ADAMS IS ‘IFFY’ ON ACS

Hedge on ‘failure’

Mayor Adams on Thursday said the city needs to examine “if ” the Administration for Children’s Services failed Julissia Batties — who was allegedly murdered by her mother just after being placed back in her care. The mayor was asked to respond to claims by her grief-stricken dad that “the system failed her” — referring to ACS deciding to return Julissia, 7, to her mom Navasia Jones less than two months before she was found beaten to death in August 2021. “We have to really examine exactly if there was a failure,” Adams said. “Anytime we have cases like this we are in a constant state of analyzing how could we do something better,” he said, “and so I don’t know if I support what the dad is saying around that.” The slain girl’s dad, Julius Batties, shot back that the mayor needs to “do his homework.” “All of this is black and white,” he told The Post. “You all work for the city and ACS is run by the city. “It’s a shame on the city and worse shame on the mayor to say that,” Batties said. “He should do his homework before he speaks and judges the situation when he doesn’t know what he is talking about.” The tragic youngster was the subject of a heated custody battle for nearly all of her life. Her paternal grandmother, Yolanda Davis, was temporarily granted custody of Julissia after she was born, and has said she “begged” ACS not to send Julissia back to her mother.

Jones — who was charged with murder and manslaughter Wednesday — lost custody of the girl at birth, along with her four sons, due to alleged negligence and physical abuse.

Police were called to the apartment in NYCHA’s Mitchel Houses in The Bronx at least six times between May 2018 and March 2020 for suspected abuse of the girl, sources said. ACS still placed her there permanently in the spring.

The child’s battered body was discovered just a few months later.

‘Red flag ignored’

Prosecutors alleged Wednesday that the girl’s 18-year-old half-brother, Paul Fine, Jr., assaulted her — physically and sexually — between Aug. 8 and the day she died, Aug. 10, and that their mom did nothing to get her help. He was charged with sexual assault, murder and manslaughter.

Davis said ACS “saw the red flag and they ignored it.”

“The child was telling them and they weren’t listening,” she told The Post Thursday. “How can you allow a child to go back to where she’s been abused?”

Asked for comment, City Hall referred The Post to the mayor’s earlier statements and to the ACS.

An ACS spokesman said the agency “conducted an intensive review of this case to do everything possible to keep children safe and families supported.”