Ohio: Kids Abused After Child "Protection" Services Puts them In Home With Sex Abuse Suspects

Another day, another episode of incompetence from our lovely overlords at a government bureau. This time, child welfare officials in Dayton, Ohio, placed children in a home of not one, but two sexual abuse suspects that were under police investigation. Not surprisingly, those children later reported that they were also abused. 

Dayton Daily News reports:

Montgomery County Children Services placed a 4-year-old girl into a home with two known sex assault suspects, a Dayton police report says, and kept the child in the home after the girl and her 5-year-old brother said she was sexually abused there.

The report obtained by the Dayton Daily News says Dayton police launched their investigation when school staff alerted officers of the potential sexual abuse. Dayton police say the investigation is ongoing, though the allegations extend back to 2018.

In the sex abuse case, Dayton police officers found Children Services removed the sister and brother in November 2017 to get them out of a household where their mother was the victim of domestic violence. Children Services placed the children with their grandfather, who had twice been charged with rape but not convicted, although he was convicted of domestic violence and a suspect in two other sexual assault cases.

Already living in the home was a teenager placed there by Children Services because the teen sexually assaulted a 5-year-old family member in another county, the report says.

The 4-year-old first told her mother that her grandfather was abusing her during a visitation in July 2018, shortly before the mother was to regain custody. The mother told the caseworker about the allegation, according to the police report, but the caseworker allegedly didn’t follow orders to schedule a forensic examination, left the girl in the home with the grandfather and then continued court-mandated visitations between the grandfather and the children after the mother got the kids back.

In response to questions from the Dayton Daily News, Montgomery County Children Services officials said they conducted an internal review of the case but would not release the outcome of that review or comment on the case, saying agency records are confidential under state law.

Personnel records obtained by the Dayton Daily News show she received a Letter of Instruction in April 2019 for not adhering to the agency’s mandated reporting policy in July 2018. She remains employed at the agency.

The letter of instruction says that if an agency employee is notified that a child is a victim or at risk of being a victim of abuse or neglect by a parent, guardian or custodian, the employee must immediately contact the agency’s intake screening unit. It says they must then immediately fax over a report and notify a supervisor.

No records of any other Children Services employee being disciplined for how this case was handled were given to the Dayton Daily News in response to a public records request. 

And the criminal history of this *alleged* abusing grandfather? You won’t believe this:

Dayton police records obtained by the Dayton Daily News show the grandfather was accused in 2006 of offering a prostitute a ride home, then pulling into an alley on the way, saying he had a gun and raping her. Police were able to track him down because she remembered his vanity license plate, the report says. He was charged with rape but a grand jury later declined to indict him and the case was dismissed, according to court records.

In 2007, he was charged with rape, kidnapping, gross sexual imposition and another sexual assault charge. He was found not guilty by a jury.

Also in 2007, the grandfather was convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence after his 16-year-old son went to Children’s Medical Center for stitches and said his father hit him.

When the children were placed in the home in 2017, Dayton police records say the grandfather was named as a suspect in two additional sexual assault cases that have since been closed with no charges filed.

In 2011, his ex-girlfriend alleged he came to her house, forced his way in and sexually assaulted her. The case was closed after the alleged victim declined to follow through, the police report says.

In 2014, a woman reported that she was celebrating her birthday in downtown Dayton and had been drinking heavily when a man she didn’t know pulled her into an SUV, assaulted her and dropped her off in the Oregon District.

A rape kit was conducted on the victim and found the grandfather’s DNA. The investigation stayed open for years. The case was closed in 2018 without charges filed.

And the teenage abuser?

The teen living in the same house was there because Children Services considered it unsafe for him to continue living in another home with a 5-year-old family member he is accused of sexually assaulting in a different county, according to the police report.

“Even with (the teenager) having sexually assaulted another female child of similar age … (the caseworker) and her supervisor signed off on the children being placed into the home with two sexual assault suspects,” the police report says.

This is hardly Montgomery County Child “services” first scandal. Earlier this year, Dayton Daily News published a story from an in-depth investigation into the agency after a child was found dead from abuse as child welfare officials ignored complaints.

In fact they are so mismanaged that Governor DeWine ordered a full review of troubled agency.

And to show how much they care about the children, the employees went on strike last summer demanding higher pay.