Foster Agency
By PAUL J. YOUNG
City News Service
RIVERSIDE (CNS) – Six children rescued from a home where their natural parents imprisoned them only to be placed with a Perris foster family who treated them like “animals” are “content” that the defendants have been sentenced, their attorneys said Monday, but now they’re waiting for their lawsuit against Riverside County and a child placement agency to be resolved, ideally for the good of current and future foster kids.
“These siblings are extremely relieved the defendants can never do to another child what happened to them,” attorney Elan Zektser said during a briefing outside the Riverside Historic Courthouse Monday. “But now they’re asking, what’s next? Each of them truly wants to see change.”
Zektser represents two of the girls from the Turpin family, while fellow attorney Roger Booth represents four other children — all of whom were placed with Marcelino Camacho Olguin, 65, his wife, Rosa Armida Olguin, 60, and their adult daughter, Lennys Giovanna Olguin, 39, after the victims were rescued from an oft-described “house of horrors” maintained by their parents in 2018.
The Olguins reached plea deals with the D.A.’s office, and on Friday, they were sentenced.
Coordinating with placement agency ChildNet, county Child Protective Services placed the six victims with the Olguins despite complaints of prior abuse in their home, according to the plaintiffs. When CPS agents were alerted to the endangerment of the Turpin children, they failed to act, according to Zektser and Booth.
“The county and ChildNet told them, `Trust us; we got you,”‘ Zektser said. “Then they placed them with child abusers and molesters. I was the head of the sexual assault unit at the (Riverside County) District Attorney’s Office, and I can tell you, prosecutors there are sick and tired of dealing with these cases from CPS.”
The county Executive Office released a statement Monday calling the Turpin siblings’ experiences “heartbreaking.”
“We remain committed to their wellbeing and their lifelong journey of healing,” the EO stated. “We appreciate our county and community partners, who collaborate with us to support this family, and every family, with services and resources.”
Zektser said instead of removing the victims from the house to take statements from them in late 2020 and early 2021, the minors were interviewed by agents in front of the defendants, causing them to clam up. It was only when the sheriff’s detective who had investigated the victims’ parents, Tom Salisbury, learned of the abuse allegations against the Olguins that the siblings were interviewed by “professionals,” culminating in a criminal investigation and charges, the attorneys said.
“Salisbury insisted they be removed from that home (in 2021),” Booth said.
Zektser characterized the abuse inflicted by the Olguins as “far greater” than what the victims experienced from their parents.
“They were treated worse than animals,” he said. “The Olguins made them sit in circles, and they would tell them, `No one cares about you. You are nothing.”‘
The attorneys’ consolidated civil complaint recited the following additional acts: “making the plaintiffs sit by themselves, sometimes outside, for many hours at a time”; “making plaintiffs recount, in detail, the horrors that they had experienced while living with their parents”; “verbally abusing plaintiffs, cursing at them, and telling them that they were worthless and should commit suicide”; “forcing them to eat until they began to vomit,” then compelling them “to eat their own vomit.”
Marcelino Olguin also repeatedly groped and kissed two of the girls. Money that was intended for the plaintiffs was sometimes pocketed by the defendants, the attorneys said.
Zektser said while his and Booth’s clients are “content with what happened” in the Olguins’ case, “they are continuously asking what the county is going to do.”
The attorneys said they hoped reforms to the foster care system proposed by former federal Judge Stephen Larson and the county Grand Jury in 2022 would net results.
“Things happen that you don’t know about,” Booth said. “Much of what happens in the system is shrouded in secrecy. There are lots of children being subjected to abuse, and no one knows about it.”
Zektser said if his clients, whose parental mistreatment gained international attention, can end up in conditions like those they encountered in the Olguin home, there’s “a bigger issue” that warrants resolution for the good of all minors in foster care.
“Money changes things,” the attorney said. “We are seeking a confidential amount. These now-young adults, our clients, need help. This (lawsuit) will also hopefully change how these agencies do business.”
A settlement conference is set for January. If there’s no pretrial agreement, the attorneys said they’ll be ready for trial.
County spokeswoman Brooke Federico said ChildNet is no longer utilized by the Department of Public Social Services.
“DPSS continues to address existing placement gaps and expand safe, available placements,” she said. “The county is dedicated to continuous quality improvement, and we are constantly reviewing our practices, procedures and policies. We have implemented many of the Larson report’s recommendations and are in the process of implementing several more.”
Only one of the 13 Turpin children, a girl who’s now 8 years old, remains in foster care. The others are in college, trying to procure employment and find paths forward, Zektser and Booth said.
District Attorney Mike Hestrin and the Larson report acknowledged the Turpin siblings had received some funds from hundreds of thousands of dollars in charitable donations made after they were liberated from their parents’ Muir Woods Road residence. How much of that money remains available has not been divulged.
The victims’ parents, David Turpin, 61, and Louise Turpin, 54, were each sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison in 2019 after admitting child cruelty charges.
They kept some of their children restrained most times of the day, forced them to subsist on peanut butter sandwiches and burritos, made them sleep up to 20 hours daily, and allowed them to shower only once a year. There was also physical abuse that resulted in injuries.
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