Reporter Details Story Of Foster Home Abuse Lawsuit Against San Diego County

Our top story on Midday edition. Candidates for San Diego County supervisor are reacting to an exposé in The San Diego Union Tribune documenting the abuse suffered by twin boys in a county foster care home candidate for District 4 Bonnie Doumanis calls the allegations if true a shocking breakdown of the system. District 4 candidate Nathan Fletcher called for a full and transparent investigation. District 5 candidate Jim Desmond also called for an investigation and district five candidate Michelle Gomez called the story quote the tip of a horrifying iceberg. The twin brothers who are referred to in this story as a.g and MGE are suing the county for more than five million dollars. Their abuser is now serving a 20 year prison sentence. Joining me is San Diego Union Tribune investigative reporter Morgan Cook who broke the story in Sunday's paper. And Morgan welcome to the program. Hi thank you for having me. Can you give us an overview of this story. A.G. And MGE were both placed in a foster home in Lincoln Park. What were the conditions and what kind of abuse did they suffer. Well a.g and MGE were placed in the foster home in Lincoln Park at different times and for different lengths of time. So the conditions were slightly different for them in terms of available space. It was a two better apartment with the kids sharing a bedroom and his adult brother was in another bedroom and then hazes was sleeping on the couch in the living room. So it's my understanding that a.g share the bedroom with one other boy and tell his twin MGE showed up at which point all three shared the one bedroom and seen the apartment was pretty dirty. Most of the time were when police showed up in 2013. They reported like a nasty cockroach and spider infestation foul odor or lots of trash around the bathroom looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a pretty long time. The abuse you know the allegations of physical abuse you know like beating type abuse. And then also sexual abuse which is sort of he's allegedly had a foot fetish and so he sort of fondled and licked the boy's feet for sexual gratification. How long were the boys there. Well she was there for more than seven years and Agee's twin MGE was there for like about a year from December 2008 to 2010. But MGE had been over to visit age before. She was also placed there and he allegedly told his mother that Hayes abused him and his twin during those visits. And then the county placed another little boy H in his home in 2007 and he stayed there until both he and a.g were removed in 2013. Following up on what you just said that boys and others they did tell people about problems in the home. Can you tell us a little about the history of complaints to county officials and what the result was. So the foster father's name is Michael Jerome Hayes and there was at least one complaint against him as a foster father before Agee was placed in his home in December 2005. And so then a month later in January 2006 a.g told his social worker that she didn't like living with Hayes and that Hayes hit him and that he wanted to go to another home. And the social worker didn't believe him even though he insisted that Hayes was hurting him. So the social worker just allegedly ignored him and Agege tried again to tell his social worker that he is being abused and nothing happened. His mother made several reports and then later other people including psychologist lawyer and educator Agee's elementary school they all made reports of of abuse but nothing came of them. The boys were not removed. Why didn't anyone respond to so many red flags. Dewey No we don't know. But one of the experts I spoke to said you know outsiders look at these allegations of social workers not interviewing children and not believing them and they think well of course they should have listened to the children why didn't they listen to the children. But the reality of the situation is that our culture places more weight on the voices of adults. So even if the adult is the accused abuser is still an adult voice. And I guess people just trust them more. What consequences has the abuse they suffered had for the twins. From what I understand from their lawyer Shawn MCMILLAN They both struggle with anxiety and mental anguish. And I think he may also have behavioral issues. And do we know they're doing now. I think that they're they're struggling emotionally they're struggling. What did San Diego County child welfare officials say to you about why this abuse was allowed to go on for so long. They did not say anything to me. They declined to comment because litigation is ongoing and the county's policy is not to comment on ongoing litigation. But I looked in their court filings and in those filings they said that they may not have done a perfect job of responding to reports of abuse but they did fulfill their mandatory duties to respond even if they did a lousy job of responding. But they also said the boys were kind of at fault perhaps for any harm that they may have suffered because they didn't take the ordinary care and reasonable steps to protect themselves. But I mean there were just little kids so I'm not sure how much self-defence should have been expected of them. Now so far it seems as you say the county's legal response involves invoking discretionary immunity for county workers. What does that mean. I guess we should start by acknowledging that nobody would want to be a social worker if they got sued every time they made these extremely hard choices and judgment calls that is required of them. And and it didn't work out so it wouldn't be fair to ask people to make those kinds of calls and see them every time they made a mistake. And so it is for that reason that the law gives them immunity from being sued as long as they fulfill the mandatory duties that are specified in the law but there's mandatory duties basically require them to go through the motions and the decisions they make about whether to intervene or remove a child are discretionary and therefore protected by legal immunity now in your reporting have you learned whether this case is an anomaly or is it a symptom of a dysfunctional County foster care system. I don't know the answer to that question. But the sense that I get is that I think it's a symptom. Because you know the people I've talked to the people who have spoken with since the story ran you know that they all have had not experiences exactly like this but parts of similar experiences. And so I worry that we're looking at the tip of a horrifying iceberg. I've been speaking with San Diego Union Tribune investigative reporter Morgan Cook Morgan thank you very much. Thank you. It's my pleasure.