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Workers could have saved boy

Center didn't report bruises before child died, state finds

BY JACK KRESNAK
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

August 29, 2006

Isaac Lethbridge died Aug. 16 of a beating. Police have not named a suspect in the 2-year-old's death.

Just 12 days before 2-year-old Isaac Lethbridge died of a beating in a Detroit foster home, two social services workers let his foster mother keep the boy despite noting that he was covered with "greenish, blue and black" bruises and had two black eyes.

The foster mother, Charlise Adams-Rogers, told the workers at the Lula Belle Stewart Center that Isaac had been injured during a visit with his biological parents at a McDonald's restaurant on July 21, even though the child's case manager had supervised the visit and reported seeing no such thing.

Nevertheless, according to a state licensing report obtained Monday by the Free Press, the workers sent the child back home with Adams-Rogers on Aug. 4 and failed to report Isaac's suspected abuse to Child Protective Services as required by law.

By the time a Stewart Center licensing worker went to the Adams-Rogers' home on Aug. 9, two days after hearing about Isaac's bruises, she reported that she "did not see any marks other than a light bruise on his forehead," according to the state report prompted by Isaac's violent death nearly two weeks ago.

Wayne County medical examiners say Isaac died of blunt-force injuries to his head and body on Aug. 16. His clavicle also was broken. Detroit police have not identified a suspect in his death.

Adams-Rogers, who declined comment Monday, told the Free Press on Friday that Isaac was put down for a nap at 4 p.m. Aug. 16 and was found unresponsive 45 minutes later. She said there were nine people in the home at the time and she did not know what happened.

The report prepared by the Office of Child and Adult Licensing, a division of the Michigan Department of Human Services, lists several failures by the private, nonprofit Stewart Center to report and investigate child maltreatment in the Adams-Rogers foster home.

Janet Burch, interim chief administrator for the Stewart Center since Aug. 1, did not return several phone calls Monday.

The center's child-placing agency license was suspended by the DHS last week, based on the details in the licensing report. A hearing on the DHS request to revoke the center's license is set for Sept. 19 in Detroit.

DHS spokeswoman Maureen Sorbet said Monday she could not comment because of the ongoing investigations.

Last Friday, after a juvenile court hearing for her two adopted daughters, ages 1 1/2 and 12, who were removed from her care, Adams-Rogers denied abusing Isaac and again blamed Isaac's father, Matt Lethbridge, for dropping the boy on his head during his July 21 supervised visit.

Matt Lethbridge said Monday that Isaac fell while in the McDonald's play area but did not hurt his head.

Adams-Rogers' attorney, Marc Shreeman, said last week that his client had passed a privately arranged lie detector test and is telling the truth when she says she doesn't know what happened to Isaac on Aug. 16.

However, the licensing report provides disturbing details about the apparent lax supervision of Adams-Rogers' foster home by the Stewart Center and raises questions about why Isaac and his 4-year-old sister were placed in the home.

Though the home has only three bedrooms -- and just two are available for children -- Adams-Rogers' foster care license with the center since 2002 allowed her to operate a foster family group home with a capacity for six children, according to the licensing report.

The Stewart Center's records indicate that placing medically fragile children or children with emotional disorders in Adams-Rogers' home "would not be appropriate." Yet earlier this year, Adams-Rogers adopted two of her foster children -- biological sisters ages 18 and 12 -- each of whom has behavioral and emotional problems, Wayne County Family Court records show.

The records describe the 12-year-old as having "aggressive behavior, both physically and verbally." The girl takes three medications to control her attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, the court records said.

On Sept. 17, 2004, Stewart Center workers also placed a 13-year-old foster child, a girl with cerebral palsy who had a history of being sexually abused, in Adams-Rogers' home.

Adams-Rogers later told the agency that the 13-year-old had been diagnosed with leukemia, scoliosis and arthritis, and had been prescribed several medications and was to be treated at a hospital twice a month.

Yet, the Stewart Center could produce no documentation that any of those diagnoses or treatments ever occurred, according to the licensing report.

On April 4, 2006, the report said, the now-15-year-old girl left Adams-Rogers' home and went to the Stewart Center on West McNichols -- about 1.5 miles away -- to report abuse. She told workers that Rogers had whipped her 12-year-old adopted daughter and said she was afraid to go back, the report said.

A center worker then called Adams-Rogers by phone, the report said, and Adams-Rogers denied abusing her adopted daughter but refused to come to the agency to pick up the 15-year-old.

The report said the center's workers "instructed the 15-year-old foster child to walk back to" Adams-Rogers' home alone.

No one at the agency reported the incident to Child Protective Services as required by law, the report said.

Contact JACK KRESNAK at jkresnak@freepress.com.