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Editorial: Florida should not fail Barahona child again

 
The Legislature’s staff should stop acting like DCF’s legal counsel and lawmakers should pass this claims bill during the 2015 session.
The Legislature’s staff should stop acting like DCF’s legal counsel and lawmakers should pass this claims bill during the 2015 session.
Published Dec. 20, 2014

The state of Florida first failed twins Nubia and Victor Barahona when the Department of Children and Families placed them with abusive adoptive parents. Then the DCF failed to respond appropriately to suspicions the children were being abused prior to Nubia's death in 2011 at age 10. Now the state is failing her brother again, reneging on a $5 million settlement to help him get the care he needs as he copes with post-traumatic stress syndrome. The Legislature's staff should stop acting like the DCF's legal counsel and lawmakers should pass this claims bill during the 2015 session.

The horrific details of Nubia's death — her body was found decomposing in the back of her adoptive father's pickup truck parked along I-95 in Palm Beach County while her twin was in the cab, doused in pesticides and convulsing in seizures — came roughly a month after Gov. Rick Scott's inauguration and the arrival of a new head of the Department of Children and Families. Within a month, then-DCF Secretary David Wilkins signed a report acknowledging that the agency's care of Nubia and Victor was defined by "failure in common sense, critical thinking, ownership, follow-through and timely and accurate information sharing." The agency agreed to a $5 million settlement for Victor and cut a check for $1.25 million. As required under state law, the remaining $3.75 million would have to be authorized by the Legislature.

But as Mary Ellen Klas of the Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau recently reported, Victor's claim cannot seem to get before lawmakers for a vote. The general counsel for the Florida Senate, who was supposed to conduct a minitrial of the claim as a legislative special master, unilaterally canceled the hearing, postponing it until two other lawsuits involving other Barahona adopted children were resolved. George Levesque's reasoning, written in emails to the family's lawyers, was that paying a claims bill now could adversely affect the DCF's defense in the pending litigation.

But Levesque's job is to serve as the Senate's top lawyer, not to moonlight as a defensive attorney for the DCF. His obstruction and the other lawsuits do not change the facts of the DCF's failure to prevent Victor's abuse, facts the former DCF secretary acknowledged in the public record. Levesque has also raised the specter that Jorge Barahona, the adoptive father charged with Nubia's murder whose parental rights have not been severed, could receive the settlement money if he is not convicted. But the claims bill could be easily amended to prevent that potential, and if Barahona is convicted, state law precludes him from benefitting from the settlement.

Victor, now living with a couple who unsuccessfully tried to adopt the twins before they were placed with Barahona, receives weekly psychotherapy to try to cope with what he and his sister endured, from being forced to eat feces and cockroaches to being regularly hog-tied, submerged in ice baths and whipped. But for more attentive state social workers, they both might have been spared and Nubia might still be alive. South Florida lawmakers championing the case understand that and they need to convince new Senate President Andy Gardiner and House Speaker Steve Crisafulli that Florida cannot fail Victor again. The Legislature should pass this claims bill when the annual session opens in March.