm while enhancing their independence.”
Kenneth White, a partner in Brown White & Osborn, said Friday that there are always tensions among lawyers, but the level of discord among the attorneys in the Turpin probate case was “very unusual.”
His law firm is being paid a flat fee for each client it represents. Among Larson's recommendations were that court-appointed counsel be paid hourly instead and be allowed to apply for, in White's words, “extraordinary fees in extraordinary cases.”
“I think that Judge Larson's suggestions about looking at compensation and having channels for feedback among the component groups are good ones, and we will cooperate with whatever the county would like to do,” White said.
The report also singled out what it called “high staff turnover and vacancy rates at the Children's Services Division (that) have reached a crisis point and are adversely impacting staff and service delivery.”
Regarding the public guardian, the report concluded that “extremely high and complex caseloads, limited funding, and a lack of oversight put clients at risk of having their needs go unmet and their rights unprotected.”
Originally, Larson's report was scheduled to come out in March. But it was delayed for months as his team sought the court's permission to access confidential files about the Turpins.
In May, Superior Court Judge Kenneth Fernandez ordered that confidential records should be released and could be used “to make findings and prepare a report” for county supervisors, but that the information must be restricted to Larson's team, the board and its subordinates.
In an newsletter emailed June 30 to his constituents, Jeffries warned that the report would be “redacted/censored to the point of uselessness to the general public” to satisfy the court.