Riverside County social workers placed child rapist in foster homes without warning parents, suit claims – Press Enterprise

A riverside county social worker deliberately placed violent and sexually deviant boys in five foster parents over a six-year period, allowing at least five boys to be raped, without informing foster parents of his background. The federal lawsuit claims.

From January 2009 to January 2015, more than half a dozen social workers and their supervisors were involved in placing David Stephen Jakubowski as a foster parent in the Inland Empire. According to the proceedings, Jakubowski’s parents have tended to be sexually inappropriate with the boy since the age of nine.

“They kept moving him without telling anyone because they knew his deviant behavior and tendencies,” he told two Jakubowski victims in a U.S. district court in Riverside on July 21. Sean McMillan, a lawyer who filed the proceedings on his behalf, said. ..

Law enforcement agencies intervened twice. And twice, Jakubowski was convicted of child rape. Once as a boy and once as an adult. Still, he will be released from detention within a few weeks, according to the Department of Orthodontics and Rehabilitation.

McMillan represents a biological brother who was raped by Jakubowski at Hemet’s house in 2013. He previously represented another victim who was raped in another nursery in 2015 and settled a proceeding against the county for millions of dollars.

Riverside County DPSS officials declined to comment.

“For the privacy of our clients, we cannot comment on the details of this case, but social workers are dedicated to best practices and strive to ensure that foster parents understand the needs and background surrounding each child.” agency. “Protecting our children is our number one priority. Whenever a child suffers from abuse or neglect, we are sad.”

Early signs

The Jakubowski alarm first began to sound in 2007. According to the proceedings, he was found having oral sex with another boy in his apartment. His mother began to keep him away from other boys and informed his school to do the same. According to the proceedings, the information was later shared with social workers in Riverside County and recorded in the Jakubowski proceedings file with the county.

Jakubowski became the first foster parent in January 2009 and the second foster parent in April of that year. In November 2010, at the suggestion of a social worker from the Valley Oaks Foster Family Agency in Hemet, a social worker in Riverside County placed Jakubowski at his home in Hemet.

Five other children (four boys and one girl) lived at home, and social workers provided foster parents with a “dangerous trend statement” about Jakubowski. However, the proceedings allege that they did not reveal his history of sexually deviant behavior, especially with young boys.

According to Riverside County policy, social workers are required to share “information about known or suspicious dangerous behaviors of their children” with their parents. And not only is it a county policy, such disclosure is required under state and federal law.

According to the lawsuit, since 2011 or 2012, Jakubowski has repeatedly sexually assaulted and / or raped four foster brothers, locked them in their bedrooms, and placed mattresses on the doors to prevent them from sexually assaulting them. Was added. According to the proceedings, he beat them, kicked them, held them down if they tried to escape, and threatened to stab or assault them if they told anyone.

First criminal case

When one of the victims reported abuse to her mother in January 2013, she reported it to the county and Riverside County Sheriff Hemet Station was called in for an investigation. However, according to the proceedings, social workers Kristen Preston and Michael Huser did not believe in the children and thought they had created the story.

During the criminal investigation, Preston and her boss, Carrie Mosiello, categorically claimed that the victim could be lying and, according to the proceedings, recorded it in the juvenile court.

However, Preston and Mosiello’s instincts could not have been misunderstood anymore, as Jakubowski admitted his crime to the sheriff’s sergeant under investigation in an interview in March 2013.

“David was very honest with me. He admitted to me that he had sexually assaulted and molested four siblings,” McNish said in a declaration filed in connection with the proceedings. .. He also said he admitted that Jakubowski used a mattress to block the bedroom door when he raped and bred four caregiver brothers.

“David chose to sexually assault his younger brother, Foster Brother, rather than Foster Sister, because it was easy for David to convince Foster Brothers to do so,” McNish said in a declaration. rice field.

According to McNish, the most chilling part of the interview with Jakubowski is nearing its end.

“When I asked David if he was left with another unsuspecting boy, he calmly replied,” Yes, “whether he would sexually assault the child.” Yes. ” Said in the declaration.

Jakubowski, then 15 years old, was found guilty of five felony child rapes in April 2013. According to the proceedings, the judge declared him a court ward, and Jakubowski was transferred from Murita’s Southwestern Boys’ Academy to Trinity Youth Services in Apple Valley.

Jakubowski was detained for less than two years for raping four boys, but it was not clear why he was immediately released from detention. And as he told McNish in 2013, it didn’t take long for him to prey on another boy.

New home, new victim

In January 2015, a social worker in Riverside County, in collaboration with Riverside’s A Coming of Age Foster Family Agency, entrusted Jakubowski, then 16 years old, to a foster parent in Lisa Castro. As before, county social workers, according to the proceedings, told A Coming of Age and Castro staff a wide history of sexually inappropriate behavior with young boys in Jakubowski, or Hemet’s former nursery. Did not notify the conviction of child abuse in.

About eight months later, in September 2015, Jakubowski raped a boy who had been in Castro’s house a month ago. According to the proceedings, the boy was transferred to Castro’s home because he had been sexually abused in a former foster home.

Jakubowski was subsequently charged with the case and convicted of two child rapes in an adult court. John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, said he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March 2016.

McMillan also represented Jakubowski’s 2015 victims in another proceeding filed in 2016, saying the county settled in November 2019 for $ 2.9 million.

In a written declaration, Castro said that when social worker Sonia Fowler was deployed at home in January 2015, he provided a statement on the dangerous trends of Jakubowski and an overview of the case plan. These documents do not disclose the history of sexually deviant behavior with the boy, or his previous conviction.

She said she learned of his previous conviction of child rape from social worker Tamer Lawson until Jakubowski was arrested and booked at the juvenile training school.

“I was shocked, very upset and disappointed,” Castro said in a declaration. “This was the first time anyone had revealed the proper details about David’s conviction and previous sexual assault involving a young boy. David’s previous conviction and history of a sexually molested boy. Had he known about, he would not have accepted his placement in the house. “

I couldn’t ask Castro for comment.

Listed as a high-risk sex offender in the Megan’s Law database, Jakubowski has been sentenced to prison in the Valley State Prison of Chowchilla. Teri Thornton, a spokeswoman for the State Correction and Rehabilitation Department, said he would be released from detention in early September.

Thornton was asked why he was released five years earlier, and Jakbowski had a year of pre-judgment service, credits awaiting his sentence, and participation in prison work and education programs. He said he had earned the above credits.

Why does that happen?

Alandria Saifer, a San Diego-based industrial and organizational psychologist specializing in workplace culture, said that such communication disruptions or misjudgments in child protection services systems could result from a combination of factors. Said.

For example, the corporate culture of a system includes many moving parts such as supervisors, social workers, caregivers, foster parents, and large numbers of cases. This can often result in loss of communication and children going through the cracks.

Social workers also often experience a psychological phenomenon called cognitive dissonance. This phenomenon coordinates behavior for the maximum benefit of the child being placed with the caregiver, despite the potential negative consequences. It can give the appearance of common sense and attention popping out of the window.

“They protect their children, so they can rationalize the decisions they make, even if that means they are endangering other children,” Cipher said. .. “It’s not a conscious and malicious decision. It’s a separation of information. Their original plan is to introduce foster parents in a system where their children are cared for.”

However, Cipher cannot consider the justification for social workers not informing foster parents of the history of Jakubowski’s sexual deviance, or his previous conviction of raping four boys. Especially if that information was in his CPS case file.

“I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t tell your foster parents,” she said. “It throws me.”