Sex Abuse Press -

Sex Activity by Children Brings Suit Against Home

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

Published: March 9, 1993

The mother of an 8-year-old girl charged yesterday that social workers at a temporary home for emotionally troubled children in Brooklyn failed to prevent five young boys from repeatedly having sex with her daughter.

The woman, Shirley Greenaway, is suing to have the girl, who is mentally retarded, returned to her custody because of what she described as a lack of oversight of her daughter's case by the city and state. On the steps of City Hall yesterday, Ms. Greenaway and her lawyer accused state officials of bungling the investigation into her complaints and of failing to take action against the supervisors at the home.

State officials acknowledged that the girl had oral sex with the five boys on several different occasions last year, but that she had initiated it and the social workers were unaware at the time. They also contended that a state investigator found no evidence of lax supervision at the home, a city- and state-financed diagnostic center at 80 Linden Avenue operated by St. Joseph's Services for Children. They said that the children sneaked away and engaged in sex without the social workers knowing.

The girl was placed in the home a year ago by city social workers who were responding to allegations that her mother's boyfriend had sexually abused her, said a state official and a social worker at the home, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. 'Obvious Lack of Supervision'

The tangled case was made public yesterday by State Senator Franz S. Leichter, who charged that not only had the home failed to protect the girl, but the state had conducted a slipshod investigation amounting to a "whitewash."

"At the very least, there was an obvious lack of supervision," he said.

Belinda Conway, the associate executive director of St. Joseph's, a 10-bed center, said she could not comment on the allegations because state law protects the privacy of foster children.

The problems at the home first came to light in June, when the girl complained to her mother during a visit that she had performed oral sex on some of the boys, all between the ages of 8 and 11, in the home on several different occasions, and that in at least one case a supervisor had watched, according to notes from social workers and the state investigator released yesterday by a lawyer for Ms. Greenaway, Bruce A. Young. The investigator said the allegation that a supervisor witnessed the sex acts could not be substantiated. Inquiry in July When Ms. Greenaway informed a family court judge who was reviewing her daughter's case about the accusations, the judge ordered the city to investigate. City social workers interviewed the child on July 8 and reported her allegations to the state Department of Social Services, Mr. Young said.

A state child abuse investigator, Sandra Robertson, was dispatched to the home in July. Over a period of months, she interviewed the girl, two other female residents, several staff members and four of the boys. In January, she finished her final report, a bureaucratic form with a single paragraph of handwritten findings that concluded the allegations of sexual abuse were unfounded, because legally, there can be no abuse if the girl is not coerced and no adults knew what was taking place.

Terrance McGrath, a spokesman for the state Social Services Department, said the matter had been referred to the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. But he insisted the state had uncovered no evidence that the staff knew about the abuse or that any staff members were involved.

"In order for there to be sexual abuse, there has to be the involvement or knowledge of a legal guardian or parent," Mr. McGrath said. "The allegation wasn't that sexual activity was taking place among these children but that the staff knew about it and allowed it."

The report from the state investigator said that the girl initiated and performed oral sex with the five boys on several occasions, but "there was no actual penetration" during other acts of attempted intercourse and sodomy and that "the staff had no knowledge of resident's sexual acts."

VICTIM - OR AGGRESSOR? JAILED MOM ACCUSED OF 'REIGN OF TERROR' IN FIGHT TO PROVE CHILD WAS ABUSED

BY BOB PORT

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, November 14 2004, 12:00 AM

DYANDRIA MURRAY is a soft-spoken, 5-foot-1, 56-year-old, gray-haired woman who often walks with a cane because a bus ran her over in 1984. But according to a judge, Murray is guilty of "very serious violence" for waging "a reign of terror" against judges, court officers and her ex-husband, a retired NYPD detective. For more than two years, Murray has sat behind bars on Rikers Island - without a trial and without being convicted of any crime. In October 2002, she was sentenced to three years for contempt by Manhattan Family Court Judge Helen Sturm. It may be the longest contempt imprisonment ever at Rikers, said one knowledgeable source. Murray's offense? She produced a local-access cable TV show attacking Family Court. She called Sturm a "neo-Nazi.

" Murray passed out leaflets. She served aggressive legal documents on her ex-husband. She wrote to her daughter's school warning that her ex-husband should be watched. She made similar warnings to police and child-abuse caseworkers on Long Island. Murray is convinced that her ex-husband sexually molested their daughter. In 1997, at age 7, the child spontaneously made that claim to doctors at Bellevue Hospital, three of whom testified in court that sexual abuse had occurred. As recently as December 2002, the state's child abuse registry still listed a "substantiated" sexual-abuse report for the child's father. Nevertheless, in 1999, in a ruling upheld by higher courts, Manhattan Family Court Judge Gloria Sosa-Lintner decided that the sex abuse never occurred, even while finding both mother and father guilty of neglect. For four years, the city moved the child from foster home to foster home, letting a legal order to keep the girl expire in 2000. Murray quickly snatched her daughter from school, only to see her ex-husband obtain an arrest warrant for custodial interference and win legal custody. In October 2002, with Murray already jailed for contempt, the Manhattan district attorney filed a 44-count indictment against her, alleging felony crimes such as stalking a judge and threatening her ex-husband. Months later, a criminal court judge dismissed the indictment, mostly for a lack of evidence, noting Murray's "constitutional right to be obnoxious.

" Years before, as the case was escalating, Murray and Manhattan Family Court had begun a war of words. Murray would show up at legal seminars where Sosa-Lintner appeared, asking rude questions. She produced and narrated a Manhattan cable TV show called "The Real News," publicizing Family Court horror stories. Murray put Sosa-Lintner's picture on TV and labeled her a "fascist.

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" She belittled child-abuse caseworkers by name. She singled out a local prosecutor who refused to pursue her case. She put her child on TV. She distributed leaflets to relatives visiting kids in foster care at a Catholic agency in Brooklyn and included a photo of her ex-husband sleeping naked, lying beside his daughter, their faces obscured. "I never have committed a violent act, ever in my life," Murray said in a recent interview on Rikers Island. "The system did something very wrong with my child. I thought I had a right to freedom of speech.

" Sturm, who inherited the case, saw it differently. Murray's daughter, placed with her father, recanted her claim of abuse and begged to have "a normal life.

" Sturm barred Murray from visiting her daughter, now 15, or disrupting her father's new family home. The father's new wife said Murray is "a very malevolent woman.

" State law lets Family Court judges jail someone six months for violating an order. To jail Murray so long, Sturm strung together consecutive six-month terms for six separate acts. A 1995 state Court of Appeals decision in a different case affirmed that practice. The judge suspended all but nine months of her tough sentence but continued to keep Murray imprisoned when her ex-husband filed new claims. "To paint Ms. Murray as the victim is simply inappropriate especially because she has had a hand in delaying proceedings which would have hastened the possibility of her getting out of jail," court spokesman David Bookstaver said. Murray remains in jail waiting for Sturm to rule on even more allegations. Her ex-husband says she communicated with him. Murray says she served him with legal documents to enforce an appeals court order overturning Sturm for excusing the ex-cop from $6,000 in back child support. "She embarrassed a lot of people," says Bruce Young, the latest lawyer appointed to represent the unyielding mother. "You don't put somebody in jail for that.

" "Dyandria's case is, sadly, not an isolated case," said Eileen King, a director of Justice for Children, a child advocacy group in Washington. "The instinct to protect your child is like a life-and-death instinct," King said. "To be asked to just stand back and let the child go when there's credible evidence of abuse is an impossible thing.

" Court officials see it differently. "Murray has continually shown to several judges that she has not put the best interests of her child first," Bookstaver said. rport@nydailynews.

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