RELEASED: September 1, 2011
New York City —
The Florida law firm of Babbitt, Johnson, Osborne & Le Clainche, P.A., is currently representing injured children in a well-publicized adoption abuse lawsuit against New York City. While the firm prefers not to comment on the case at this time, the following information was provided in a recent New York Times article.
In 1980, prosecutors cited Queens foster mother Judith Leekin for burning a child. Over the next few decades, Ms. Leekin used various aliases to adopt 11 disabled foster children and collected $1.68 million in subsidies. She moved the adopted children to Florida, where, according to court filings, she beat, starved, restrained and caged them. One of the children in her care disappeared and is presumed dead.
Today, the adopted children continue to suffer from much more than their disabilities. One has post-traumatic stress disorder, another is homeless, and yet another is on suicide watch. "He wakes up thinking about Judith Leekin and he goes to bed thinking about her," Babbitt, Johnson, Osborne & Le Clainche, P.A., partner Theodore Babbitt wrote about one of the abused children, who is now a 21-year old man.
The civil rights case against New York City — brought in Federal District Court — "refers to the city's child welfare system as 'a maze of dysfunctional bureaucracy operating under unconstitutional policies and procedures.'"
While the City claims that they could not have foreseen Ms. Leekin's criminal acts, the evidence may prove otherwise. Even though she used multiple aliases, Ms. Leekin used the same address on all of her adoption papers. Furthermore, she was never asked for identification and her responses to employment history and other questions were never verified.
Learn more about this case by reading the New York Times article, "New Look at City Lapses in Adoption Abuse Case." For general information about adoption abuse and civil rights cases, contact the West Palm Beach personal injury attorneys at Babbitt, Johnson, Osborne & Le Clainche, P.A., by calling 561-531-5983 or 888-407-5164.
