Four former foster kids who had been allegedly abused by a Massachusetts couple will probably be paid $7 million underneath a settlement with the state.
Lawyers for the 4 introduced the settlement Friday afternoon. One of the 4 died earlier than the settlement was concluded.
The plaintiffs sued the Department of Children and Families Services and 17 DCF employees in Middlesex Superior Court, claiming their constitutional rights had been violated by the group’s indifference to the kids’s remedy by Raymond and Susan Blouin.
The lawsuit alleged the kids had been locked in canine crates, pressured to carry out intercourse acts, submerged in ice baths to the purpose of drowning and threatened with demise whereas underneath the couple’s care. The plaintiffs additionally allege that DCF — then often called the Department of Social Services — ignored a number of experiences of abuse and was intentionally detached to the abuse allegedly occurring within the house.
The 4 lived with the couple in Oxford, Massachusetts, at varied occasions from the late Nineties to 2004.
The Blouins and Susan Blouin’s boyfriend, Philip Paquette, had been charged with youngster abuse in 2003 and 2004, in response to The Boston Globe. Raymond Blouin pleaded responsible and acquired two years’ probation. Susan Blouin acquired pre-trial probation and the case was dismissed inside a 12 months.
In 2019, after two of the victims got here ahead, the couple was charged once more, the Globe reported. The Blouins are actually going through one rely of assault and battery on a toddler.
The Blouins have denied the costs.
Lawyers for the 4 former foster kids mentioned they hope the settlement will encourage those that have suffered abuse to come back ahead.
“Our clients have suffered unimaginably, first as survivors of torture and then because they weren’t believed,” Erica Brody, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, mentioned in an announcement. “We hope that this case shows other mistreated foster children that if they come forward, their voices will be heard, and people will be held accountable.”
The Department of Children and Families couldn’t be reached for remark.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”