DSHS agrees to pay abused teen
Girl was left with grandparents despite warnings
The Department of Social and Health Services has agreed to pay $1.5 million in a settlement to a 14-year-old girl who suffered years of emotional, physical and sexual abuse in her paternal grandparents’ home despite “abundant” warnings to Child Protective Services.
Attorneys for the girl released information about the settlement today.
“This is a case in which there was horrific abuse and DSHS did have abundant notice that there were mistakes,” said Lincoln Beauregard, one of the girl’s attorneys.
Beauregard, however, gave credit to the state’s social-service agency for “stepping up to the plate instead of fighting a case where they knew they were wrong.”
A DSHS spokesman said he had not heard that the settlement was official and declined comment until more information was available.
According to the claim, the girl was placed in her paternal grandmother’s home in Okanogan County when she was 2 months old.
The child’s mother had encounters with the law at that time that rendered her unable to care for her daughter, Beauregard said.
In 1999, the girl’s grandfather was released from prison after being twice convicted on child-molestation charges, Beauregard said.
The grandfather’s parole officer notified CPS about the danger he believed the grandfather would pose to the child, but the girl remained in her grandparents’ home, Beauregard said.
According to the claim filed against DSHS, the girl was sexually abused by her grandfather and physically abused by her grandmother.
Beauregard, and co-counsel Crystal J. McDonald and Erik L Bauer, said that the girl’s head was slammed into a wall and that she was burned with cigarettes and beaten with spatulas. She was removed from the home in 2004.
Beauregard said the child is now living with her mother in Pierce County and is doing well.
Her attorneys report that approximately one-third of the settlement will be paid in attorneys’ fees. A portion of the settlement will be used to procure counseling and tutoring for the child, Beauregard said.
“She’s doing much better,” he said. “One part of her life has now closed and she can move forward.”