SHAME ON THE CITY
3 ACS workers keep jobs in killer-mom case after probe found they should be fired
A simple background check could have saved the life of a Bronx infant – but city child welfare workers didn’t bother – and then kept their jobs over recommendations they be canned after the baby’s death, the Daily News has learned.
The city Department of Investigation advised the Administration for Children’s Services to fire three workers assigned to make sure 5-monthold Raymond Porfil and his toddler sister were safe, but ACS ignored the suggestion, a heavily-redacted Freedom of Information Law request revealed.
When ACS caseworker Tishana Valentine, supervisor Michael Simpson and manager Jacqueline Berridge began investigating abuse claims against little Raymond’s mother Joann McLeod on May 20, 2018, a background check would have shown that three children were taken away from McLeod eight years prior.
Two weeks later, the chubby cheeked little boy was dead – his skulled cracked by his bi-polar, drug addicted mother.
“They can get fired,” the infant’s father Raymond Porfil said of the caseworkers. “That’s good for me.
“I think about it at night sometimes,” Porfil explained. “Every month on the 4th, I think about it. He died on the 4th. She killed him on the 4th.”
Police found the child in his crib inside his mom’s 13th-floor apartment at the Bronx River Houses in Soundview, on June 4, 2018. He died of a brain injuries caused by his mother’s hand.
In its report, the oversight agency “identified numerous critical violations of ACS policies, standards and guidelines by ACS employees” linked to the investigation of McLeod’s case.
“These critical failures significantly jeopardized (Raymond’s) safety and may have contributed to (his) death,” the DOI stated.
Among those deadly gaffes: Caseworkers did not do a “face to face” interview with McLeod and her kids within 24 hours of what was a “high priority” complaint, they did not consult the children’s pediatrician, which is ACS policy.
More egregiously, Valentine, Simpson and Berridge didn’t check their own agency databases for McLeod’s history. Otherwise, they would have known that her three other children were taken from her in 2010, when the tots were between 1 and 5 years old. The allegation then was of neglect and drug use around the kids.
“This finding is particularly troubling because it is not the first time a DOI investigation has substantiated ACS’ failure to properly utilize its own internal records to ensure the safety of a child about whom ACS has received an allegation of abuse or neglect,” the
report read.
In 2016, ACS investigators in Brooklyn looked into child abuse claims against the mother of 3-yearold Jaden Jordan. The toddler was later beaten into a coma by his mom’s boyfriend, Salvatore Lucchesse, who is serving 15 years behind bars for the killing.
“This suggests that the systemic concerns noted in the Jaden Jordan investigation about the failure to properly review and utilize information as required are even broader than the issues in that earlier investigation,” the report stated.
The DOI made 16 recommendations after the probe, which included to “take disciplinary action” against Valentine, Simpson Berridge “up to and including termination,” and making sure staffers “incorporate prior ACS history when making safety and risk assessments” as well as implement new training on how to handle child abuse cases involving K2 addicts.
An ACS spokeswoman said that most of the recommendations were already being implemented before DOI finished its report.
“After this tragedy, we immediately conducted a thorough review of this case and made changes to our policies and practices, including the implementation of a new ‘heightened oversight protocol’ for high-risk cases involving children under the age of three and training child protection workers on the substance, K2,” an ACS spokeswoman said.
A DOI database shows that of the 315 recommendations the agency has made to ACS since January 2014, only five were rejected, among them the suggestion to publicly disclose its death reports to improve transparency.
Valentine, Simpson and Berridge are still employed by ACS. Sources with knowledge of the case said all three took part in a “corrective action plan” after Raymond’s death. Some were reassigned to other duties and retrained after an internal review, the source said.
When reached outside her Bronx home, Valentine, who joined ACS in 2006, said, “I’m sorry I cannot discuss any of that.” Attempts by The News to reach Simpson and Berridge were unsuccessful.
McLeod, who relatives claim is a bi-polar, K2 addict, is serving a 10-year sentence in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women.
In an exclusive Rikers Island interview with The News after her arrest, McLeod said she didn’t hurt Raymond. But she told Valentine and cops that she smashed her son’s head against the wall and left him mortally wounded without calling for help.
She pleaded guilty to manslaughter in November.
Meanwhile, Raymond Porfil Sr. is still grieving his little boy.
“That was my only son. He would have been 2 years old. You did wrong. You took something of mine. I don’t forgive.”