Los Angeles Times - 08.09.2019

A12 SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2019 S LATIMES.COM

Anthony had been under
the supervision of the Los
Angeles County Depart-
ment of Children and Family
Services sporadically over a
four-year period beginning
in 2013 and ending in 2017 —
more than a year before his
death.
During that period, at
least 13 calls were made by
teachers, police, counselors
and relatives to the child
abuse hotline about Antho-
ny’s welfare.
But child protective
workers and others tasked
with protecting Anthony
missed numerous warnings
and opportunities to inter-
vene before his death, ac-
cording to dozens of inter-
views and a review of court
records, documents from
DCFS and records of out-
side agencies hired by the
county to help Anthony and
his family.
Anthony’s mother,
Heather Barron, and her
boyfriend, Kareem Leiva,
have been charged with first-
degree murder in the boy’s
torture death. Prosecutors
intend to seek the death
penalty if they are convicted.
Both have pleaded not
guilty, and Anthony’s sib-
lings have been removed
from the home. The county’s
child welfare agency has
faced scrutiny after a series
of high-profile child abuse
cases in recent years, includ-
ing the suspicious death in
July of 4-year-old Noah Cua-
tro in Palmdale. Case work-
ers had left Noah with his
family despite a court order
to remove him
Anthony’s case struck
many people as having simi-
larities to the 2013 death of
another Palmdale boy, 8-
year-old Gabriel Fernandez,
whose mother and her
boyfriend were convicted of
his torture murder.
In the wake of Anthony’s
death, the county issued a
report saying the circum-
stances, while “horrible,
heartbreaking and appar-
ently brutal,” were “very dis-
similar” to Gabriel’s death.
But DCFS and grand
jury records and interviews
show striking similarities in
the two deaths that oc-
curred within a 15-minute
drive in the Antelope Valley.
In both cases, workers
carried out superficial inves-
tigations and didn’t always
follow proper protocols. The
grand jury transcripts in the
Avalos case were unsealed in
December after The Times
petitioned in court to obtain
the records.
An outside counselor
contracted by the county to
provide services for Antho-
ny’s family had previously
been questioned about her
work in the Fernandez case,
and a DCFS caseworker su-
pervising the agency’s con-
tact with Anthony’s family
had been disciplined for mis-
steps in the Fernandez case,
the review by the Investiga-
tive Reporting Program at
UC Berkeley and The Times
found.
Four other county social
workers accused of mishan-
dling abuse allegations in
Gabriel’s case are scheduled
to go to trial on charges of fel-
ony child abuse and falsify-
ing records. If convicted,
they would be among the few
child protective services
workers in the nation to face
prison for failing a child on
their watch. They have de-
nied wrongdoing.
DCFS Director Bobby
Cagle has said no workers in
Anthony’s case have been
disciplined. None of the
caseworkers mentioned in
the records returned mes-
sages seeking comment for
this story.
Members of Anthony’s
family, though, asked the
district attorney to review
the workers’ actions.
“I know that he was
brave,” Anthony’s aunt
Maria Barron said of her
nephew. “He has always
been brave. Because of him,
his siblings are finally free.”

Missed warnings

Feb. 2013 to Feb. 2015

Anthony’s parents,
Heather Barron and Victor
Avalos, were still teenagers
when Anthony was born.
Avalos left for Mexico soon
after, seeing his son grow up
through occasional video
chats but never again in per-
son. Anthony’s mother
raised the family with earn-
ings from a part-time job at
Subway and $793 in monthly
welfare benefits, according
to DCFS records.
In family photos, An-
thony usually has a wide
smile, holding a report card
from school, wearing a blue
dinosaur T-shirt or with his

head held high in a vest and

striped tie. In others,

though, he looks pensively at

the camera.

His travails began early.

Anthony was only 4 when his

mother brought him to a

health clinic after he said

that someone close to the

family sexually molested

him. The visit resulted in the

first of many calls to the

child abuse hotline.

The DCFS records show

that investigators con-

cluded the abuse had oc-

curred but they did not set

up ongoing supervision or

counseling after assurances

from Anthony’s mother that

she would find him help and

keep him away from the al-

leged abuser.

After he turned 6, his

aunt Crystal Diuguid told

her therapist that Anthony’s

mother was beating him and

locking him in a room with

no access to food or a bath-

room. The therapist called

the hotline to say what she’d

heard.

Anthony verified the ac-

count to a caseworker who

interviewed him at school.

Further interviews revealed

that his mother had not got-

ten him counseling and that

Anthony was acting sexually

inappropriately with anoth-

er child, according to DCFS

records.

Such behavior is not un-

common with victims of sex-

ual abuse, experts have

found. DCFS workers wrote

that Anthony’s mother did

not seek professional help

for Anthony and that his sib-

lings told them that she beat

him. Caseworkers believed

there was neglect in the

home and referred the fam-

ily to the department’s Vol-

untary Family Maintenance

program. Under the pro-

gram, children can stay with

their families while they

work to resolve issues under-

lying the abuse.

The program is designed

for low-risk cases as a means

to reduce the number of chil-

dren in foster care. There is

often no judicial oversight or

an attorney to represent the

child’s best interests.

But internal reviews

showed that caseworkers

placed children, including

Anthony, into the program

even after the department’s

risk-scoring tool evaluated

them as being at “high” risk

of abuse.

Gabriel Fernandez had

also been in the program de-

spite a risk rating of “very

high.”

Caseworkers did not re-

move him from his home

even after he wrote a suicide

note, appeared in school

with wounds from BB pel-

lets shot across his face and

told his teacher that his

mother abused him, accord-

ing to records.

One of the case workers

assigned to Anthony was

Matthew Mansfield, a veter-

an DCFS supervisor who

also played a role in Gabri-

el’s placement in the volun-

tary program. He was later

“disciplined” for the move

following an internal inquiry,

according to grand jury

transcripts.

In Anthony’s case, Mans-

field and colleague Mark

Millman brought in counsel-

ors from the Children’s Cen-

ter of the Antelope Valley to

provide services for the chil-

dren and their mother.

Heather Barron was then

age 24 with four children and

another one on the way.

“Based solely on the in-

formation provided by Ms.

Barron, the assessor be-

lieves that her capacity to

provide suitable care for her

children is severely limited

by her poor parenting skills,

poor judgment and denial

and lack of awareness of her

mental health issues,” coun-

selor Luis Ramirez wrote in

June 2014. Barron’s specific

mental health diagnosis is

redacted in the records.

Wendy Wright, another

counselor at the Children’s

Center who spent signifi-

cant time with Anthony and

his mother, called the child

abuse hotline that October

to report that Barron

grabbed one of Anthony’s

siblings violently and

dragged him across the

room, consistently talked

about her children in derog-

atory terms and displayed

“nothing but anger toward

those children.” Wright told

the hotline operator that

Millman was slow to re-

spond to her phone calls and

did not seem to take action

when she finally reached

him.

Shane Bulkley, another

DCFS worker who was as-

signed to investigate

Wright’s report, wrote in his

notes that Barron cursed,

yelled and acknowledged

hitting the children with a

belt. Bulkley quoted Mill-

man as saying, “given the

children and their age and

their behavior, she is doing

all she can.”

Millman and Bulkley de-

clined to comment.

Then in November 2014,

another therapist at the

Children’s Center, Crystal

Gee, called the child abuse

hotline to report that one of

the children told her,

“Mommy whoops our asses.”

Millman followed up with

her in a brief conversation,

Gee said.

A software program the

department used to score

the children’s risk of being

abused again indicated the

likelihood was “high” and

recommended increased su-

pervision. Bulkley and his

supervisor overruled the

recommendation and

closed the investigation,

saying they did not have evi-

dence to substantiate the al-

legations.

At the close of 2014, Mill-

man and his supervisor,

Mansfield, took the Chil-

dren’s Center off the case

and enlisted a new agency,

Hathaway-Sycamores Child

and Family Services, which

had provided similar serv-

ices to Gabriel Fernandez

through its counselor, Bar-

bara Dixon. The files do not

address why the switch was

made. Gee would later tes-

tify to a grand jury that she

considered her removal, and

its timing, odd.

Dixon would later testify

about her role in the Fernan-

dez case before Gabriel’s

death. In 2017, she told the

court in the criminal case

against Gabriel’s casework-

ers that she witnessed ex-

tensive injuries but withheld

the information from the

child abuse hotline, despite

state law requiring her to re-

port all suspected abuse.

Dixon was given immuni-

ty to testify.

After Dixon was assigned

to Anthony’s case, the focus

of her counseling to reduce

the abuse in the family was

directed at Anthony, not his

mother. Her case notes show

that she counseled him to

listen to his mother more at-

tentively and to finish his

homework.

Her notes, spanning

about a one-year period

from February 2015 to Janu-

ary 2016 when Anthony was

ages 6 and 7, depicted the

boy as prone to “whining,”

“crying” and “tantrums”

that she said made parent-

ing him difficult.

Some of Dixon’s notes

were cut and pasted from

one session to the next, and

they did not mention the

new allegations of abuse

that arrived at the child

abuse hotline during the

time she worked with the

family.

Dixon and her attorney

declined to comment.

Internal debates

April 2015 to Jan. 2017

Heather’s brother, David

Barron, was the first person

in the family to meet Kareem

Leiva, a co-worker at a Santa

Clarita shipping facility. In

2015, David introduced Leiva

to his sister Heather, and the

two began a relationship

that would span years and

eventually produce her sev-

enth child. As the relation-

ship progressed, Heather

told caseworkers that she

became the victim of domes-

tic violence.

An attorney for Leiva de-

clined to comment for this

article.

Within months of their in-

troduction, the father of one

of Heather’s younger chil-

dren told police that Leiva

was abusing his son. A sher-

iff ’s deputy interviewed the

boy, then 2, who told him

that Leiva had violently

grabbed him by the ear, leav-

ing it bruised and cut. The

deputy wrote that he saw the

wounds himself.

But when Sheriff ’s Det.

Chris Wyatt got the report,

he made no attempt to find

Leiva, recommended no

charges and ended the in-

vestigation, according to his

later grand jury testimony.

DCFS workers also did

not locate and interview

Leiva at any point over the

three years they investi-

gated the family, even

though they suspected he

was at the home regularly on

nights and weekends, the

case notes show.

They also did not follow

the department’s rules re-

quiring them to contact

Leiva’s other children or

their mothers. If they had —

or if they had pulled court re-

cords — they would have

seen that two other women

had restraining orders

against him after they sepa-

rately told judges that Leiva

beat them with their chil-

dren present.

DCFS opened a case in

dependency court for the

sibling — but not for An-

thony and the other children

in the home.

Soon thereafter, one of

the assigned DCFS case-

workers, Anna Sciortino,

saw “visible marks and

bruises” on the sibling’s face

and left arm.

Sciortino told the child

abuse hotline that she

doubted the abuse claim but

wanted it recorded “to cover

our butts.”

Barron and the boy told

her the injuries occurred

when he fell in the shower.

Caseworkers deemed the

story plausible and marked

the father’s allegation “un-

founded.”

Sciortino later acknowl-

edged that she hadn’t re-

viewed her department’s

files on earlier abuse com-

plaints involving Anthony

and his siblings.

DCFS guidelines never-

theless required the allega-

tion to be sent to the police

for a criminal investigation.

The assignment went to

Sheriff ’s Deputy Billy Cox,

who had been disciplined in

the past for failing to proper-

ly investigate an unrelated

child abuse allegation, ac-

cording to his testimony in

court.

Cox also testified that he

never contacted Barron or

Leiva.

“It was routine and com-

mon practice,” he said, “that

if a referral was called in by a

social worker, that we basi-

cally rubber-stamped it, so

A system meant to protect Ant

HEATHER BARRON,mother of Anthony Avalos, and her boyfriend, Kareem Leiva, were charged with first-degree murder. Both pleaded

not guilty. Child protective workers and others missed chances to intervene before Anthony died, state records and interviews show.

Brian van der BrugLos Angeles Times

ANTHONY HAD bleeding in his skull when

he arrived in the ER a day before he died.

Gary CoronadoLos Angeles Times

THE CORONER’Sreport details bruises, punctures and abrasions on Anthony’s body. In

life, Anthony loved to go fishing and excelled at school but endured prolonged abuse.

‘I know that he

was brave. He

has always been

brave. Because

of him, his

siblings are

finally free.’

—MARIABARRON,

Anthony’s aunt

Barron family

[Anthony,from A1]