A new court filing accuses Court Appointed Special Advocates of New Hampshire of not taking action to stop partially unsupervised visits between two girls and their biological parents, despite a report the couple had molested other children.
Attorney Rus Rilee filed a motion Friday to add CASA-NH as a defendant to the ongoing civil lawsuit against the state’s Division for Children, Youth and Families and Easter Seals.
The lawsuit, brought by the girl’s grandparents, accuses the three entities of failing to protect the children from “horrific” sexual abuse by their biological parents despite repeated warning signs. The parents pleaded guilty in 2014 to felonious sexual assault charges and to manufacturing child pornography. Each was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Though the initial filing goes into graphic detail about the abuse and accusations of wrongdoing by DCYF and Easter Seals, most of the fresh allegations against CASA-NH are redacted. The motion requests the court allow the grandparents to waive confidentiality for sealed files it says establishes the “liability” of CASA-NH.
CASA-NH is a nonprofit group that “recruits, trains and supervises” volunteers advocate for abused and neglected children in the state’s court system, according to its website.
The filing accuses a CASA-NH worker of taking no action to prevent the start of partially unsupervised visits between the girls and their biological parents, though the couple had been under investigation by the Claremont Police in July 2013 for reports they molested children at a homeless shelter.
The suit alleges the worker was on vacation when the decision to start the visits was made. But it says upon her return, she “knew or should have known” DCYF had not followed up on the police report in her absence and therefore, “it was not safe” for the girls to have any unsupervised visits with their parents.
The girls, then age 4 and 18 months, were sexually abused by their parents on “multiple occasions” during the partially unsupervised visits, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit accuses CASA-NH of negligence, negligent training and supervision of its employees, and breach of fiduciary duty. The suit is seeking monetary damages and demanding a jury trial on several grounds.
A spokeswoman for CASA-NH said Friday the organization had yet to receive a copy of the complaint. “We couldn’t comment further at this point,” said Director of Communications Carolyn Cote.
The initial lawsuit was filed last October by the grandparents, who are now the girls’ adoptive parents. The state responded last month and sought to dismiss the lawsuit. DCYF said it’s not liable for the physical harm and sexual abuse suffered by the children, and that it has no legal obligation to the grandparents.
Rilee objected to the state’s motion to dismiss in the Friday filing, writing the state and Easter Seals “mischaracterize the plaintiff’s claims in an effort to escape their liability for the unfathomable injuries” the girls experienced.
The lawsuit alleges that the biological parents sexually abused the girls during supervised and unsupervised visits in 2013, and that the mother filmed 14 of those sessions. Police found flash drives containing those videos. In one, a child’s cry is muffled because her mouth is covered with duct tape and her arms are bound behind her back. The lawsuit alleges some of the abuse occurred during “bath time” with the parents, when an Easter Seals caseworker was in another room.
When the grandparents became aware of the abuse, they went to police. Days later, the parents confessed to the crimes.