STATE TOOK MAN'S CHILDREN
Taping your meetings with your case worker really can pay off!
In this case it saved a man from arrest and got the case worker charged. Also got the public's attention to his case, I should contact this news writer who seems surprised that these people still don't have their kids back or even get visits with them despite their abuse charges being dismissed! Of course the complaints it stirred up will never be investigated fairly.

Via: Fals...@yahoogroups.com

Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
May 27, 2004
Section: City&Region
Edition: Final
Page: B2

Valarie Honeycutt Spears, Herald-Leader Staff Writer

A state social worker in Floyd County has been charged with making a false police report against a man whose children have been taken by the state.

The case has prompted an investigation by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and its inspector general into complaints about social workers in Floyd and surrounding counties, Cabinet Spokesman Gil Lawson said this week.

The social worker, Michael Newsome, told Prestonsburg police that Richard Hardy had threatened him May 6 before a supervised visit with Hardy's youngest son. Newsome called police to have Hardy removed from social services offices at the First Commonwealth Bank building in Prestonsburg.

But Floyd County Attorney Keith Bartley said yesterday that Hardy had secretly taped the meeting. There was no evidence on the tape that Hardy threatened Newsome, Bartley said.

Newsome, 31, of Harold, has been summoned to appear in Floyd District Court on June 8. He could not be reached for comment yesterday. His attorney, Craig Davis, did not return telephone calls.

Lawson said Newsome had been reassigned to a desk job pending the investigation.

Hardy and his wife, Kimberly Hardy, have lost custody of all seven of their children since social workers began investigating their home in 1998, said their attorney, Steve Marshall of Lexington. The Hardys have also lost visitation rights to all but their youngest, Marshall said.

Still, he said that to his knowledge, the Hardys have never been convicted of any crime in connection with child abuse charges.

Richard and Kimberly Hardy were indicted in Johnson County on four counts of child endangerment charges on Sept. 21, 2001. Those charges were dismissed, according to court records.

Meanwhile, the couple have wrangled with state social workers, and Marshall said the state has not done enough to try to return the children to them.

Lawson, the cabinet spokesman, said Tuesday that he could not provide details about the allegations against Newsome.

But he confirmed that Prestonsburg Police Chief Mike Omerod met with two cabinet officials: Robert Benvenuti, the inspector general, and Michael Robinson, commissioner for the Department of Community Based Services.

Prestonsburg Police Operations Commander Stan Farler said that some of the complaints that the police department referred to the inspector general's office seemed valid, and others appeared frivolous.

Farler said that he knew that some of the complaints were about state social service workers in Johnson County, but that he did not know which other counties had been mentioned in complaints that were sent to the inspector general's office.

Bartley said that Prestonsburg Mayor Jerry Fannin had asked Attorney General Greg Stumbo's office to investigate. Fannin could not be reached for comment.

On Tuesday, Stumbo's spokeswoman Vicki Glass said the attorney general's office had declined to pursue the complaints. She would not explain the decision.

News researcher Linda Niemi contributed to this article.

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There are no problems only solutions and opportunities. but the last bastion of discrimination is in Family Law, with the target being WHITE, HETEROSEXUAL, SINGLE, FATHERS WHO LOVE THEIR CHILDREN yet have been usurped of as a parent.

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www.FamilyMending.net PAS is CHILD ABUSE www.StopPAS.info www.FatherStatus.org Fathers ARE important www.FatherFigure.info www.OzyDads.com

If we sit quietly we're sitting ducks Quack Quack!! but if we STAND (united as one) then we stand a chance www.OzyDads.net www.JointParenting.net

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