Sonoma County liable for civil rights claims in foster care abuse case, judge rules

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A federal judge allowed civil rights claims against Sonoma County officials and social workers from three people who claimed they were repeatedly abused by their guardians after entering the county’s foster care program to survive Friday afternoon.

The three plaintiffs said Sonoma County removed them from the custody of their biological parents in 2006. The plaintiffs were siblings under the age of five when they were placed with Jose and Gina Centeno in 2006, despite reports that the Centeno family had abused two other foster children from earlier that year.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin, a Joe Biden appointee, ruled that Sonoma County was deliberately indifferent on Friday afternoon in a 29-page order because the county should have known the abuse — which the plaintiffs say included being hit with belts, locked in cages and sexual abuse — was happening and stopped it after numerous people, including teachers and a county social worker, flagged issues.

“Plaintiffs thus sufficiently allege that County Social Workers disregarded facts that would ‘compel an inference that there existed an objectively substantial risk that the Centenos would physically harm the children.’  Plaintiffs also specify which social workers were assigned to investigate the reports, which social workers were consulted, and the evidence they learned about the abuse occurring at the time,” Martinez-Olguin wrote.

Martinez-Olguin noted that the Centenos admitted to a county social worker that they taped gloves on the children’s hands at night, gave timeouts in the shower and put alarms on the children’s beds to see if they moved at night.

“These allegations are more than ‘mere hunches, gut feelings, and speculations’ about what the Centenos ‘might do.’ Indeed, they show that the County learned about allegations of abuse but failed to properly investigate or protect the children,” Martinez-Olguin wrote.

Martinez-Olguin also ruled that the social workers were not covered by qualified immunity at this stage.

The claims against the state of California were dismissed with prejudice, however. The plaintiffs did not oppose the state law claims being dismissed, but insisted that they be dismissed without prejudice.

Martinez-Olguin wrote that it was “clear” that the complaint could not be saved by amendment, and that the Eleventh Amendment prohibits federal courts from hearing suits brought against an un-consenting state, so the claims must be dismissed with prejudice.

The plaintiffs first sued Sonoma County and California in 2022, with the that the County of Sonoma, the State of California and the foster care agency TLC Child and Family Services ignored their pleas and reports from the social workers and others and allowed their abuse to continue.

The plaintiffs say the state agencies received frequent reports between October 2006 and September 2008 from the children’s biological extended family and others, including a county social worker, that the children were being physically and emotionally abused, including that they were seen with bruising on their arms and legs, and that they did not want to leave family visits. In 2010, the children’s teachers reported that the children were coming to school with unexplained bruises.

The children told a social worker that they were kicked, hit with belts, fists and wooden spoons and that they were forced to stand holding heavy objects above their heads in the shower as punishment. The children were then taken out of school by the Centenos and hidden in captivity.

The plaintiffs also said that between 2011 and 2018, the Centenos shackled them to their beds with alarms to prevent them from leaving and kept them in cages and sexually abused them. One sibling, Kaya, has not been seen since 2012, the plaintiffs say. Eventually the Centenos took the children to Mexico, where the children told about the abuse they suffered.

Mexico Child Protective Services alerted Sonoma County Child Protective Services about the reports of abuse in 2020. The children were brought back to California, and a criminal investigation began, which led to the arrests of Jose and Gina Centeno in August 2020. Gina Centeno has since died, but Jose Centeno was sentenced to multiple life sentences last month.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs and Sonoma County did not immediately return requests for comment.