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Chalk one up for the good guys. Based on an alert by Howard M. Talenfeld, a Fort Lauderdale children’s rights attorney and foster child advocate, federal authorities were able to help former Florida foster child Markus Min Ho Kim recover $409,662 embezzled by his former foster parents.
Recovery gives Markus Kim reason to smile
Kim had contacted Talenfeld in 2008 about the theft. Talenfeld then alerted federal authorities to the embezzlement by his adoptive parents, Radhames and Asia Oropeza of Davenport, Florida. They had stolen life insurance money that came from Kim’s mother, who was slain in 2000 by his father, leaving Kim an orphan. Kim’s father currently is serving a life sentence in New York.
U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, Robert E. O’Neill, said full recovery of a court-ordered victim restitution of such a large-scale fraud is rare, wrote the Ledger.
“The amount symbolized his slain mother’s hope for a better future and his adopted parents’ betrayal,” the paper wrote. Said Kim, now 25, “I don’t think I can put into words what it truly means to me.”
In Florida and nationally, foster care was designed to provide a safe haven for society’s most vulnerable citizens – the abused, neglected and overlooked children. Yet, what happens when they “age out” — turning 18, independent and no longer wards of the state? As this article shows, in Washington state, as well as in Florida and nationwide, advocates, rights attorneys and guardians ad litem have worked tirelessly to help kids find independence once beyond the support of the foster care system.
In the article, “State’s foster care system discharges ill-equipped young adults; Despite program’s good intentions, teens are out on their own and unprepared,” The Spokane Review writes of a national issue: Kids who on their 18th birthday, some with behavioral health problems, are turned out of group or foster homes where they’d spent their lives in the state’s care. They are to start on their own — often unprepared.
“Recently cut off of the powerful psychotropic drugs that had been used to control his aggression, Tyler Dorsey ended up in the Spokane County Jail on a domestic violence charge six weeks after aging out of child welfare,” the publication wrote.
“A new state law might have protected Dorsey, who was turned away by numerous agencies because of his juvenile record of assault…[The law] entitles foster youth without a high school diploma or GED to remain in foster care until age 21 by opting into the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act.”
Foster children – whether in Florida or elsewhere in the U.S. – increasingly are victims of identity theft. Sadly, they often don’t realize it until they’re on their own, “aged out” at 18. This article explores issues related to ID theft, and what advocates and organizations can do to help keep kids in the system from becoming victimized.
The reporter wrote, “The fact that foster children are sometimes shuffled from home to home, with their personal information passing through different hands, makes it a recipe for identity theft, child advocates say. Once they turn 18 and are ready to live on their own, many foster youth discover that they have car loans, unpaid bills or mortgages in their names. Debts and bad credit can prevent them from renting an apartment, getting college financial aid, or opening a bank account. Finding culprits can be nearly impossible.”
News that a Tampa, Florida, area couple allegedly stole more than $400,000 from a foster child’s life insurance payout reveals how society’s most vulnerable children remain susceptible – even while in a system designed to protect them or once they’ve aged out and are on their own.
To prospective parents the indictment against the Davenport, Florida, couple also should stand as a warning to those who would swindle money from kids who need it badly: Get caught, and jail time may await.
According to news reports, Radhames Antonio Oropeza, 53, and Asia Concepcion Oropeza, 52, are said to have invited to Florida a foster child whose mother had died, and whose father was in jail. The child was given the proceeds of a $400,000 life insurance policy when he turned 18. The young man’s name has not been released.
Authorities claim the couple convinced the boy he was making real estate investments. The couple faces charges of conspiring to commit fraud and wire fraud. (more…)
The Daily Business Review, a leading legal and professional publication in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and South Florida’s tri-county community, recently named law firm partners Howard Talenfeld and Tracey McPharlin among its Most Effective Lawyers.
To the two foster care and child advocacy attorneys, partners with Colodny Fass Talenfeld Karlinsky & Abate P.A., the proposition seemed simple: placing children who are known sexual offenders into a foster home where other foster children reside is a dangerous practice.
But it took nearly four years to persuade a court to recognize that the Department of Children and Families workers who placed two teenage boys with a known history of sexual predation into a home with three younger children acted with deliberate indifference. The workers were not, the lawyers argued, entitled to qualified immunity. Read the original article here…
This article from the News Service of Florida reveals Florida Department of Children & Families Secretary George Sheldon’s belief that the agency at the center of state foster care issues is changing its culture.
“Gov. Crist made it very clear that if you make a mistake, admit it and try to fix it,’’ Sheldon said.
“Despite recent critical reports, Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon said this week that he is convinced the beleaguered agency is beginning to change a long-engrained culture,” the article began. “A recently-completed internal report raises questions as to whether the agency has the right kind of employees who are willing to use common sense to avoid ongoing mistakes, such as one that came to light with the suicide of a 7-year-old child in South Florida.
“These mistakes wind up costing taxpayers millions of dollars because the state ends up settling lawsuits that accuse the agency of negligence.”
“It seems to be a prerequisite for foster children to be on medication.”
These words were spoken by the adoptive father of two 12-year Florida girls. And the reality he spoke of just shouldn’t be the case.
As Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was barnstorming the state discussing Florida’s successes in fostering adoptions, Mirko Ceska was telling the governor about the continued prevalence of psychotropic drugs in the lives of foster kids and others in the state’s care. Read the Miami Herald article here.
Powerful psychotropic should not be used as “chemical restraints” for minor foster children. But such use is widespread instead of behavioral approaches designed to address the real losses in their lives. (more…)
Plantation lawyers Howard Talenfeld & Jesse Diner hope to improve legal representation of kids in state care.
Jesse Diner, left, and Howard Talenfeld are working together to help Florida’s foster care and vulnerable children.
Two Broward lawyers are hoping to work toward a major change for kids who have been taken from troubled homes.
Howard Talenfeld and Jesse Diner, both of Plantation, say they want to make sure every child in state care has a voice when moving through the court system. Both have taken on lead roles in recent months with the Florida Bar Association and one of their main priorities will be to improve the legal representation of children in foster care.
“I realized the single greatest improvement we can make in the child welfare system is to give every child a voice when they are taken away from their parents,” said Talenfeld, a longtime foster care and child advocate attorney.
For far too long, Florida foster children haved needed their own voice and legal counsel in their own dependency case and now before other state and local agencies that make critical decisions that critically affect their lives.
Representation should be of primary concern. Currently, only 60-80% of children in the dependency system are represented by the GAL program – and very few by attorneys. Quality representation of each child in foster care, before School Boards, Agency for Persons with Disabilities, and the Agency for Healthcare Administration, to name a few agencies, may be the single most important step we can take to positively impact the lives of foster children.
This year, Jesse Diner, President-Elect of the Florida Bar, has placed among his highest priorities taking the recommendations of the 2002 Commission on the Legal Needs of Children and introducing legislation to create a Statewide Office of the Children’s Advocate.
My appointment this May to chair the Florida Bar Association’s Legal Needs of Children Committee is part of that goal. Our committee will help write legislative language and seek passage of laws and regulations critical to fulfilling the state’s mandate to serve the best interests of the children in its care. (more…)
Florida’s foster children have been both a source of both eye-opening revelation about how they’re cared for, as well as the recipients of legislation designed to help them in the future.
In some good news for foster kids, Florida Governor Charlie Crist signed into law bills designed to help grant them access to records for medical and educational needs. The Foster Folly News wrote that the legislation benefits children in foster care as well as young people leaving foster care. The move “provides children in foster care better access to their own personal records often needed for medical and educational purposes. Senate Bill 1128 ensures that disabled homeless children and children in foster care receive appropriate educational services.”
WEAR-TV reported that the bills can be credited, in part, to members of Florida Youth Shine, a statewide advocacy group that specializes in foster care and child welfare issues. “You’re great advocates, you truly are,” Crist said.
Recent news in Florida’s foster child and foster care landscape continued to center on the fall-out of the Department of Children and Families response to Gabriel Myers, the 7-year-old child who committed suicide in his foster home. Reporters and government leaders are scrutinizing how Gabrielwas prescribed powerful psychotropic drugs, and how the DCF plans to deal with such cases in the future. Among the stories… (more…)
- Miami Herald – Miami, Florida – December 30, 2011 - Barahona Judge’s Efforts to Ferret Out Leaks Detailed Court records released to The Herald document a judge’s efforts to identify lawyers or child welfare administrators she suspected of leaking secret material to the newspaper.
- Miami Herald – Miami, Florida – December 17, 2011 - South Florida Charter Schools Admit Few Special Needs Children From South Dade to the northern reaches of Broward County, only a handful of students with profound disabilities make it into charter schools, according to a Miami Herald / State Impact Florida analysis of student enrollment data. The trend holds true across the state, where 87 percent of charter schools don’t serve any students with the most intense support needs.
- Associated Press – State College, Pennsylvania – December 16, 2011 - Penn. Deputy Attorney General Cites PSU 'Inaction' A graduate student waited a day after allegedly seeing a child being sexually assaulted on Penn State's campus before telling his supervisor, football coach Joe Paterno. Paterno waited another day before calling the university's athletic director, who looped in a school vice president. "I think it's a sad, sad, sad day, when you think about all of these victims, and you saw the inaction by a number of supposedly important, responsible adults. And there's a lot of inaction in this case," Marc Costanzo, a senior deputy attorney general, said after the preliminary hearing.
- Palm Beach Post – Miami, Florida – December 9, 2011 - Barahona Records: Neighbor Says Jorge Barahona Was 'Super Paranoid' Jorge Barahona was given to paranoia and fears of conspiracies around him that he expressed to a neighbor, according to investigative materials released this week by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office, fears that may have led him to murder his adopted daughter and almost kill her brother, Victor.
- The Miami Herald – Miami, Florida – December 9, 2011 - Pleas by Nubia Barahona’s Family Went Unheeded — Until It Was Too Late Relatives of Nubia and Victor Barahona were convinced that the children were being abused by their adoptive father. But they couldn’t get anyone to listen. Nubia Barahona, 10, was found dead in the back of her adoptive father's pickup truck in Broward on Valentines Day.
- Associated Press – State College, Pennsylvania – December 8, 2011 - Ex-Penn State Coach Sandusky Jailed on New Child Sex Abuse Charges Based on 2 New Accusers Former Penn State University assistant coach Jerry Sandusky spent Wednesday night behind bars after new child sex abuse charges were filed against him based on the claims of two new accusers, including one who says he screamed in vain for help while Sandusky attacked him in a basement bedroom.
- Gainesville.com – Plant City, Florida – Mentally Disabled Man Forced to Stand on Ant Hill A 21-year-old worker at a group home was arrested, and the facility where he worked was later shut down after authorities said he forced a mentally disabled man to stand barefoot on fire ant hills as punishment for stealing money. Florida MENTOR's Ike Smith Group Home's license has been suspended. Florida MENTOR continues to operate other facilities throughout the state. The Department of Children and Families and the Agency for Persons with Disabilities are investigating.
- Orlando Sentinel – Orlando, Florida – December 3, 2011 - Orlando Mom Was Foster Parent to Hundreds of Kids Dorothy Pearl Johnson didn't have children of her own. However, as a foster parent for four decades, she mothered about 400 children. Johnson, 87, continued to nurture children until a few months ago, when her failing health forced her to stop. After battling leukemia, she died on Tuesday in the home on Trentonian Court where she had cared for hundreds of children as if they were her own.
- New York Times – New York – November 22, 2011 - Drugs Used for Psychotics Go to Youths in Foster Care Foster children are being prescribed cocktails of powerful antipsychosis drugs just as frequently as some of the most mentally disabled youngsters on Medicaid, a new study suggests.
- USAToday – State College, Pennsylvania – November 16, 2011 - Penn State Case Presses Others to Tighten Abuse Laws Lawmakers and university officials across the USA are moving quickly to tighten up rules on who must report sexual abuse on campus in the wake of the Penn State scandal.
Reuters – State College, Pennsylvania – November 13, 2011 - A Long History in Penn State Child Abuse Case It will not be so easy to wipe out the stain on Penn State's reputation from the alleged abuse and what critics see as a cover-up by university officials who were told that Sandusky was seen raping a young boy in a shower in 2002. The case has drawn comparisons to the child abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church, whose top officials are also accused of covering up child abuse over decades.
Forbes – State College, Pennsylvania – November 11, 2011 - Conrad Murray, Penn State and Why the Powerful Enable Evil After Dr. Conrad Murray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson, the blogosphere, rightly, called him an enabler in a long line of celebrity enablers. Allegations that Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky raped a pre-teen boy in the college shower seem less shocking than the nauseating cover-up that follows.
