Medical Kidnappers Lose Major Court Battles but Child Trafficking but Child Trafficking through Child Welfare Continues
by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
We get to end this week with some rare positive news stories in the subject of medical kidnapping and child trafficking in the U.S.
The highly public medical kidnapping case in Florida that was made popular with the Netflix film “Take Care of Maya” ended this week, where a jury awarded over $210 million to the Kowalski family for their losses during the time Maya was medically kidnapped by Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in Florida which led her mother to commit suicide. See our previous coverage of this case:
New Documentary on Medically Kidnapped Girl Whose Mother Committed Suicide is the Most Powerful Film Ever Produced Exposing Medical Kidnapping
Florida Medical Kidnapping Trial Exposes Medical Tyranny and Pediatricians Who Traffick Children for a Living
A Florida jury Thursday afternoon delivered substantial money justice to the surviving family members of a wife and mother who took her own life after she lost access to her daughter for nearly 90 days.
A unanimous six-person jury in Sarasota County determined Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg was liable for the incidents leading up to the January 2017 death of Beata Kowalski, 43. Also, unanimously, jurors determined the hospital had to pay the Kowalski family well over $210 million for the losses they endured. Later, additional punitive damages assessed against the hospital increased that total substantially. (Full article.)
After Netflix blew up this story nationwide, it is hard to understand what the rationale was that led Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital to decide to take this trial to a jury, instead of settling out of court to avoid the bad publicity that this case brings against them.
The only possible reason that makes any sense to me, is that these hospital executives were drunk on their own delusions, and actually believed that if they presented their case to a jury that the jury would think like them, believing that hospitals and doctors are just a step below “gods” and always know best, and decide in their favor.
Regardless of their reasoning, this case exposed the Satanic evil activities of the medical system and child trafficking more than any other film has to date. It was released about the same time that the fictional movie “Sound of Freedom” debuted, which made it to the Big Screen and drew most of the attention of the country, even though it never named names or who funds child trafficking in the U.S.
Of course the logical reason why Sound of Freedom did not expose who the child traffickers are, is probably because they funded the film themselves. See:
Sound of Freedom: A Movie About Child Trafficking Produced by Child Traffickers?
Here are some additional court cases against the Child Traffickers in the U.S. that were in the news recently.
Iowa to pay $10 million to siblings of adopted teen girl who died of starvation in 2017
Iowa will pay $10 million to the siblings of an adopted 16-year-old girl who weighed just 56 pounds (25 kilograms) when she died of starvation in a home where an attorney for the siblings says the children were forced to fight each other for food.
A state board approved the settlement for the siblings Monday, years after the severely malnourished body of Sabrina Ray was found in 2017 at her home in Perry, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Des Moines. She lived with three other adoptive siblings as well as foster siblings.
Sabrina Ray’s adoptive mother, Misty Ray, was sentenced to life in prison on kidnapping charges, and Marc Ray, her adoptive father, was sentenced to 80 years for kidnapping and child endangerment. An adoptive grandmother and brother also received prison sentences.
Two of Sabrina Ray’s siblings, former foster care children who were also adopted by the Rays, claimed Iowa Department of Health and Human Services authorities failed to protect them from severe physical abuse, torture and neglect. The siblings — identified only by initials in records — had pushed for $50 million each but settled for $5 million apiece after mediation. (Full article.)
Washington State pays nearly $17 million in landmark child abuse settlement
Washington State has agreed to pay $16.95 million in a landmark child abuse settlement.
Multiple lawsuits were filed pertaining to 12 boys who were sexually and physically abused at the J Bar D Boys Ranch north of Spokane, which is under the care of the state. The group home is now “a shuttered facility in lone.”
The boys were ages 10-15 when the abuse happened in the late 1970s to mid 1980s after being removed to the state’s custody. The boys were subjected to rampant sexual and physical abuse by staff and older residents.
According to the lawsuit, child welfare officials, “knew or should have known for some years that the children placed at J Bar D were subjected to sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, physical and emotional abuse, gross indifference and neglect, and deprivation of the most basic human and social services, including the failure to provide necessary counseling, love, affection, and spiritual and personal guidance, such as constituted their most basic personal and human rights.”
The state claimed that the operators were the ones abusing the children, therefore not making the state responsible.
Darrell Cochran, the lead attorney for the 12 plaintiffs, said the state regains custody of a child throughout the time of the dependency, and the state controls the placement of the child, makes sure welfare services are provided and chooses when they will be removed from a group home.
Chochran’s team found that the state failed to investigate the child abuse, but also failed to make mandatory licensing investigations, verify staff qualifications and failed to make sure it was safe to live at J Bar D.
Chochran says staff psychologist Dave Goodwin embezzled $100,000, as well as overcharging the state for care and services not provided.
“The J Bar D case marks one of the darkest chapters in State social work history,” Cochran said. “Children were repeatedly raped, cattle prodded, dragged behind horses and other terrors. They were threatened if they spoke out. And those who were supposed to be watching over them were instead destroying their lives.” (Source.)
And here are some current cases that have been in the news recently that are still being litigated:
Judge to determine course of child abuse case against DCYF, New Boston police
Olivia Atkocaitis’ lawsuit alleges she was imprisoned for most of her childhood and that state social workers and the police knew about it, but failed to intervene
A superior court judge is considering whether to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a Plymouth woman who is suing her adoptive parents for abusing her. She is also suing the state, New Boston police, and others, for failing to protect her from that abuse.
On Tuesday, Merrimack Superior Judge John C. Kissinger heard arguments from state and police lawyers on their motion to dismiss Olivia Atkocaitis’s lawsuit, which alleges she endured years of extreme physical and psychological abuse and was kept locked in the family’s New Boston basement. She also alleges local police and state social workers did not intervene even though they knew about and documented the abusive household.
Her adoptive parents, Thomas and Denise Atkocaitis, who are representing themselves, dialed in to the hearing by phone because they said it would be too far to travel from Georgia, where they said they now live. (Full story.)
Lawsuit alleges years of child sex abuse at politically connected Arkansas treatment facility
A federal lawsuit filed Monday alleges repeated sexual and physical abuse of children at The Lord’s Ranch, a residential treatment facility in Northeast Arkansas that closed in 2016.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs — eight former residents who were reportedly abused as boys — said this is the first of several lawsuits they will file on behalf of the more than 30 clients.
The Lord’s Ranch opened in 1976 and closed in 2016 when owner Ted Suhl was convicted of bribing a state official to help increase Medicaid payments to his companies. Suhl only served two-and-half years of his seven-year prison sentence because former President Donald Trump granted him clemency in 2019 at the request of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins.
The 55-page complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas in Little Rock focuses on allegations of sexual abuse, including “innumberable incidents of fondling of genitals and oral rape,” by the camp’s director of social services, Emmett Presley.
Camp leadership, including Suhl, were aware the licensed counselor “habitually raped and sexually molested minor male residents,” the suit says.
Residents who reported the abuse faced threats and intimidation to keep them silent, and the “pattern of abuse went on unabated” for years as staff covered it up, attorney Josh Gillispie said during a virtual press conference Tuesday.
“Every single time that one of these victims reported that they were being literally raped by this man, nothing was done,” Gillispie said. “Not one staff member, not one member of the Suhl family ever once lifted a finger, did a single thing to stop the abuse and it always continued afterwards, sometimes for years.” (Full article.)
Related:
Child Sex Predators Live Near You and Most of Them are Leaders of Your Community
Exposing How Christian Churches Participate in and Facilitate Human Sex Trafficking
Christian Churches Redefine the Meaning of “Orphan” to Justify Participating in Child Trafficking
