2 state workers out at DCFS over AJ Freund case
Handled hotline probe 4 months before boy’s killing
State officials confirmed Friday that two child welfare professionals who were recommended for dismissal for their handling of a hotline investigation into AJ Freund four months before the 5-year-old boy’s tragic death are no longer employed with the agency.
Carlos Acosta and his supervisor, Andrew Polovin, are no longer state employees following a lengthy internal disciplinary process, according to a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. He declined to say whether the men were fired or voluntarily quit.
“Following the heartbreaking death of AJ Freund, DCFS began a comprehensive review of the entirety of our work with AJ’s family to understand what needs to change to prevent tragedies like this from happening again,” said Jassen Strokosch, the agency’s spokesman. “As part of this review, DCFS has taken personnel action regarding Carlos Acosta and Andrew Polovin, the caseworker and supervisor involved in the case. Mr. Acosta and Mr. Polovin are no longer employed by the state.”
He said DCFS is continuing to examine “the department’s work in this case and will take all necessary action to protect the children and families we serve.”
Acosta was the child protection specialist assigned to investigate a Dec. 18 hotline call from Crystal Lake police regarding a bruise on AJ’s right hip. The child gave various statements about the cause of his injury, including that the family’s dog had pawed him, but records show he also told an emergency room doctor, “Maybe mommy didn’t mean to hurt me.”
Acosta, who also serves as an elected McHenry County board member, deemed the allegation of abuse unfounded about two weeks later after consulting Polovin, who also was the supervisor in two earlier hotline investigations involving AJ.
The employees, who both have about 25 years of agency experience, were reassigned to paid desk duty nearly eight months ago, after AJ was reported missing. His body was found six days later, on April 24, in a shallow grave about 7 miles from his home.
His parents, Andrew Freund and JoAnn Cunningham, of Crystal Lake, were charged with first-degree murder that same day. Cunningham, 36, pleaded guilty Dec. 5. She faces up to 60 years in prison when sentenced next year. Freund, 60, still awaits trial.
One day after Cunningham’s guilty plea, Acosta and Polovin were placed on a 30-day unpaid suspension pending discharge, sources said.
The two state employees are named in a federal lawsuit filed in mid-October on behalf of the slain boy’s estate, which represents his three siblings. It alleges that Acosta and Polovin showed “an inhumane indifference to AJ’s safety” in their handling of the December 2018 hotline investigation.
One day after the suit was filed, DCFS received a confidential interim report by Inspector General Meryl Paniak that recommended their termination. The report also recommended terminating a third worker, Kathleen Gold, who investigated a hotline complaint involving AJ from March 21, 2018. Gold has since resigned.
The inspector general report, which focused on the agency’s handling of the March and December hotline investigations, found the employees “failed to see the totality” of the troubled history of AJ’s family and missed opportunities to intervene.
Acosta and Gold were carrying a caseload above what is allowed under a federal consent decree at the time of their contact with AJ’s family, a systemic problem that has long vexed DCFS and that child welfare advocates say puts vulnerable children at further risk.
None of the employees have responded to Tribune interview requests.
Polovin had been paid $171,500 so far this year, according to the state comptroller’s office database. Acosta was paid nearly $91,000 in 2019.
DCFS administrators have acknowledged mistakes in some of the agency’s previous contacts with the family and have since stepped up training, including for veteran workers and say they are working to reduce investigator caseloads. The agency has hired more than 200 staff members this year after receiving a budget increase, administrators said.
Since 2012, the state agency had received at least 10 DCFS hotline calls regarding Cunningham’s care of children — from police officers, hospital staff, neighbors, a private agency caseworker and even her own mother, the Tribune has previously reported.
Four of the 10 complaints came in 2012, before AJ was born, and involved the alleged neglect of a foster son she had raised for 15 months and of an older biological son. Only one DCFS investigation ended in a finding of credible evidence of neglect by Cunningham — when AJ was born in October 2013 with a derivative of heroin and other drugs in his system, records show.
Polovin was involved in all three of AJ’s hotline investigations, including at the boy’s birth when the DCFS supervisor approved his being placed in the state’s protective custody with one of his mother’s cousins. The woman wanted to adopt him, according to records.
He was about 20 months old when a McHenry County judge in June 2015 allowed the boy’s parents to begin raising him. Cunningham and Freund had completed drug treatment, counseling, random drug screens and other community-based recovery services, court records show. The case was closed in April 2016, thus ending state monitoring.
AJ last attended day care that June and relatives say the couple cut them off from contact several months later when he was about 3 years old. Cunningham had relapsed on heroin by at least March 2018, records show, when police found her passed out in a parked car with fresh track marks on her body.
That incident was the basis for one of four DCFS hotline calls alleging abuse or neglect in 2018. Two of the calls — both involving suspicious bruising — resulted in DCFS investigations.
DCFS assigned Gold to the March incident after a hospital social worker called the hotline to report AJ had odd bruising on his face when he and his younger brother came with their father to retrieve some of Cunningham’s belongings.
Gold initially went to Cunningham’s old address from 2012 and failed to see AJ until one month later despite an agency rule that mandates a good-faith effort to see a child within 24 hours, records show. She did not see the inside of AJ’s house until nearly two months after the hotline call.
Gold eventually closed the investigation as “unfounded,” citing among other factors Cunningham’s return to drug treatment and the presence of the boys’ father, Freund, an attorney.
In the last documented hotline call, about the large bruise on AJ’s right hip, Acosta deemed there was a lack of credible evidence and closed the case as “unfounded” despite the family’s troubled history and the boy’s comment to the emergency room doctor implicating his mother.
Acosta did not seek further expert medical opinion or obtain a forensic interview with AJ to try to determine the cause of the bruise before closing the investigation, records showed.
Polovin, the supervisor, approved the findings in both 2018 hotline investigations.
AJ was killed April 15, according to authorities, four months after that last hotline call.
McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally said his staff has worked to improve communication between various agencies in cases involving DCFS. He also has appointed a special prosecutor to oversee McHenry County juvenile abuse and neglect cases.
Cunningham’s mother, Lori Hughes, who was estranged from her daughter in the final two years of AJ’s life after winning custody of an older child, had harsh words for the DCFS employees for not notifying the family or conducting more thorough investigations.
Hughes said she is convinced of her daughter’s guilt and hopes AJ’s death will raise awareness and bring about systemic change to Illinois’ child welfare system.
“I don’t know that we’ll ever be at peace,” she said. “You think about it every day. You’re constantly sad. It’s a sadness you have every day.”