Parents of caged kids lose custody

Special needs children are living in foster homes

Monday, March 20, 2006; Posted: 11:56 a.m. EST (16:56 GMT)

NORWALK, Ohio (AP) -- A couple accused of abusing their 11 adopted special-needs children by making them sleep in cages lost permanent custody Monday.

Huron County Juvenile Judge Timothy Cardwell awarded custody to the county, which had placed the children in foster care last fall after a social worker discovered the enclosures.

The judge ruled earlier that Michael and Sharen Gravelle had abused the children, and he said evidence showed there was a good chance they would repeat the behavior.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/20/caged.kids.ap/index.html

I hope they get a long sentence!!

These adults should be in jail and on a no-kid list.

per kid TAX free.

This is a big time CON and Abuse job.

Their abuses of these children were so vile & egregious they should be in the hoosegow for 20 years. If the USA protected and honored it's children (like they should) this would happen.

until the kids are 18. If they are still dependent, then the parents would apply for SSI for them. Either way, it's bad, because sometimes the adoption subsidy pays even more than SSI.

A kid with a lot of needs could draw $25 or more as a daily rate. That's at least $750 a month.

does not have to be spent on prescriptions (from what I understand) .

and too many kids who need either short-term or long-term shelter (despite what anyone says, family reunification is the goal in most agencies) so people like this are happy to game the system as long as they can get away with it.

I remember reading about one woman who had a passel of foster children whom she sent off to daycare 8-10 hours a day so she could go off and blow her monthly stipend at the boats. (I have nothing against daycare, btw.) She finally went too far by enrolling them all in a care center that did not provide food: parents or caregivers had to bankroll their kids' meals. She, of course, left the kids there without a scrap of food to eat and the center dropped the nickel on her. Don't recall what happened to her, but I'm sure it was nothing too awful.

When there are thousands of children in the system needing good, loving foster homes.

they could get the kids back.