Kentucky Judge Likens Cabinet For Families And Children Handling Of Abused Children To Richard Nixon Investigating Watergate. And It's TRUE!

Judge blasts social service agency
By Jim Hannah

COVINGTON – A judge ripped the state agency assigned to protect Kentucky's children Wednesday during a preliminary hearing for a mother whose child died after the toddler became wedged between a mattress and wall atop a baseboard heater.

Kenton County District Judge Ken Easterling said the Cabinet for Health and Family Services - despite having contact with the mother, Megin Gray, six times - never requested that the infant be removed from the home.

Gray, 26, was in an alcohol and prescription drug-induced sleep when her infant died, Covington Police Detective Brian Fuller testified at the hearing. She was living in one room of a rental house with the infant, 9-month old Anthia Lattimore, and at least two other children.

Jim Grace, assistant director of the Division of Protection and Permanency in the cabinet's Department for Community Based Services in Frankfort, was in the courtroom during the hearing. He left without comment.

Cabinet Assistant Counsel Kelly S. Wiley also attended. She has filed a motion seeking to keep private her agency's file on Gray after the judge asked for and obtained it. The file remained secret Wednesday afternoon, but Easterling repeatedly alluded to it.

"The cabinet is a very closed, shrouded in secrecy, agency," Easterling said. "You don't have the opportunity to find out what they do."

In an apparent reference to a review the agency is conducting on its handling of the case, Easterling said it was "like asking Richard Nixon to review what happened in Watergate."

"It is self-serving, and it leaves the community with very little confidence. It leaves me with very little confidence," Easterling said.

His concerns appeared to be more aimed at policy makers in Frankfort than local social workers.

"There are some very dedicated child support workers, who work day and night ..." Easterling said.

He said that when he was a prosecutor several years ago cabinet officials discouraged him from placing children in state care because Kenton County had a disproportionate number of children being removed from their homes, compared to Lexington and Louisville.

While he was a prosecutor, Easterling said, the state declined to take custody of children living in a home with no heat or electric. He said the water pipes had broken to where there was an ice waterfall down the steps of the family's home.

Easterling said Northern Kentucky needs a "functional child protection agency" in order to reduce its infant mortality rates - one of the highest in Kentucky. He called it "repulsive" that he has to "beg the cabinet to do anything."

"We are woeful in what that state gives us, and it is criminal," Easterling said. "This is a thriving community."

Easterling then challenged the cabinet to become more transparent.

"I ask the cabinet to step outside the shield of secrecy, confidentiality," he said.

Easterling said the community deserves answers on what cabinet officials in Frankfort are doing to reduce infant deaths, such as Anthia's.

Her mother, Gray, is charged with second-degree criminal abuse, but Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders said he is considering filing homicide charges against the 26-year-old single mother.

Fuller testified that, according to a preliminary coroner's report, Anthia died of positional asphyxiation. He added that Anthia's body was also covered from head to toe with deep burns from the baseboard heater.

Gray's public defender, Jamie Jameson, begged that his client's $25,000 cash bond be reduced so she could get out of jail to attend her baby's funeral today. The judge said he would consider the request but did not publicly make a ruling.

Editor's comment. Criminal, indeed.