Thursday, October 27, 2011

Baby seller convicted

I have come to the conclusion that Child Protection Services (CPS) causes more harm than good. But I occasionally hear of some really screwed up situations.

The Monterey California Herald reports:
A jury Tuesday convicted a Salinas man of endangering the baby girl he exposed to methamphetamine and offered to sell in a Walmart parking lot last year.

What the jury did not know, and what Judge Pamela Butler will take into consideration when sentencing Patrick Fousek, 39, is that it is not the first time one of his children has been taken from him because of methamphetamine exposure. ...

Fousek and his live-in girlfriend, Samantha Tomasini, 21, were arrested after two women told police Fousek offered to sell them his infant daughter for $25 in the Salinas Walmart parking lot on June 22, 2010. ...

Tomasini, who pleaded guilty to child endangerment and is serving a jail sentence, told police she and Fousek smoked methamphetamine in the apartment — though never in the same room as the baby — and that she was breast-feeding three times a day.

Tomasini, still appearing strung out after more than four months in jail, changed her statement on the stand and said Fousek wasn't using and ordered her not to breast-feed. The jury rejected that account after viewing a video of her original statement. ...

"I tried my best for my children. I tried to be the best citizen I can. I don't know what I did wrong," she sobbed. "I'm so ashamed."

She was accompanied throughout the trial and Tuesday by the mother of Fousek's son, who asked not to be named to protect her other child, who is not related to Fousek.
I mentioned this story last year, because Fousek was given a chance to get his kid back by getting off of the meth.

There are so many things wrong with this situation, that I don't know where to start. The mom says that she is ashamed, but does not know what she did wrong? She would only be ashamed if she knew what she did wrong.

So do we need CPS to manage the interests of the child in cases like this? I say that it would have been much better to have just bought the child for $25, and then treated these lowlife parents just like any other drug addicts.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This COULD have been a situation in which c.p.s. would appear to be essential to the family law court, and the protection of children.

But, offering to return the child back to the father in exchange for quitting the meth. and IGNORING the fact that he was offering to sell his child for $25.00 in a parking lot, proves that the system fails in protecting children, regardless, of how obvious the circumstances may be.

So, it leaves you wondering. What's the greatest danger to the child ? the meth. ? the parents ? or c.p.s. and the family law court?

Can a worse decision be made than offering the child to someone, who was trying to sell it in a parking lot last year ?

I can only guess that, when neither parent has $6,000 or $8,000 to pay for an evaluation, they resort to this sort of practice ? I don't know ?