WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
A South Carolina state company that is supposed to guard weak youngsters left a teenage woman “within the fingers of a monster,” in response to a lawsuit.
Gregg Martin, a suspected predator going through over a dozen intercourse crime fees since 2022, allegedly groomed his sufferer, pumped her full of medication and mentally and bodily abused her for six weeks, the lawsuit says.
The authorized motion focused the state’s social service division and particular person caseworkers for allegedly ignoring the sufferer’s mom’s “repeated requests” to take away her daughter from the house — even earlier than the sexual abuse allegations got here to gentle — and failing to make sure the Martin residence was a “secure surroundings.”
“What that youngster suffered by the hands of a monster was simply unbelievable,” the household’s lawyer, Debra Butcher, instructed Fox Information Digital.
Fox Information Digital despatched South Carolina’s Division of Social Companies a listing of questions, however a spokesperson declined to remark.
“DSS doesn’t touch upon pending litigation or circumstances concerned in litigation,” a spokesperson stated in an e-mail.
Martin, 56, was arrested by the Richland County Sheriff’s Workplace in South Carolina as not too long ago as March on warrants for alleged intercourse crimes in opposition to a minor in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
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The Peach State legal fees embody use of laptop providers to seduce, solicit, lure or entice a toddler to commit unlawful acts; electronically furnishing obscene materials to minors and obscene web contact with a toddler. That brings the entire of legal fees to 14 in South Carolina, most of which stem from the alleged abuse of {the teenager} in his care in 2022, plus a minimum of three in Georgia, in response to court docket data.
A decide revoked Martin’s bond in mid-April, and he is being held in a Richland County jail. His lawyer could not be reached for remark.
{The teenager} was initially faraway from her residence by the Division of Social Companies because it investigated allegations of abuse and neglect in opposition to the woman’s father.
She was despatched to stay with Martin, who was household of the sufferer’s greatest pal, regardless of her mom’s objections, in response to a lawsuit filed in South Carolina in February by the Foster Care Abuse Regulation Agency.
However the sufferer’s household believed it could not say no after Protecting Companies allegedly “threatened” to put her in foster care and primarily strong-armed them into signing a security plan.
A security plan, also referred to as an alternate residing association, usually locations a toddler with one other relative or shut household pal throughout an abuse investigation, one of many household’s legal professionals, Robert Butcher, defined to Fox Information Digital.
On this case, the state positioned her within the fingers of Martin for about 5 to 6 weeks.
Throughout that point, nobody from the company checked on her, in response to the lawsuit, which allowed Martin to allegedly shoot specific pictures of his sufferer and abuse her, Debra Butcher stated.
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“DSS (Division of Social Companies) not as soon as got here out to that residence,” Butcher stated. “All these 5 weeks or so, her mother stored saying, ‘My husband can transfer out of the home. We will put her with a relative. We put her with a neighbor. … We do not need her to remain there [in the Martin home].'”
This was even earlier than the legal allegations bubbled to the floor.
Texts between the mother and a caseworker, solely obtained by Fox Information Digital, allegedly present how exhausting the teenager’s mother fought to get her daughter again.
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In a number of texts from late February to mid-March 2022, the sufferer’s mother stated her daughter’s father would transfer out if her daughter may return residence. She additionally left voicemails, Debra Butcher stated.
“I’ve been attempting to speak with you since 2/23 and haven’t but heard from you,” the mother texted the caseworker. “Is the whole lot okay? I am involved by the dearth of communication.”
One other week handed with out a solution. Once more, the sufferer’s mother texted the caseworker and begged her to reply.
“I do not perceive the delay on this and why nobody is looking us and responding to our requests,” her mother stated in a textual content.
After a couple of dozen messages — most of which went unanswered — the caseworker stated they could not take away the sufferer from Martin’s residence as a result of the paperwork was already signed.
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About six weeks after protecting providers left the sufferer with Martin, a brand new caseworker took over and moved the kid out of Martin’s home, Debra Butcher stated, and the sufferer and her mother had been lastly capable of discuss “freely.”
That is when “the kid disclosed what occurred,” Debra stated, and Martin was arrested shortly thereafter.
The trauma nonetheless haunts the sufferer greater than two years later.
“She spoke about this, most likely two weeks in the past. And when she completed, she needed to stand up and depart and was in tears and shaking,” Debra stated. “It is nonetheless very traumatic for her.”
The Foster Care Abuse Regulation Agency has three — quickly to be 4 — different lawsuits alleging the state company carried out pointless, invasive exams on youngsters beneath the guise of checking to see if youngsters had been sexually abused.
However there have been no allegations of abuse, or bodily signs to counsel sexual trauma, in response to the lawsuits.
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All of the authorized actions in opposition to two teams and 4 docs had been filed in South Carolina as not too long ago as Might 15 and reviewed by Fox Information Digital. Robert stated a fourth lawsuit is within the works however hasn’t been filed but.
The language and allegations are related in every lawsuit, and the victims are younger ladies and boys.
The authorized motion contains severe allegations the legal professionals stated is “primarily rape,” and asks the courts to cease the defendants “from performing pointless and intrusive pediatric genitourinary exams … when there are not any allegations, and even suspicions of sexual abuse. … As a direct results of longstanding, well-documented failures of defendants … youngsters … have been and proceed to be harmed bodily, psychologically and emotionally and proceed to be positioned at ongoing threat of such hurt.”
Robert Butcher stated it is regarding there are “probably tons of of hundreds of photos of youngsters’s genitalia” within the possession of Prisma Well being, which was named as one of many defendants.
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Prisma Well being stated it doesn’t touch upon ongoing litigation.
The alleged exams described by the Butchers are graphic and disturbing. Their our bodies are uncovered and bodily probed, in response to the legal professionals.
“Typically, within the strategy of desirous to do good, a few of these of us are doing hurt to those youngsters,” Robert Butcher stated.
“That is sexual abuse,” Debra Butcher stated.
Every of the lawsuits implores the courts to ban the Division of Social Companies and Prisma Well being from performing a lot of these exams with out allegations.
