Sunday, November 15, 2015

A New Fraud In The Florida Privatization of Child Welfare

Privatization of services in child welfare has resulted in zero oversight mechanisms as everything is self reported.

In essence, privatization polices itself, resulting in extremely disturbing behavior, such as human trafficking, reimbursed by the State of Florida.

"How did this woman get legal custody of all these state wards without any red flags going off?", is my primary question.

Fired Miami social worker gets 1 1/2 years in prison for extorting families of refugee children

As a newly hired employee for a Miami social services agency, Leslie Rubero Padilla’s job was to reunite unaccompanied refugee children with their parents or legal guardians in the United States.

She was supposed to charge the families only for transportation, such as airfare. But
authorities say Rubero shook down more than a dozen of them by insisting they had to send her additional money or the reunification with their children would be delayed — or, worse, they would be deported back to their native country in Central America.

“This case is just so shocking because this defendant preyed on the most vulnerable people,” federal prosecutor Daniel Bernstein said at Rubero’s sentencing hearing on Friday.

“Why is it so offensive? She calculated that these are people I can rip off because they are not going to report it.”

The prosecutor asked U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles to send Rubero, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud in September, to prison for four years. Bernstein pointed out that she not only exploited the poor parents and guardians for a total of $11,100, but also noted: “She had legal custody of their children.”

Gayles, however, showed a bit of lenience, after Rubero cried repeatedly in Miami federal court and declared: “I am not a bad person, though I did a bad thing.”

The judge sentenced her to 1 1/2 years in prison — though Gayles admitted that he started the hearing inclined to give her more punishment, just not as much as the prosecutor wanted.



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