By Ed Oliver
June 1999

Three children were taken from their father, David Luisi, in January 1997 on the basis of a false allegation that he slapped his daughter.

The children were placed in the temporary custody of his ex-wife Carrie, who has a history of neglecting her children.

The children’s ages at the time they were taken in 1997 were Matthew, 10, Adam, 7, and Jacqueline, 5.

Since then, Luisi and his supportive family have watched with alarm as the children deteriorate in the care of their mother and her live-in boyfriend under DSS and Probate Court supervision.

The family has documentation showing that they have been informing state and DSS officials since 1997 that the children are not being fed and cared-for properly and they are afraid of the boyfriend.

This March, the Luisi family learned through Probate Court documents that on May 25 last year, Adam was diagnosed with malnutrition at New England Baptist Medical Associates. Doctors were told by DSS not to give the children’s medical records to the father.

Father Forbidden to Visit
Two important events occurred in May 1999.

o The 51A complaint against David was stricken from DSS records clearing his name of any false abuse allegations.

o His son Adam was diagnosed with malnutrition after living 29 months with an unfit mother under DSS and Probate Court supervision.

Less than a month afterwards, David’s visitation was suddenly cut off by Judge John Smoot in Probate Court on June 11, 1999, based solely on the word of social worker Geneva Trent. The social worker complained about David’s frequent phone calls to her and said he was a danger to his children.

Phone dictation records subpoenaed from DSS by the father show that David called Geneva Trent on June 8, 1999 to complain about the children’s poor condition. He demanded the social worker speak to the children at school away from the mother. He complained about Adam not developing because the mother was not feeding him and the other children.

Because of that telephone call and an angry social worker, these children are no longer allowed to see their father.

Trouble Started In 1994
David and Carrie were married in 1986. In 1994, Carrie felt her husband was holding her back from her career goals and she moved with the children to New York to live with her mother.

Carrie soon began seeing a psychiatrist and taking Prozac for depression.
By her own admission, even with her mother’s help, Carrie was unable to raise the children properly. The children deteriorated and Carrie sent the kids back to David less than a year later.

After the children returned to their father in the spring of 1995, the couple divorced and the children were put in the custody of the father.

The father is a postal worker with a family of several sisters and brothers who, along with his parents, are very close and supportive. David moved in with his brother’s family for six months. They put the children back into a regular routine, clothed and fed them properly and worked on their behavioral problems.

He moved to an apartment in Roslindale with his children after that where they lived for a year before his ex-wife Carrie moved back to Massachusetts in September of 1996 with her boyfriend.

A few months later, Carrie reported Davidto DSS in January of 1997 after seeing a mark on her daughter’s face from an alleged slap. She also obtained an Emergency Restraining Order for the weekend to remove custody of the children from David.

David denied the allegation. He says the mark on his daughter was the result of an accident. He said if he wanted to hide something, he could have taken the kids somewhere to prevent Carrie from visiting that weekend.

David’s neighbor, Maureen Foote, told Massachusetts News she often bathed David’s daughter and never saw a mark on her body.

"He’s never harmed those kids in any way. I spent a lot of time over there with my daughter when he had his kids. Also my girlfriend shared a paper-thin common wall with him. You can hear conversations and everything. She is a mother too. If she ever heard abuse going on, she would report it. Her daughter used to play over there too. He is a wonderful father. He watches my 19-month-old son once a week. He and my mother are the only two people I trust with my son."

Because of Carrie’s demonstrated inability to care for the children when she lived in New York, the Luisi family offered to take the children.
The court however, awarded the custody of the children to Carrie after she made the false charge against David. A lawyer was appointed as Guardian Ad Litem. After the Guardian made a report to the court 10 days later without making an investigation, Carrie received another temporary custody order. David received limited visitation.

David immediately appealed the abuse allegation and requested a fair hearing from DSS.

He waited 15 months to get his hearing and another 5 months for the decision. The charges against him were dismissed.

Although David was cleared, he received a new service plan in the mail. DSS did not correct their records to show the charge was dismissed. It took 9 months of letter writing to DSS officials by David and State Senator Brian Joyce before DSS finally updated their records in May 1999 to show the abuse charge was unsupported.

 "Less than a month after DSS updated their records to clear David of all charges, the court suspended David’s visitation on an emergency order with no notice. It was based on Dave making a phone call to a DSS social worker complaining to her she wasn’t doing her job of protecting the kids," David’s attorney, Daniel Henderson, tells Massachusetts News.

DSS Worker Conspires Against Father

The brief period between David’s being cleared by DSS in May 1999 and then losing all contact with his children a short time later appears suspicious to the Luisi family. Did the caseworker and Carrie conspire to erect roadblocks to hinder David from regaining custody?

DSS records of conversations between Carrie and caseworker Geneva Trent reveal that after David’s 51A allegation was found to be unsupported, Carrie told Geneva Trent on May 20, 1999 she still wanted to move with the kids to New York.

Carrie asked Trent what she could do about David’s charge being dismissed. Geneva Trent said she didn’t know and she would check with her supervisor.
On May 24, David called Geneva Trent to complain about the children’s weight and that the mother was not feeding them. He said he was angry about how long it took DSS to overturn the charges against him and now Carrie was planning to take the kids to New York and he would never see them again. He told her he would be going into court to regain custody now that he was cleared.

Later that afternoon, Geneva Trent telephoned Carrie and told her she "should go into a battered women’s shelter in order to be safe" and move to New York. Carrie was informed by Geneva Trent on the 26th that unless she "requests services," there was no more reason to keep the DSS case open because David had been cleared.

Carrie apparently did not want to go into a shelter. But Geneva Trent called Carrie’s lawyer on June 11, 1999, after David had demanded that she speak to the children away from the mother. Geneva Trent told the lawyer that "due to conversations with David earlier this week," she felt that "the children would be at risk under David’s care."

Carrie went to court that morning and David’s visitation was "temporarily" terminated.

David’s attorney, Dan Henderson, tells Massachusetts News, "We never got the visitation replaced because they would have insisted he enter one of those batterers’ programs. He would have been labeled as a batterer and lost his custody case."

David Luisi tells Massachusetts News, "If my ex-wife was a good mother and my kids were clean and being provided for and were happy, I wouldn’t be in court. I would have said, ‘Okay, this was an accident, the kids are doing good, and that’s all that counts.’ If my kids are doing good, then I just have to go on with my life. My kids aren’t doing good, they are doing terrible."

One Competent DSS Worker

David’s sister and brother-in-law, Linda and Stephen Guilmet, are assisting David and his attorney with the case by writing letters and meticulously documenting each development.

Guilmet explained to Massachusetts News how DSS investigator Raymond White  interviewed only Carrie and spoke to the children only in the mother’s presence when the initial investigation occurred in 1997. He said White did not interview neighbors, teachers, physicians, the father or family members, nor visit David’s home.

Tim Daley of DSS, however, did a thorough and unbiased assessment of the case in April of 1997, according to Guilmet. He feels Daley is the only person who did his job. "Everyone came into this case just wanting to hear the mother’s side. Tim Daley was the only one who wanted to hear both sides," he said.

Daley told the Luisi family that he contacted the children’s Guardian Ad Litem, attorney Joanna Scannell, Dedham, who refused to read his report.

Guilmet said the report submitted by Scannell has been used as the "bible" in the Luisi case. He characterized the GAL report as hastily prepared and filled with inaccuracies and falsehoods.

"The Guardian Ad Litem was supposed to be an advocate for the children, but she became an advocate for Carrie Luisi," observed Guilmet.

Attorney Joanna Scannell did not return calls from Massachusetts News.
David’s sister Annette was allowed to read an affidavit at the present hearing about a meeting she had with Scannell. Annette testified that much of what she said in her meeting with the GAL was taken out of context and used in the report in a way which shed a good light on the mother and was biased against the father.

The GAL report also quotes  Detective Carr of the Boston police as having spoken to David at the time of Carrie’s complaint at which David admitted hitting his daughter. Carr, however, denies that he ever even spoke with David. Attorney Henderson subpoenaed Carr as a rebuttal witness to the GAL report but Carr didn’t show.

Facts Are Clear

The stack of documents compiled by Linda Guilmet and given to Massachusetts News contains letters written in the last three years by the concerned family to DSS, legislators, the GAL and even the Boston Globe.
According to the letters, they reported to DSS and the Guardian Ad Litem complaints about Carrie’s boyfriend, and the poor condition of the children including bed-wetting and diapers for an older boy.

"The children often times are not bathed, their clothes are dirty, their eyes are purple from lack of sleep. They have not received medical care when needed and it is very obvious, by their physical appearance and by their statements, that the children are not being fed properly," says a letter to a pediatrician written by Guilmet a year ago.

David’s neighbor, Maureen Foote, said she went into Carrie’s house this last Christmas when she brought presents over for the kids. She said the house smelled and was filthy. The kids appeared sickly, withdrawn and poorly dressed. She said Carrie is clean and well dressed though, and her hair and nails are done. 

David Luisi pays Carrie $930 per month in support.

Sexual Molestation Not Investigated

In 1997, Linda Guilmet reported to the Guardian Ad Litem and to DSS an alarming conversation she had with her niece, Jacqueline. When asked how she spent her February vacation, the little girl answered, "snuggling in bed with Mark" while Carrie was at work. Mark is Carrie’s live-in boyfriend.
Guilmet said the boys often told members of the Luisi family that they were afraid of Carrie’s live-in boyfriend and that he was hurting them. Linda Guilmet put into evidence a videotape of one of the boys describing how the boyfriend threw him into a wall. The judge did not look at the videotape according to Guilmet. The DSS assessment report by the social worker, Tim Daley, records the boy’s fears as well.

Daley’s report says the two boys told him, "It’s bad at mom’s house…They would prefer to reside with their father at this time. Both boys stated that they tried to run away from their mother’s house about one month ago as they feared Mark Bennett, their mother’s live-in boyfriend."

Massachusetts News spoke with Gerard Birney, a former pastor of Hope Baptist Church in Hyde Park. He said the children came to the church after they got off the school bus one day in 1997 and said they did not want to go home. They wanted to live with their dad. The pastor called the police who questioned the kids and sent them home afterward to Carrie and her boyfriend.
Birney’s impression of Carrie’s parenting was that she "let the kids come and go and do what they want." Birney saw the kids when they lived with David also and felt they were in a "much more structured" environment with him.

Boyfriend Hits Child

In the fall of 1997, Guilmet went to the police after a bruised Adam told the family Carrie’s boyfriend hurt him. DSS was notified by the Boston Police. According to a copy of the summons, the District Attorney scheduled a Magistrate’s Hearing for September 24, 1997 with the charge of assault and battery against the boyfriend, Mark Bennett.

As Guilmet explained in a 1998 letter to Senator Therese Murray, "The case was not heard because the detective failed to appear at the Magistrate Hearing. However, what is even more disturbing, is the fact that at no time before, during or after the hearing, did DSS contact me to find out what I knew about the case."

Guilmet told Massachusetts News, "The GAL and various people from DSS were at the Courthouse on Sept. 24,1997. No one made any attempt to talk to me that day to see what I knew about the incident. They only spoke with the mother and her boyfriend.

Mark Bennett had an attorney with him that day. Who helped him find an attorney and who paid his fee? I can make a guess but I have no proof."
The Guilmets hired a Private Investigator in June of last year. The first day, the investigator videotaped Matthew locked out of the house, sitting on the curb waiting for his mother to come home. The investigator spoke with a neighbor who said she reported the kids to DSS because they were always out late at night, but DSS didn’t follow up.

The investigator was not allowed by Judge Stahlin to testify in court but according to Guilmet, the neighbor did testify in court. "When asked to describe what Matthew looked like, she described him as ‘sickly looking.’ Carrie’s attorney objected. So she then described that his hair was uncombed, he needed a haircut, he was thin, pale, dirty, coughing, had dark circles under his eyes, his jacket was far too big for him and he was wearing sneakers without any laces. The attorney did not object to the term ‘sickly’ after that description."

According to David’s attorney, Dan Henderson, the Probate Court strikes any mention of the children’s wishes and relies instead on opinions from "experts" with a bias against fathers.

Henderson told Massachusetts News, "We filed a motion for the kids to testify and it was denied. Nobody wants to hear directly from the kids. Anytime anyone mentions what the kids say, the judge excludes it. The court is relying on all the phony experts, but nobody has said anything about the kids’ preference about where they want to live because their preference is to live with the father. The mother even admitted that in the deposition."

Massachusetts News sat in on a session at Suffolk County Probate Court on April 6 and observed one of Carrie’s poverty lawyers object every time testimony touched on something the children said. Judge Stahlin consistently struck the testimony.

Attorney Henderson told Massachusetts News that Carrie’s legal services lawyers, "have been trying to put a polish on her for the last couple months.
"With the help of her two or three poverty lawyers, she’s got the kids enrolled in tutoring programs and started them back to church. They’ve got the kids on certain foods to bulk them up for court and make them look like they’re doing well. The lawyers have gone down to the school and talked to the special ed teachers. They are getting them all shined up for court."

Carrie is seeking permanent custody of the children so she can move with them back to New York. David hasn’t seen his children since June, 1999.

 A recent letter to Attorney Henderson by Carrie’s legal services lawyer says in order for David to have visitation, Carrie feels David should attend a batterer’s course and then only see the children at a supervised visitation center.

Reached for comment, Carrie told Massachusetts News she feels David "has an anger problem." She cut short the call after that, saying she wanted to speak with her lawyer.

Ruth Diaz, one of Carrie’s free lawyers from Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, shook her head and said, "No, no," as she brushed past in a huff after attempts to question her by Massachusetts News.
The case will be finished this June and a decision is expected some months afterward.
 

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