Florida: Child collector caught with nine abused, imprisoned children and adults adopted from foster care in New York
An eighteen year old girl was abandoned in a St. Petersburg, Florida grocery store on July 4, about two hundred miles from her home. She said she’d been living with Judith Leekin for thirteen years, adopted from New York foster care.
According to an article at CNN.Com, Leekin, 62, falsely claimed that the girl had run away a year earlier. She tried to conceal eight other children and young adults, but police returned to her home and found out they had been hiding, on Leekin’s orders. The victims, ages 15 to 27, are suspected to all be adopted from New York child welfare agencies.
Leekin is unemployed. She lived off the adoption subsidy payments she got for those children - well enough that she owned two homes and several cars. A photo of one of her homes can be seen at the CNN website (see link below).
What we’re seeing is the tip of the iceberg. People have been adopting foster children they don’t love for years. What they want is the money associated with those children.
According to the article people who adopt special needs children can get up to $55 per day. That’s about $1650 per month per special needs child. With nine special needs children she could be receiving up to $14,850 per month, or $178,200 per year. Not bad for sitting home taking care of the kids. Of course these extravagant benefits aren’t available to the poor parents these children were originally taken from.
The CNN article stated,
“The adopted children said they had never seen a doctor or a dentist and had not been allowed to attend school or even leave the house.
‘These people have not received any formal education in the time they’ve been with her,’ Bartal said. ‘At times when they were restricted with handcuffs or zip ties, during the night, they soiled themselves because they weren’t permitted to go to the bathroom.’
“They were fed only noodles, and ‘they would have eventually starved to death,’ Bartal said.”
Leekin is now where she belongs - in big trouble with the law. She was arrested and jailed on 11 charges, including aggravated elder and child abuse.
Source: Police: Kids were adopted for profit, abused by the Associated Press, published on CNN.Com on July 30, 2007.
I spotted this last night on CNN and then found the aticle and posted it in the message boards just incase you didn’t see it. Stories like these don’t even shock me anymore! It is so funny how the news latches on to these stories, reports the abuse, then you don’t hear anything more about it. People react, they get mad, then nothing is done. Last night on the local news there were 2 other stories of abuse one where a little boy was left in a car that went on fire and suffered burns another where a mom was doing drugs in front of her child, people hear them say it is awful, then nothing they just keep going on with thier own lives. They just leave the mess for somebody else to handle and nobody does. They expect that CPS will run its own invistigation on itself, yes lets leave the wolf to watch the hen house that has been effective so far, hasn’t it? And that right there is our problem. If we need 3 braches of government for the whole checks and balances thing don’t we need that to protect our children? Don’t they deserve at least that much? Right now we’ve got a social worker and a judge who does what ever the social worker wants so that is just one person. Then the social worker cares nothing for the child they rescued and they are on thier own to be abused yet again …and that is even if they were abused in the first place! These kids probably would have faired better if left in the hands of thier abusive parents in the first place! And yes there is actually studies that state just that!
Comment by Debbie — August 1, 2007 @ 6:03 am
Linda, Please be aware that the House Ways and Means Committee is currently holding hearings on Foster Care.
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=all&comm=2
Old-timers might remember the 04 hearings where California was rightfully incensed. And where many folks did go to Washington, DC and testify and we heard.
I believe a Calif. Congressperson was helpful in this regard.
Because of you and others, we do have some attention from legislators.
Linda this link deserves to be a Headline story for you, b/c it shows what the computer pioneers have achieved.
Foster care is a DISASTER. By and large.
ASFA, by extension, is a disaster.
BTW, I have been following this story and the woman collected 2M in subsidies.
She moved down from New York to a more lenient FL.
The FL press has done a few stories on this. But this is fraud, pure and simple.
Linda, how about an RSS section where we can submit short tips about practical advice re: CPS.
Thanks. F. ( Not a Web guru )
Comment by fern — August 1, 2007 @ 7:35 am
BTW, this is analogous to the NJ situation where 4 boys were systematically starved after being adopted by sleazy folk.
Had not the neighbor called police when the young man rattled his trashcan lids, DYFS would have never found out, although their *caseworkers* had visited the home 38 times.
Police finally came.
None of the boys stood over 4 feet tall and none weighed over 55 pounds.
They gained poundage and height after being liberated from DYFS.
Supervisors were charged, but it never went anywhere.
DYFS another stunning * investigation* on your part.
Mom was sentenced. Fost/Adopt Dad died before trial.
It did finally spur some change in NJ.
An ombudsman was appointed with some real power.
Oh….and DYFS changed its name to DCF.
Comment by fern — August 1, 2007 @ 7:45 am
Lisa,
Do you have any knowledge of a parent falsely accused of endangerment by the child(ren) and the outcome? This happened to my son and he is now incarcerated because he was convinced by his attorney and the attitude of the prosecutor and judge he would be convicted and spend 30 years in prison if he did not plead out to lesser charges. The children were basically angry and retaliated by reporting to school staff that their father had threatened them with a weapon. My son was told that he would not get a fair trial by a jury of his peers, who could not be sympathetic to a single father, overwhelmed with taking care of 2 emotionally problematic children. Because there were 2 accusers, he was pretty much found guilty before he was even arraigned, since they take the child’s word as gospel.
Comment by Ann — August 1, 2007 @ 4:18 pm
Nancy Grace Headline Prime is fully covering this FL story of the adoptive Mom now.
Her name is Judith Leekin.
Airing 8PM, EST.
Don’t know at what hour it airs in your time zones.
Very informative.
Again, very similar to the NJ debacle.
Comment by fern — August 1, 2007 @ 5:14 pm
Ann, please forgive me, but I think the attorney gave your son bad counsel.
Anyone who is a parent knows that there are children and TEENS who use CPS as a weapon.
I have known a number of parents in such a predicament.
If the children are *emotionally disturbed* that testimony should have been elicited in Court.
I think many folk are suspicious of CPS.
What a sad, horrible story.
Believe me, this all started after 1974.
CAPTA should be totally revamped.
So sorry for your family. All of them.
Comment by fern — August 1, 2007 @ 5:18 pm
Ann:
In response to your post, I was also falsely accused by two teenage step daughters of all sorts of things. Fern is absolutely correct that teenagers in particular, know how to use the system. These two girls both had made sexual accusations against two different male teachers. One made an allegation against me, 3 years ago which was dismissed in about 30 minutes because of the impossibility of it. My therapist (suggested by DSS) told me if I let her back in the house, she would do it again.
I was a single Dad with 3 kids whose mother, bless her heart, gave in to a long battle with crack addiction. The step daughter’s Dad really did not want to deal with all their “emotional; baggage”, their mother left town.
DSS gave me kinship care and for 15 months, I was a hero.
Then fueled by anger, pain, greed, these two girls concocted a scheme to get out of the house and live where they thought they wanted to be. One of them moved in with her boyfriend’s parents, and yes, she DID get what she wanted. The other is in her 5th horrible group home and was recently jailed at 16 for assualt and battery.
They knew the chances of making allegations that I abused THEM were likley not to be believed, so they cooked up a story that I abused my 12 year old son. He denied it instantly and continues to because it never happened. These girls were sharp, manipulative, and just credible enough to get away with it, *almost* .
They didn’t even tell DSS directly, but approached another family member and convinced him that a “friend” of my 12 year olds told them that the 12 year old “confided” to him that “I touched his penis”.
That was all it took. The family member who fell for it has recanted, signed a sworn affadavit. he has also gone on record that the case worker called him after the “investigastion” and said my child denied it, and “was there anything else he could come up with against me?”
A criminal investigation which lasted 4 harrowing months spanning 25 years of my life, involving interviews of 17 persons, 133 pages of interview notes, 33 pages of Police reports resulted in not one single charge being brought against me.
CPS did not stop there. They hired the Top Guin in the state in forensic psychology conerning child sexual abuse. She came to fame during the Little Rascal’s Day Care case of the 90’s. You may have heard of it.
Another grueling, invasive “investigation” lasting 3 more months during which most of my family members and even THEIR children were interviewed. Psychiatric reports alleging that one of the step daughters was having “recovered memeories” od MORE abuse I had done to her. In essence, some of the worst pseudo science around was employed. This Top Gun teaches District Attorneys and Police Depts on how to interview suspected victims of sexual abuse. her very presence on a case usually means certain conviction. I found out her ONLY clients are CPS agencies. She is paid to produce results.
9 months into this, DSS issues 27 subpoenas of either persons, members of the medical profession, or medical records to use against me in Court. My lawyer says even John Gotti never had that many. The DSS attorney tells the Judge to “clear a space in the calendar for about 3 full days”.
Meanwhnile my innocent 12 year old is living in an illegal foster home with a convicted felon. I can see him one hour a week in a room with two way mirros, cameras in the corners and a scoail worker scribbling away furiously at every word I say. I see him die a little each day. I know he wants to tell me, but we “are not allowqed” to talk about the case or his foster setting
Finally, one day during a visit he breaks. Told everythng these horrible people were saying to him, how he was treated, the things he endured. Right in front of the case worker. She flips! He begs her not to “say anything” to these people until he is GONE. She gives her word she will not and promises to place him with a “nice family”
Two months later, he is still there. I finally convince my (ex attorney got a new one now) to DO something, but only after I had started making phone calls andwriting letters. He gets my child moved in with his older brother. Judge never knew the child was even in foster care. He exlpodes from, the bench. CPS had been falsifying their paperwork to show he “was living with relatives”. I still have my copy.Judge orders him removed and “out by 3 p.m. today”
2 days before the Big Trail. DSS drops all charges alleging sexual abuse. No trial. No three ring circus.
I had to be guilty of something after all this, so I pretty much got to choose what I admitted to. I gave in.
I want my son back in his own home and his own bed.
I finally get to talk to him when I want. We are in family thepray together, and this therapist is no fool. He sees what has really happened and the reports he writes dont make DSS very happy. He is coming home!!!!!!
Dont know when, but my new lawyer is not joke. I did research, homework on him and his appeals. Contacted him, explained what was going on. He goes to the Judge and somehow, gets himself appointed as my attorney. This sint supposed to happen, but I am glad it did.
So there. Ann. I too was “advised” to admit. I was interrogated by a Detective in a room with only two chairs and a card table, just like on TV. Five hours. No good cop bad cop, just ONE guy who turned out to be honest. I am not syaing he was on my side, but I can say he helped me write a statement and the DA took this guy’s observations and declined to prosecuie.
In the end, I could not contiune to hold up under the relentless pressure, CPS has unlimited money. They have their own psycholgists. They have the best attorneys. They dont really mind if an innocnet child suffers in foster care. They win. They will hold your family hostage until you break.
It never was about the truth. It wasn’t even about the best intersts of the children. In the end, they sold my step daughter out. She will age out of the system in two more years. Shye lives in a 24 hour monitored facility and has no provacy, almost no privelges. She has changed schools 3 times. No one visits her except her sister. In very many ways, she is a vicitm of CPS as much as I was.
I know “hatred” is a strong word. But I have found myself thinking a lot of things I nver believed I was capable of. I truly hate these people. not the ones who try. I have even met some of them. it is the power hungry, the blionded by some false inner belief ones I hate. The destroyers, who always live another day, for another chance to decimate yet another family. Only God knows why.
Comment by Not Guilty — August 1, 2007 @ 7:30 pm
It is all so hard to swallow. To be totally honest when I heard the story I was so stunned the first thing to come to mind was THANK GOD they have found her and the victims. Then came the anger and all I could think of was where were the case workers checking up on these kids? Then I heard about how all the proof she had to have to show that she had the kids was documnetation from schools and maybe doctors if I remember correctly. The government just doesn’t care. Until aprox a year ago I was in the dark about CPS. I am still shocked and heart broken with every story and every child torn away from family with out cause. So far our CPS night mare has remained resolved, how ever I never ever let my guard down and I charish every moment possable with my neice in fear that tomarrow she could be gone. Sad but true. I will never stop being shocked when it comes to the games the government plays with inocient lives. I hope that this will cast as much light on these government agencies as possable. Someday, Some how, something will have to give. Justice is long past due for some many children and all we can do is pray.
Comment by Jammie Fladebo — August 3, 2007 @ 9:56 am
I don’t know if this is the right place for this, but I am really upset.
I was watching tv and my 2 year old got out of the house and fell in the pool. He almost drowned and now DCF took him. This is not right.
Comment by Pam — August 23, 2007 @ 3:54 pm
I bet that Leekin will be prosecuted and that will be the end of it.
What should happen is that the state should recover as much money from her as possible, and put it in a fund for the children. It was supposed to be spent on them anyway. The CPS staff who placed these children should pay restitution. This will be regarded as a fine; the amount will be based on the difference between the natural parents’ income and the amount the state recovered from Leekin’s estate. The social workers spend some time in jail for each day they were to check on Mrs. Leekin and didn’t. Or do community service for each time they checked and failed to see. The government, of course, should first acquire all CPS’s records and open them wide for everyone to see. Investigators should examine the reasons CPS gave for removing them from their natural home, services that weren’t given them, and judges or attorneys’ reasons for their actions.
The report would state why the system’s treatment of the original families was wrong and the agents in charge today make a commitment not to let this happen again.
It isn’t really important whether Leekin goes to jail.
But that scenario is not likely to happen.
A problem is left for so long and all the original people involved are old and nobody wants (or can) do anything to them.
Basically, money was misspent. Money was lost. Money was stolen. It should be returned.
Comment by Lava — August 26, 2007 @ 8:29 am