Lawsuit accuses CYFD of removing girl from poor parents, placing her in abusive homes

Aug. 12—A young woman who says she and her six siblings were removed from their poor parents’ home about a dozen years ago is suing the New Mexico Department of Children, Youth and Families, claiming she spent six years in the system. of social assistance. , enduring physical, mental and sexual abuse.

She finally reunited with her parents when she was 17, says the woman, who is now 23.

The complaint, filed in state District Court, also names Acadia HealthCare Co. and unnamed defendants, including foster parents and unnamed employees of the state and health care provider.

It accuses the defendants of neglect, violations of the New Mexico Children’s Code, false imprisonment, assault, battery and rape, and seeks actual and punitive damages.

The woman was the oldest of seven siblings who moved with their parents from Chicago to Albuquerque in 2012, according to the complaint. “At all material moments, [the family] lived below the poverty line,” the lawsuit says.

The state’s involvement in the custody of the children was prompted by an altercation between the plaintiff’s father and a neighbor over the neighbor’s son bullying her, according to her complaint.

“In retaliation,” the neighbor reported the couple to the State for “providing inadequate living conditions for their seven minor children,” the complaint states.

The state took custody of all seven children and required their parents to complete several substance abuse and anger management courses, “despite there being no indication or allegation of drug or alcohol misuse, domestic violence or neglect,” it alleges. the complaint.

The children had a grandmother and five uncles and aunt in Illinois, the suit says, but the state did not notify them of the situation or offer to place the plaintiff with any of her relatives.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Children, Youth and Families wrote in an email that the agency “cannot comment on specific cases.”

However, spokeswoman Jessica Preston wrote, “CYFD workers are required to make concerted efforts to place children in CYFD custody with family/relatives as the priority. As a result, more than 50% of children placed in a family setting are placed with a relative. CYFD social workers must make every effort to find one. [kinship] placement before a non-relative home option is explored.”

Acadia did not respond to calls and an email seeking comment.

Asked whether CYFD still does business with the company, department spokesman Andrew Skobinsky wrote in an email: “If a provider within your network can accommodate the need for a specific service type and/or geography, We take great care to vet this institution before considering an engagement.”

The plaintiff says in the lawsuit that she was taken from her home and placed in a runaway facility in Albuquerque at age 11 and was placed in her first foster home at age 12.

Her adoptive mother’s brother-in-law entered her room uninvited, behaved erratically and made excuses to interact with her, the lawsuit alleges, adding that the adoptive mother did nothing to intervene or stop the unwanted attention.

A few days later, the lawsuit alleges, the man sexually assaulted her. She was hospitalized for several days and did not return home.

There was no investigation into the abuse, the lawsuit alleges, and no action was taken to protect or support the girl after the assault.

When she was around 14 years old, she was placed in the care of a police officer and his wife. The officer also sexually abused her, she alleges, and again there was no investigation or support.

At around age 16, the lawsuit alleges, she was placed in the home of a woman who “physically and physically abused her,” denying her food and water and frequently beating her “with her fists and sometimes with pots and metal pans.” .”

When she wasn’t at school, the complaint says, she would lock herself in her room.

She reported the abuse to a social worker at Rio Rancho High School, who alerted authorities, and one “fateful day after school,” while she was being physically beaten by her adoptive mother, “the police and firefighters showed up at the house and intervened. in attack.” She was hospitalized for treatment of her injuries, the complaint says.

The girl was then placed at Desert Hills, a former children’s treatment center owned by Acadia Healthcare. She alleges that she was “subject to cruel abuse and mistreatment… by staff and staff” at the center.

On one occasion, she alleges, she was restrained by three nurses and injected with an unknown sedative; she woke up in a small, locked room, with a small window and padded walls, where she remained for two days.

The Department of Children, Youth and Families revoked a license for Desert Hills in 2019 amid reports of sexual abuse and violence at the facility and ordered operators of the Albuquerque center to close it.

The complaint says that “after six heartbreaking years, [the plaintiff] managed to locate and reunite with her parents” and now “chooses to live with her parents, whom she loves and missed dearly during her crucial years.”