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Florida Department of Children and Families

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pob

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What is the name of your state? Florida

On January 26, 2004, a child protective investigator filed a sworn affidavit with information that she made up and knew to be false to kidnap my children under color of law. This was done as retaliation after I delivered a letter to her informing her that if she and the department did not stop harassing my family that I would take legal action against them.

I have been battling Florida DCF for almost 3 months now, and have finally won the dependency case against myself and my husband, and have rescued all of my little hostages back from the state. They were forced to dismiss due to the fact that they had no evidience and no witnesses because what they accused us of never happened. Now my family and I want justice for what was done to us.

I have three children, a 15 year old daughter,a 14 year old son, and a two year old son. My older two children have been out of control and have run away several times and reported that they were abused when they did not get what they wanted. They now will both openly admit that they have made false abuse reports and were never abused.
On January 20, 2004, I delivered a letter to a CPI that stated if she and the department did not stop harassing my family that I would take legal action against them. Every time that DCF has come to my house they have demanded that I subject myself to having one of their "family counselors" invade my privacy and my right to parent my own children by coming into my home for "counseling" sessions, which by their own definition meant that they would negotiate the rules of my home with my out of control teenagers. I do not believe in rewarding bad behavior, and I refused to negotiate anything. This infuriated the CPI, as she stated that the individual counseling that I had arranged would not be sufficient, even though that was the recommendation of a psychiatrist, and five days later on January 26, 2004, she filed a sworn affidavit to take all of my children from me. In the affidavit she stated that my oldest son had bruises on him, which he did not and she was forced to admit this under oath at the shelter hearing on the following day. She committed perjury also during the shelter hearing when she stated that she had not heard that my oldest son (who made the most recent false abuse report) had run away and was in trouble for having fireworks in our home. She also stated in the affidavit that my daughter was unable to give a statement, when my daughter gave a very long statement and informed her that no one was being abused in our home in any way. There are many items on the original affidavit for the shelter petition, the dependency petition, and then an amended dependency petition that we can prove are lies, and that she knew at the time of filing this that they were lies.

My two year old son was returned to me the day after he was taken as the Judge informed the CPI that she had no legal basis to take him due to the fact that no one ever said that he had been abused. Then when information was presented to the Judge to disprove the CPI's accusations the hearing was continued to the next day and my daughter was returned to me because she stated that she had not been abused. My older son maintained his abuse story. He was told by the CPI at the time that if he would maintain his abuse story that he would be allowed to remain at his friend's house, where the CPI had placed him for foster care. This is the home of a "friend" that my older son had been forbidden to associate with due to the fact that the child was on probation and was caught setting off fireworks with my son. The CPI knew this at the time that she placed my son in this home. This was brought to the Judge's attention and the Judge ordered my son to be moved.

MY son was moved to a foster home in another city, and the first day that he attended school there he was beaten severely at the school. DCF refused to get any treatment for my son, beyond initial visits to the hospital emergency room. His nose was severely broken and he had been hit in the face so hard that it shattered his front teeth down to the gum line. I have pictures of my son taken about 1 week after he was beaten, but before he had surgery. In order to force them to get medical treatment for my son after they told me that it would be six months to a year before they could arrange this, I reported them to themselves on their abuse hotline, and after several more documentation letters and complaints he finally had surgery to repair his broken nose and several trips to the dentist to restore his teeth.

I began sending emailed documentation letters to DCF because they were ignoring my phone calls and refusing to accept correspondence that I dropped off at the DCF building in Fort Walton Beach. I was able to find the format for each DCF employee's email address on the myflorida website, and began sending the documentation letters as emails with return receipt to show the time and date that they had displayed the email on their computer. I was also forwarding all correspondence from me to them and from them to me to the Inspector General for investigation. This really infuriated them. They began to put "confidentiality" notices on the bottom of all their correspondence in an attempt to conduct off the record communications regarding this case and to prevent me from forwarding these to the Inspector General. When this did not work and I continued to send the documentation letters, they then sent threatening letters stating that they would prosecute me for breach of confidentiality and that was a felony. When that did not work the Chief Legal Counsel for DCF district one actually called my employer in what was obviously an attempt to cause me trouble at my workplace to inform them that I had sent emails from my company computer to them, and requested that my employer prevent me from doing this in the future. Thankfully, my employer fully supports my position and encouraged me to continue to use the company facilities for these purposes.

The Inspector General referred this back to DCF for investigation, and of course they say that the CPI did nothing wrong even though we can prove otherwise. This finding was made by DCF district one administrator. I went to the Fort Walton Beach police department and spoke with a detective regarding prosecution of the CPI, as we have proof and evidence that she knowingly filed not one but now 3 sworn affidavits in which she lied and suppressed testimony that would have cleared us. The detective stated that he could take the report, but was very reluctant to do so. He said that since we have this proof and the department's position is that the CPI did nothing wrong, that would make this not only a case against the CPI, but also a conspiracy with others in the department that aided her in her actions and to cover up what happened.

My oldest son was returned to me this week after the department was forced to dismiss the dependency petition, so I now feel somewhat safe in attempting to get justice for what was done to us as a family. For malicious reasons this woman illegally stole our two year old baby and attempted to both suppress and manufacture evidence and testimony against us. They let my older son remain in intense pain for a long period of time while withholding medical treatment. At a group home where they placed my older son, he ran away and they failed to report him as a runaway, and after I forced them to report him they then did not inform me or the police for over 48 hours after he had been recovered. They failed to produce him for visitation and counseling. They left no contact orders in place at my daughters school for weeks and I finally had to take my own court order to the school after they threatened to arrest me for going to my own daughter's school. They failed to report to the police when my son was initially taken into custody by them and that resulted in a detective coming to my home more than a month later to investigate my son's disappearance, after I informed the CPI on the first day they took him that he was listed in NCIC as a runaway and that they would need to call the police and have him removed from the system. They have endlessly harassed our family, there are many incidents that are not included here in the interest of time, but I can say that they have pulled every dirty trick in the book, and I have documentation for everything and can prove it all.

My husband and I want to file suit against DCF for civil rights violations and kidnapping our children under color of state law. Any advice?
 



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