Prosecutor: Opportunities Missed To Save Boy's Life

OMAHA, Neb. -- A Lincoln prosecutor who investigated child deaths said Nebraska Health and Human Services missed opportunities to save an Omaha boy’s life.

Two months ago, Omaha police found Michael Belitz, 12, dead in the bathtub of his home. His mother, Angela Manns, is charged with first-degree murder in the case.

KETV NewsWatch 7 filed a Freedom of Information Act request to compel the state to release two critical incident reports. Those documents showed Manns called HHS twice in the months before the crime. In both cases she didn’t get the help she needed.

Lancaster County Attorney Gary Lacey was appointed by former Gov. Mike Johanns to investigate 30 child deaths in the state. Lacey said the state failed to protect Michael Belitz.

“Yeah, he fell through the cracks. He wouldn’t be dead if he didn’t fall through the cracks,” Lacey said. “There’s no question to me, in this case, something immediate should have happened.”

The incident reports obtained from the state showed Manns left a voicemail message on March 27 requesting that her son be put in foster care. She called again less than a week later.

In both cases, HHS workers returned her calls and Manns was told to call the child abuse hotline. The documents indicate the process stopped there.

In a second critical incident report NewsWatch 7 learned Manns had a history with HHS. The report indicated Manns slapped her daughter in 1999, but police officers found no evidence of abuse.

In February, 2007, the critical incident said somebody reported Manns was drinking and being physically and verbally abusive. HHS said those allegations were unfounded. Later that year, Mann’s oldest daughter became guardian for her 15-year-old sister after mother kicked the girl out of the house.

Monday night, an HHS spokeswoman said the department received a series of e-mails from Michael’s older sister indicating she was worried about his well being. The spokeswoman indicated social workers were limited on what they could do for Michael since he wasn’t a ward of the state.

“It’s a red flag to do something because you’ve got a history, and there’s nothing more reflective of conduct than history,” Lacey said.

Kerry Winterer was recently appointed as the new head of HHS. He said a new department policy will make sure parents are connected with experts. He said that policy that policy will send a social worker or police to the home when they get calls from people like Angela Manns.

“All we’re trying to do is be more proactive,” Winterer said.

Previous Stories:
July 17, 2009: Grim Details Revealed In Belitz Slaying
July 16, 2009: HHS: No Evidence Of Abuse During 2007 Check
July 16, 2009: Mother Charged With Murder In Son's Death
July 13, 2009: UPDATE: Body Found In House, Woman Booked For Murder

Billy Bob Thornton's Daughter Arrested in Baby's Death

Actor Billy Bob Thornton's eldest daughter has been charged with child neglect over the death of a one-year-old girl she was babysitting.

Amanda Brumfield, Billy Bob's eldest daughter, 29, by first wife Melissa Parish told police in Ocoee, Florida, the baby died in October after falling from her playpen.

She told the police the little girl was on top of her playpen when she called her name, startling the baby who fell 28 inches, but the police found her story suspicious.

An autopsy revealed the child suffered a fractured skull and a brain injury due to blunt trauma - a type of physical injury to the head.

Brumfield, 29, said she noticed the baby's tongue was bleeding after the fall and cleaned it with a paper towel.

She claimed she then played with the child, who seemed 'happy', and fed her bananas and fruit snacks.

Brumfield told police she laid the child next to her on the couch and fell asleep, celebrity website TMZ reports.

She says she was woken up by a phone call and went to take the child back to the playpen, only to find her body was limp when she lifted her.

Police say Brumfield's call for help did not come until two-and-a-half hours after the original fall.

'It might have been an accident, but she had an obligation to get that child care,' said a police spokesman. said. 'For two and a half hours she did not care for that child.'

Billy Bob Thornton's publicist told CNN news that Thornton is estranged from Amanda and has had no contact with her for quite some time.

Arnold Robinson told CNN in a written statement: 'When informed about this situation, he [Billy Bob] commented that, "'Anytime a baby's life is lost is an unimaginable tragedy and my heart goes out to the baby's family and loved ones'".

The actor's first wife, Melissa Parish said her daughter, an unemployed bank loan officer, was close friends with the baby's mother and couldn't have harmed the little girl named Olivia.

'It's a tragic situation, she loved that little so much and it [her death] just crushed her, just devastated her," Parish told The New York Post.

'She was Olivia's godmother and the mother's best friend. It's just a horrible situation and it's being made worse and exploding even more just because of who my ex-husband is.'
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Baby Sitter Charged In Infant's Death
1-Year-Old Died In Sitter's Care In October

POSTED: Friday, May 29, 2009
UPDATED: 9:30 am EDT May 30, 2009

OCOEE, Fla. -- A Central Florida woman arrested in the death of her best friend's 1-year-old child bonded out of jail on Saturday.

Amanda Brumfield, 30, was arrested Friday on charges of child neglect resulting in harm.

According to authorities, Heather Murphy's daughter, Olivia, died Oct. 4 after she was injured inside an Ocoee home while in the care of Brumfield, who said the girl fell and bumped her head.

Brumfield, a mother of three, told investigators that Olivia was balancing on a playpen when she slipped and fell. The medical examiner concluded seven months later that the girl died from blunt head trauma. Brumfield did not call for help for more than two hours after Olivia was injured, authorities said.

"It's not fair she can go on with happy kids, that she can celebrate Mother's Day and I will cry on Mother's Day, October 4th. It's not fair," Murphy said. "She's not sorry. (She's) sorry she got caught, not sorry for what she did. If Amanda goes to jail, it doesn't make up for all the time I've missed, all the things I'm missing. No price is great enough to pay, but whatever happens, happens."

If convicted, Brumfield could get no more than 15 years in prison. Police are not charging her with murder and said she was charged with neglect because she waited about 2.5 hours to call for help.

Brumfield did not say anything as she was escorted from jail by an unidentified man.

Authorities Arrest Mom For Medical Neglect of 555-Pound Teen

(CNN) -- South Carolina authorities have located a 555-pound teenager and his mother, who faces a charge of violating a custody order, police said Thursday.

Alexander Deundray Draper, 14, of Travelers Rest, South Carolina, and his mother, Jerri Althea Gray, were located at about 4:30 p.m. near a laundromat in Baltimore, Maryland, by the Baltimore County Sheriff's Office, said Matt Armstrong, a spokesman for the Greenville County Sheriff's Office in Greenville, South Carolina.

"Draper was checked out by EMS [Emergency Medical Services] personnel and turned over to the Maryland Department of Social Services," Armstrong said.

The South Carolina Department of Social Services will work with its Maryland counterpart to have the boy returned to South Carolina, he told CNN affiliate WYFF.

The mother is being held in a detention center and will be extradited to South Carolina on an outstanding warrant, he said.
Watch report on finding teen and his mother »

"The understanding was that the individual was of the weight where it was decided by medical authorities that he needed treatment that was not being provided for by his mother," Armstrong said.

Earlier in the day officials said the boy "is possibly at a stage of critical health risk."

Gray was supposed to appear in family court Tuesday with her son and failed to do so, the sheriff's office said. During the family court hearing, the boy was ordered into state custody because of medical neglect, as well as his mother's failure to appear. The Department of Social Services then contacted the sheriff's office, authorities said.

The warrant said Gray was served with papers Monday and told to report to court for a hearing in which the department would seek state custody of Draper. "The defendant has avoided the custody proceeding and has concealed the child," the warrant says.

Travelers Rest is about 10 miles north of Greenville, South Carolina

(AP) A Minnesota judge has ruled that a 13-year-old boy with a highly treatable form of cancer must seek conventional medical treatment despite his parents' objections on religious grounds.

In a 58-page ruling Friday, Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg found that Daniel Hauser has been "medically neglected" and is in need of child protection services.

Rodenberg said Daniel will stay in the custody of his parents, but Colleen and Anthony Hauser have until May 19 to get an updated chest X-ray for their son and select an oncologist

The judge wrote that Daniel has only a "rudimentary understanding at best of the risks and benefits of chemotherapy. ... he does not believe he is ill currently. The fact is that he is very ill currently."

Daniel's court-appointed attorney, Philip Elbert, called the decision unfortunate.

"I feel it's a blow to families," he said. "It marginalizes the decisions that parents face every day in regard to their children's medical care. It really affirms the role that big government is better at making our decisions for us."

Elbert said he had not spoken to his client yet. The phone line at the Hauser home in Sleepy Eye in southwestern Minnesota had a busy signal Friday. The parents' attorney had no immediate comment but planned to issue a statement.

Daniel was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and stopped chemotherapy in February after a single treatment. He and his parents opted instead for "alternative medicines" based on their religious beliefs.

Child protection workers accused Daniel's parents of medical neglect; but in court, his mother insisted the boy wouldn't submit to chemotherapy for religious reasons and she said she wouldn't comply if the court orders it.

Doctors have said Daniel's cancer had up to a 90 percent chance of being cured with chemotherapy and radiation. Without those treatments, doctors said his chances of survival are 5 percent.

Daniel's parents have been supporting what they say is their son's decision to treat the disease with nutritional supplements and other alternative treatments favored by the Nemenhah Band.

The Missouri-based religious group believes in natural healing methods advocated by some American Indians.

After the first chemotherapy treatment, the family said they wanted a second opinion, said Dr. Bruce Bostrom, a pediatric oncologist who recommended Daniel undergo chemotherapy and radiation.

They later informed him that Daniel would not undergo any more chemotherapy. Bostrom said Daniel's tumor shrunk after the first chemotherapy session, but X-rays show it has grown since he stopped the chemotherapy.

"My son is not in any medical danger at this point," Colleen Hauser testified at a court hearing last week. She also testified that Daniel is a medicine man and elder in the Nemenhah Band.

The family's attorney, Calvin Johnson, said Daniel made the decision himself to refuse chemotherapy, but Brown County Attorney James Olson said the teenager did not have an understanding of what it meant to be a medicine man or an elder.

Court filings also indicated Daniel has a learning disability and can't read.

The Hausers have eight children. Colleen Hauser told the New Ulm Journal newspaper that the family's Catholicism and adherence to the Nemenhah Band are not in conflict, and that she has used natural remedies to treat illness.

Nemenhah was founded in the 1990s by Philip Cloudpiler Landis, who said Thursday he once served four months in prison in Idaho for fraud related to advocating natural remedies.

Landis said he founded the faith after facing his diagnosis of a cancer similar to Daniel Hauser's illness. He said he treated it with diet choices, visits to a sweat lodge and other natural remedies.

"My son is not in any medical danger at this point. "- Colleen Hauser

Octo-Mom Visited by Child Services

I am hating this woman more and more by the day..
LOS ANGELES - The OctoMom is playing down reports that police and child welfare officials visited her house Wednesday to investigate an allegation of neglect.

Her 4-year-old autistic son Aidan arrived at school with a black eye and a bite mark on his back, she said, but she's not to blame.

"He has a bite mark on his back, from this guy," Nadya Suleman said, pointing to one of her 2-year-old twins during a video interview with RadarOnline.

The mother of 14 - who's working on contracts for a TV documentary and a book deal - said Aidan got the black eye when he hit his face on a desk.

"He has meltdowns," she said. "It's normal to have meltdowns. He throws himself down."

She said Aidan's teacher called authorities after she failed to respond to a note inquiring about the injuries. She said the welfare officials actually complimented her on running a tight ship.

"They just wanted to check the kids. Oh, they said that they're shocked at how everything is so organized. And that we're doing a good job," she said, adding that she doesn't even believe in spanking.

La Habra police spokeswoman Cindy Knapp confirmed that officers visited Suleman at the request of child welfare officials.

Orange County Social Services spokeswoman TerryLynn Fischer said her department can't confirm or deny the visit or any potential follow-up actions.

"When people go into that house, they're expecting kids swinging from the rafters. But it's an organized house. Those eight babies, for starters, are very good babies," Suleman's attorney Jeff Czech told the Daily News. "There are one or two nannies taking care of the big kids. And the babies have a couple nannies, too."

He said he assumes county officials will follow up with Suleman soon.

"Some people are mandated to report, and Nadya understands that. She's not worried about it," he said.

Police have said they've made several visits to Suleman's home in the last year to respond to calls about lost or poorly supervised children.

Suleman, 33, gained international fame after giving birth to octuplets on Jan. 26.

The world later learned that the single, unemployed mother was living at home with her parents and used in-vitro fertilization to conceive the octuplets and her six other children, ages 2 to 7.

9 Workers Indicted After Danieal Kelly's Death

(This gives social workers a HORRIBLE rap) :
PHILADELPHIA - May 1, 2009 (WPVI) -- The Unite States Attorney's Office issued a 21-count indictment Friday charging 8 employees of a social service agency with defrauding the city and the federal government.

The indictment states that the employees falsely claimed to have provided services to needy families and then billing the city for services.

Read the full indictment against the accused MultiEthnic Behavioral Health employees.

A ninth employee is charged with lying to a federal grand jury.

All nine implicated in the indictment were employees of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health, Inc. ("MEBH"). The indictment also claims their negligence contributed to the death of a 14-year old girl, for whom the city hired MEBH to provide services.

The indictment alleges 12 counts of wire fraud, six counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to obstruct a federal investigation, one count of providing a false statement to federal agents, and one count of perjury before a federal grand jury.

Charged are MEBH co-founders Mickal Kamuvaka, Solomon Manamela, Earle McNeill, and Manuelita Buenaflor. Also charged are MEBH workers Julius Juma Murray, Miriam Coulibaly, Christiana Nimpson, and Sotheary Chan.

MEBH worker Patricia Burch is charged with one count of perjury.
The city had a contract with MEBH from July 2000 through December 2006, during that time paying the company a total of $3,727,190 to provide social services to more than 500 families. The contract was for in-home social services for children at risk of neglect, abuse, and delinquency.

The contract required MEBH workers to visit DHS family clients. However, the district attorney's office alleges the workers and MEBH supervisors ignored this responsibility and falsified records to make it appear as if they had made the visits.
On August 4, 2006 14-year-old Danieal Kelly was found dead in her home. Kelly was a DHS client that MEBH was supposed to be serving.

Authorities say Kamuvaka and Murray, with the help of other employees, created false records that were placed into Kelly's client file, giving the appearance that a worker had provided services.

The indictment also claims that after learning of Danieal Kelly's death, supervisors Kamuvaka and Buenaflor ordered certain records to be removed, which were inconsistent with the falsified records submitted to the city. In addition, authorities say Buenaflor then had a MEBH computer hard drive erased in an attempt to hide the fraud and Kamuvaka disposed of two trash bags containing records that were the subject of federal grand jury subpoenas.

Defendants Kamuvaka, Manamela, McNeill, Buenaflor, Murray, Coulibaly, Nimpson, and Chan are charged with conspiring to obstruct a federal investigation by altering, destroying, concealing, and falsifying records in MEBH files.

Defendant Miriam Coulibaly is also charged with making a false statement to federal agents by lying about her participation in efforts to fabricate records to show visits to families that had not occurred.

If convicted of all charges, Kamuvaka, Manamela, McNeill, and Buenaflor face 78 to 97 months in prison. Murray, Nimpson, Chan, and Coulibaly face 37 to 57. Burch faces 15 to 21 months in prison