Political vendetta alleged in foster care crackdown
Strayhorn sued by former wilderness camp director.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
The director of a now-shuttered wilderness camp for troubled youth has filed a lawsuit against state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, accusing her of pressuring regulators to shut down the facility with unproven and false allegations of abuse to boost her political ambitions.
As I recall, the state did their own investigation and found numerous violations.
Nine other state officials are named as defendants with Strayhorn in the suit, filed Thursday in federal court in Austin.
Betty Lou Gaines, the former director of Woodside Trails Therapeutic Camp in Bastrop County, seeks unspecified damages for what she says was an administrative chain of political manipulation that began more than two years ago, when Strayhorn released "Forgotten Children," a report that was highly critical of how the Department of Family and Protective Services protects foster children.
Betty Lou, aka Bebe.
The camp near Smithville cared for more than 500 abused and troubled adolescent boys in more than 20 years of operation and "enjoyed a favorable success rate" before it closed in August 2004, according to the lawsuit.
Favorable? Not 98%?
"Had a proper investigation been conducted, free from politics and bureaucracy, the allegation of sexual abuse and the allegations of neglect against (Gaines) would have been ruled out by a preponderance of the evidence," the suit states.
Will Holford, a spokesman for Strayhorn, said Monday that neither she nor the agency would comment on pending litigation. Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said his agency has not seen the lawsuit and had no comment.
In the suit, filed by Austin attorney Susan Henricks, Gaines alleges that the investigation of Woodside Trails by Strayhorn was politically motivated from the start.
Last month, two state administrative law judges "unanimously found that DFPS had no evidence of sexual abuse" of a resident by a camp counselor. That was an allegation in Strayhorn's investigation, although the boy who had made the charges recanted them before Strayhorn's report was made public, according to the suit.
As a result, the suit argues, state officials had no reason to revoke Woodside Trails' state license in August 2004, an action that led to its shutdown.
"The closing of Woodside Trails was the culmination of the extensive and relentless political pressure exerted against the agency and the facility by Defendant Strayhorn," according to the suit.
It alleges that she had no legal authority to investigate the camp and that the report was misleading and inaccurate.
"The depth, intensity and extent" of Strayhorn's campaign against Woodside Trails "went far beyond the normal agenda of a powerful, ambitious and unscrupulous politician seeking higher office," the suit alleges.
After her report was released, Strayhorn was so upset by a favorable media story about the camp that she took two other TV journalists to the camp, said they were part of her inspection team and used hidden cameras to film boys at the camp, the suit says.
Links to those videos, of the squalid conditions the kids were living in, are posted on Fornits.
Strayhorn is currently challenging Gov. Rick Perry as an independent candidate for governor, after initially running as a Republican.
Gaines could not be reached for comment Monday.
Also named as defendants are Family and Protective Services employees Darla Jean Shaw, an investigator; Sherry Loyd, a supervisor; Jan Martin, at the time the Houston regional director of residential child care licensing; Charlene Bateman, director of child care licensing; Assistant Commissioners Diana Spiser and Karen Eells; and Thomas Chapmond, commissioner at the time; and comptroller's office employees Vicki Anderson and Ruthie Ford.
THE STORY SO FAR
Strayhorn and Woodside Trails
April 2004: Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn issues a report blasting the foster care system, particularly therapeutic camps. Although not by name, Woodside Trails is among several camps cited for poor living conditions.
August 2004: The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services revokes the camp's license several weeks after an employee and a former employee are arrested on charges of sexual assault of a child.
July 2006: Two state judges find that the state had no evidence of sexual abuse.
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So... why no mention of "Eagle Pines Academy", which they opened immediately upon Woodside Trails Wilderness being shut down by the state?
Have they closed their doors? Website's still up.
No longer listed at NATSAP though. Were they booted or have they ceased operating?
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