This is an absolute outrage! - Laura, whereabouts
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WASHINGTON (Map, News)
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There’s an empty highchair sitting in the kitchen of the Arlington home of Nancy Hey and Christopher Slitor. It’s their daughter Sabrina’s highchair. But it’s been empty for  two years because thieves disguised as Arlington County social workers and judges took her from her parents. She was stolen
with no public scrutiny or accountability. Arlington County social
workers used unproven allegations of neglect in April 2005 to justify
removing then-3-week-old Sabrina from her parent’s home. Her parents
were accused - anonymously - of starving Sabrina. And they were deemed
unable to care properly for their daughter, even with the frequent help
of Nancy Hey’s mother and a full-time nanny. After more than two years
of legal wrangling with the county’s Child Protective Services (CPS),
Arlington Circuit Court Judge James Almand terminated the couple’s
parental rights in June 2007.
But nine months earlier, Sabrina’s parents were completely exonerated by Virginia CPS hearing officer George Walton,
who noted in his official report that, despite the baby’s worrisome
10-ounce weight loss soon after her birth by Caesarian section, nothing
in the her medical record indicated she had ever been in danger. There
was also no evidence, Walton added, that Sabrina’s “failure to thrive”
resulted from parental neglect.
In fact, the record showed the
opposite: Nancy Hey – who suffers from a developmental disorder that
makes it difficult for her to recognize non-verbal signals from others
– and her husband fully cooperated with medical professionals and CPS
workers throughout their ordeal. In any case, Sabrina was at her proper
weight when she was taken away by county officials, two days after her
parents told social worker Dana Zemke that they were retaining a lawyer. Arlington Judge Esther Wiggins Lyles signed the removal order with neither Hey nor Slitor even aware of the
proceedings, much less being present to contest the decision. Sabrina
went to a politically influential local professional couple with no
training as foster parents, despite CPS requirements that foster
couples be trained before being entrusted with children.
Judge
Almand later used the baby’s inappropriate removal to justify making
the separation permanent, saying it would be too “traumatic” to return
Sabrina to her natural parents. So, when Sabrina turned 3 April 3rd,
she didn’t blow out her birthday candles in the kitchen where her
heart-broken parents still keep her empty highchair. Even after
spending $350,000 in legal fees, they have not given up hope. They’ve
asked the Virginia Court of Appeals to return their child. Meanwhile, every Arlington County employee
involved should be put under oath and questioned in public about their
role in this outrage.