NEW YORK CITY ACS DEFENSE LAWYER

Judith Likeen, another ACS failure. ACS has failed us again. This time a foster parent who abused children and was paid over 1 million dollars by the city of New York. The tragedy is that the vast wealth that is now NYC, our political class still cares very little of what happens to children in foster care. ACS must be reformed from the top to bottom. I have called for the termination of all top level management. This must happen now to keep our kids safe.

The Long Island story about child abuser and foster parent, Cesar Gonzales-Mugaburu, keeps getting worse. This story will allow the public to see exactly how ACS operates. Will anyone be held accountable? Will anyone at ACS be fired? The answer is going to be a resounding NO! While ACS is quick to attack any parent for anything, the fact that they have allowed children in foster care to be abused is shameful. We deserve better as a city and our children certainly deserve better. Why are New York City's children worth so little? It is time for change. The Mayor needs to remove all of the ACS leadership and start anew. It is time to retrain all of the staff by real childcare professionals and hire new ACS workers who are paid like professionals.  Our children are dying.

This heartbreaking story from   California shows how a well intentioned law is causing damage.The Indian Child Welfare Act was passed to make sure indian kids were not placed in white foster homes. This was a big problem before the law was passed. It no longer is a problem.Now it is being used by Courts to break up families and hurt children. It must be reformed. ACSATTORNEY.COM

ACS has for years been dawning helpless children to a serial child molester in Long Island. This is yet another instance where ACS has failed to protect our children. We deserve better. I call on the Mayor to replace all of the leadership at ACS and start anew. Enough is enough!

ACS workers routinely violate a parent's right to counsel in every court case. They do this by engaging in discussions about the case AFTER a lawyer has been either assigned by the judge or retained by the parents.  Once a person has retained an attorney, that attorney must speak for the client. These are the rules that govern the right to counsel in New York. Yet, judge;s often turn a blind eye and attorneys are not aggressive enough in enforcing these rules. The ACS worker is not special. They have no special legal standing. As a matter of fact, they are often badly trained, rude and arrogant and routinely threaten the parents with removal of their children. Do not be a victim. Demand that they speak to your attorney and not you. Assert your rights.

ACS lawyers have standard lies that thy tell parents in order to get them to cooperate. Here are the top five. 1. This investigation will last 60 days. 2. I need information to close the case. 3. This is all a formality. 4. We need a drug test to close case. 5. You don't get to have a lawyer for this. For these reasons you should never speak to an ACS worker without an attorney present.

The most common question we get from our clients is; why is ACS doing this to us? The simple answer is that ACS is a highly dysfunctional agency with incompetent leadership that is allowed to abuse parents in NYC. IN addition to this callous incompetence, ACS must keep its numbers up in order to justify the billions of dollars it receives from the city and state. Just like every organization, ACS must justify its existence. This is accomplished by accusing as many parents as possible of abuse and then putting thise parents into "services". At the end of the year ACS writes a report and states that they have helped all of these families and their funding should be increased.  The more parents they "help" the more money they receive, thus keeping their jobs secure. This is why we see many cases being shared b y ACS workers because in places like Manhattan there is not enough of a caseload to support the staff. It's a smoke and mirrors game that ACS workers play to...

When ACS workers interview children about child abuse they try to coach the children as much s possible. The reason we know this is that many children will report back to their parents that the ACS worker was trying to have them make statements against their parents. This is truly disgraceful. ACS workers will also take anything the child says against the parent as the truth. No matter how troubled the child is. ACS calls these statements disclosures. They are treated as gospel and parents are dragged into court based solely on the child's statement.

In order for someone to become a judge in New York City, a long process needs to take place. Thus, obtaining a judgeship is very prestigious and also allows one to have a profound impact on the lives of the parties that come before you. Nowhere is this more true, then in Family Court . Custody, visitation, parental rights are all up to the judge. There are no juries to decide anything. One of the biggest fears of a Family Court judge is to return a child to a parent in a neglect case, and the parent injuring or killing the child. This has happened in the past, and unfortunately, statistics tell us it will happen again. This is the greatest weapon ACS has. It takes courage for a judge to stand up to this dysfunctional agency. Fortunately, the judges of Family court are up to the task and mostly are independent thinkers that look at one case at a time. Brooklynacslawyer.com