State to Pay Former Foster Children $4M to Settle Lawsuit in Sexual, Physical Abuse Case

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A record-breaking settlement of $4,025,000 was awarded to two women who suffered physical and sexual abuse as young girls in a Yakima County foster home.

Tamaki Law Offices said Wednesday that the settlement agreement is the largest a state agency has paid out in a Yakima County lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed Nov. 1, 2018, alleges the state's Department of Children, Youth and Families placed two sisters, then 4 and 2, in a Yakima County foster home without closely monitoring their safety for years.

According to the lawsuit, the girls were physically and sexually abused in the home from 2006 to 2015 until police arrested foster father Jose (Joe) Cortez, who eventually pleaded guilty to first-degree child molestation.

The lawsuit alleges the sisters exhibited numerous signs of sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect, but state social workers never took action to investigate or remove them from the home.

Attorneys Megan Hale and Bryan Smith, who represented the two former foster children, said they hope the settlement will help their now young-adult clients and prompt the state to make its foster care system safer for children.

"We do not expect social workers to know everything that is happening in a foster home, but these social workers failed to follow the minimum supervision guidelines during health and safety visits and left my clients in the care of monsters for nearly a decade," Hale said in a statement issued by Tamaki Law Offices.

"No amount of money can make up for what my clients lost, but my hope is that this settlement will make their lives easier and give them choices they would not have had otherwise," she added. "We are also hopeful that the state, after paying this amount of money due to their negligence, will make changes to ensure that this never happens again."

Nancy Gutierrez, communications consultant manager for the state's Department of Children, Youth and Families, emailed a brief statement to the Yakima Herald-Republic regarding the lawsuit settlement.

"Due to privacy laws, we cannot comment on case-specific details. We hope the settlement is a start to the healing process for the plaintiffs," Gutierrez stated on Wednesday afternoon.



The lawsuit states the girls' foster mother, Margaret (Maggie) Wagner, operated a licensed foster home in Yakima from approximately 2005 to 2015.

The two sisters testified that Wagner's boyfriend, Cortez, sexually molested and raped them during that time. They also testified that Wagner would hit them, deprive them of food and force them to take cold showers.

Cortez was charged on Feb. 26, 2015, with two counts of rape of a child in the first degree and two counts of child molestation in the first degree. He pleaded guilty to three counts of child molestation in the first degree on May 12, 2016.

On Oct. 6, 2016, Cortez was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 10.8 years.

Wagner's foster care license was revoked in October 2015, Hale said, as she was ultimately found by state officials to have committed two acts of physical abuse and six acts of negligence or maltreatment.

"She was never criminally charged, but was found negligent by the state," Hale told the Yakima Herald-Republic.

In her emailed statement, Hale said Wagner and Cortez repeatedly requested placement of brain-injured, drug-affected and medically fragile children, which meant larger tax-free foster parent payments, "all while abusing and neglecting (the two sisters)."

Smith added that since foster children no longer have their biological parents to protect them from harm, society must trust state Department of Children, Youth and Families officials to keep them safe.

"Dumping foster children into a foster home for years while ignoring signs of abuse and neglect is a betrayal to these kids, and a betrayal to our community (which) trusts that when kids are removed from a biological parent's home, they are not being placed in an even more dangerous environment," Smith said.

"By holding the state accountable for neglecting these two girls, who are now strong and incredibly resilient young women, we are hopeful that changes are being made in policies to ensure that foster children are never abandoned in this way again."