California Three Year Old Maybe Abused in Social Services Custody

                              (John Barton, from his Facebook page. 
 

A California man says he three-year-old son was taken haphazardly by local Child Protective Services (CPS), and now, his son may be abused in foster care.

John Barton said his three-year-old son was taken by Child and Welfare Services (CWS) in Humboldt County, California, on July 31, 2020.

Barton and his wife are both products of foster care when they were growing up, and he told me he thinks that does make him a target when dealing with CWS.

He said at a recent supervised visit after his son was taken, he noticed bruises. Barton shared two photos; one is too graphic while the other is below.

Barton said his wife is an alcoholic and he called CWS in July for help getting her into treatment, but this set off a chain of events, and he believes his son is being abused in his foster home.

Barton noted that while he has been homeless, and he constantly struggles with housing, this was not a reason given for taking his son.

“In California all you need is an umbrella for the rain. But they cannot take your children for homelessness,” he said in an email.

However, in this case, CWS certainly suggests his homelessness is part of a pattern of abuse and neglect.

The Set Up

According to the warrant which Humboldt CWS filed, both Barton and his wife were mentally unstable and a danger to their son.

“The Department is concerned the parents are using substances, have mental health issues, and are engaging in domestic violence in front of {their child}. There is also concerns that {their child} and the parents are living in unhealthy conditions,” the warrant seeking Barton’s son’s removal stated.

According to the warrant, in December 2019, there was a referral for physical abuse, and the family was kicked out of housing because Barton’s wife’s alcohol problem.

“On or about 12/16/2019, Child Welfare Services received a referral of physical abuse and emotional abuse of {Barton’s son} by his mother and father,” the warrant stated, “the mother stated the family had been kicked out of PACT housing and their friends put them in a hotel for the evening.”

Barton said the only involvement CWS had at the time with his family was when he needed housing after they got kicked out of this low-income housing program, PACT.

He said CWS helped with temporary housing, but he thought the matter was closed after that.

The social worker in charge tracked down the director of a homeless mission where Barton and his wife were staying in January.

According to an employee of this homeless shelter, “they were no longer welcome at the mission due to hygiene and cleanliness issues. Ms. Freeman said that mom’s arm pits stink and her personal care was not good. Ms. Freeman stated that Ms. Payton was a good mom. Ms. Freeman stated that the mother was loving and takes good care of {their son},” the warrant stated.

The warrant now states that Barton and his wife fled California to escape the burgeoning investigation, but the investigation stopped and did not start again until May.

Barton told me they did not flea but that COVID made housing in California impossible and they needed to go to another state for a while.

The May Encounter

In May, Humboldt CWS again investigated the family again.

“On or about 5/15/2020, the Butte Interagency Narcotic Task Force had a referral alleging general neglect of {Barton’s son} by his mother and father.” The warrant stated. “The referral alleged the parents and {their son} were seen at the emergency room in Butte County for bed bugs. {Their son} had bite marks and some scratches. {Their son} was clean.”

Barton told me they did go to the emergency room in May for bed bugs which were found in the housing they were staying at the time; they have since moved into another hotel.

It appears that this report was later determined unfounded.

“It was noted on the referral that the family did not have any substantiated referrals and the 5/15/2020 referral was evaluated out,” the warrant stated.

The July Encounter

In July, Barton told me, his wife’s drinking became uncontrollable. He initiated a phone call, he told me, on July 23, 2020, to CWS to get her into treatment.

The warrant says something similar, “The father expressed wanting to have the mother at Waterfront Recovery Services but did not have a plan for that and it is unknown if the mother was in agreement.”

Barton’s wife has since entered treatment.

But the warrant said more, “On or about 7/23/2020, CWS received a referral of emotional abuse of {Barton’s son} by his mother and father.”

Humboldt CWS decided to take the child eight days later, 7/31/2020.

There are reasons to be skeptical of this narrative.

A Staffer Responds

I spoke with a staffer at the Motel 8 where Barton and his wife were staying when this referral was made and the staffer painted a much different picture, saying much of the information was misleading or lies.

“He showed me somethings in the report stating that the Motel 8 had called them- the social workers- to tell them they were leaving their child alone for long periods of time, and that’s completely untrue,” the staffer said, “We will call social workers if we see something like that. We never saw anything like that.”

“I never saw that kid unattended,” the staffer also stated.

The warrant also stated, “The referral alleges the mother and father fight daily and almost every night. The father could be heard threatening to punch the mother. It is unknown if he did punch the mother. It was reported that the father will go outside the room to yell and curse.”

But the staffer said none of this is true, “One time, I got a complaint that they were arguing, and the guest called the police, but that’s the only one that I know of. They would argue sometimes- but people argue.”

“It’s a couple with a young kid,” the staffer noted, “they argue like normal.”

The warrant even suggested that Barton and his wife refused to wear a mask for COVID, “Motel staff was concerned about COVID and them not following COVID precautions.”

The staffer said this too was blow out of proportion. Initially, they were not wearing a mask but after being warned, they have worn one since.

The warrant also suggested that Barton and his wife were unreasonably dirty, “Motel staff that the sheets that they were unable to wash the sheets and had to throw away the sheets. The living environment was filthy and dirty, and the motel staff had concerns about the living conditions inside the room.”

The staffer noted this was very misleading.
“We had to toss the sheets. All we did was tell them to try and maintain more cleanliness. But it’s because when they checked in- obviously they were staying with the county- so I was assuming they were homeless before, because all the people that the county pays for to stay with us are homeless, so obviously, they’re dirty.”

But the staffer noted that this was immediately fixed, and the sheets were clean going forward, “That was in the beginning. That was it.”

More Reason for Skepticism

The warrant also noted that John Barton became belligerent when his son was taken.

He said, “fuck law enforcement” and “the father began raising his voice while holding {their son}, telling the mother, ‘I told you not to fucking talk,” according to the warrant.

Barton provided video footage from the motel and it shows him leaving before their son was taken.

 

He denies doing any of the inflammatory things in the warrant, like saying “fuck law enforcement.”

The Humboldt County CWS said they could not comment due to privacy issues.

“Thank you for your inquiry, but we cannot answer questions about cases involving juveniles due to confidentiality,” stated Christine Messinger, from the California Department of Health and Human Services.

However, Barton told me that a subsequent hearing, only days after my query, he was warned in court that speaking to the press could lead to sanctions.

He said he is being punished for taking proactive steps to treat his wife’s alcoholism.

Post Script

If you believe there should be more articles like this, please support a new endeavor I have started. Please, check out the crowdfunding site for a media organization which tells stories about abuses in family court, child protective services, probate, wrongful convictions, along with other stories told be whistle-blowers and other truth tellers.

Please find the crowdfunding site here.

THE AMERICAN FATHER IN SWITZERLAND IGNORED BY HIGH-UP GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS IN BOTH THE U.S.A. AND SWITZERLAND, WHILE HIS TWO SONS CONTINUE TO SUFFER IN SWISS CPS CUSTODY FOR MORE THAN 3 YEARS

(Screenshot of Neal Sutz, from Twitter)

The case of an American whose two children have been legally kidnapped by Swiss authorities has heated up.

On July 25^th, 2017, Neal Sutz two children were taken temporarily by the Switzerland version of Child Protective Services which is called SPMi.

More than three years later, the two children remain in the custody of SPMi.

Sutz story has been covered extensively; for instance, the website, MedicalKidnap, covered their story in July 2019: It was also previously covered by NOQ Report and Northwest Liberty News. 

Sutz also wrote a book entitled: “Scream of Silence – A Father’s Unfathomable Story to Save His Sons”.

The Set Up

Sutz left the State of Arizona in 2017 after receiving proof of child molestation allegations against the family of Sutz then wife, Cortnie.

Sutz, whose mother was born in Switzerland, was thereby both American by birth, as well as a Swiss citizen.

He, his wife, and two children moved to Switzerland at the end of June 2017.

On July 14 or 15, 2017, his wife had an episode and tried to kill herself and her son.

“It was during the night of July 14 or 15, 2017, that Cortnie, who suffers from serious psychiatric disorders as a result of the abuse she suffered throughout her life at the hands of her family and their associates, made then much worse by her exposure to seeing her nephew being molested by his step-father (also non-biological grandfather) on video tried to end her life in our apartment in Geneva, with severe serious threats of committing a double suicide with our son,” Sutz said in a lawsuit he filed last year.

Sutz continued that he got the situation under control, “Fortunately, I was able to retrieve Skyler from Cortnie’s grasp, place him in safety in a separate room and then talk Cortnie out of killing herself.”

Though the situation was eventually calmed down, SPMi came to visit Neal and his two sons less than 24 hours later saying they were concerned about the well-being of the two boys.

“Just nine days later, on July 25, 2017, completely as a surprise to me, social workers from Geneva’s Child Protective Services (further referred to as SPMi), in company with multiple doctors, nurses, social workers, and two HUG (Geneva University Hospital) hospital security guards, tore both my sons from my arms, during a physical exam, and placed them immediately in a small hospital room in the pediatric ward of HUG.” Sutz stated in the same lawsuit. “The SPMi and HUG Hospital authorities then had me physically removed from the HUG Hospital, by two security guards, having shown me no paperwork whatsoever, upon seizure of my sons, and told me only, ‘We are keeping your sons here at the hospital. Get a lawyer.’”

The nightmare was only beginning

Here is some more from the Medical Kidnap article.

“His wife is allegedly part of an influential family in the Mormon Church in Arizona. She claims, and has testified in court, that she and other members of her family were sexually abused as children, and she feared her own children were in danger. (Link to her handwritten letter submitted in court.)

“Both boys are special needs children needing medical care, and shortly after arriving in Switzerland, they were allegedly medically kidnapped under the authority of Swiss child protective services (SPMi) after their mother experienced a psychotic breakdown in Geneva.

“SPMi brought in an American psychiatrist living in Geneva, Dr. Daniel Scott Schechter, to handle the Sutz case.

“One of Dr. Schechter’s special interests is the effect of mothers with post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) on their children. He was the winner of an award for this work shortly after taking on the Sutz boys’ case (link), and continues to win awards for his work on studying the effects of mothers with PTSD on their children. (2019 award link.)

“Neal has been fighting the system for over 2 years (3 years and 3 weeks as of the publication of this article) to try and get his children back, and even took out a full page advertisement in the Washington Times to publish a letter written to President Donald Trump asking him to intervene in Switzerland. He does not believe President Trump or anyone (high-up loyalists to President Trump) in his administration ever saw it.”

ISS (International Social Services)

Recently, Sutz discovered a shadowy group called the International Social Services (ISS), which Sutz told me was the “International CPS.”

They have been involved in the Sutz Family case for about three years according to court-certified documents, from just days after the boys were first seized.

Sutz even claims, and offers extensive written documentation, that the US State Department was in cahoots with ISS and SPMi.

I reached out to ISS and Swiss CPS but received no response.

The Bivens Suit

All these allegations are part of an explosive lawsuit which he filed in April 2020.

It is called a Bivens action and the lawsuit is below.

SUTZ v POWERS ET AL Origina... by mikekvolpe on Scribd

A Bivens action is named after the 1971 US Supreme Court Case Bivens Vs. Six Unnamed Agents. A Bivens action, “generally refers to a lawsuit for damages when a federal officer who is acting in the color of federal authority allegedly violates the U.S. Constitution by federal officers acting,” according to Cornell Law.

The U.S. State Department

A State Department official provided this statement, “The U.S. Embassy in Switzerland is aware of the case. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment.”

The official continued explaining what services an American abroad would receive in Neal’s situation, “Regarding support provided by consular officers, consular officers generally provide all appropriate consular services to U.S. citizens overseas. Consular assistance may include:  attempting to monitor the legal process and access to legal counsel; visiting U.S. citizens to ensure that they are receiving humane treatment, including medical treatment if needed; and with the individual’s permission, facilitating communications with their families or others as they wish.”

Remarkably, Sutz filed his lawsuit on April 27, 2020, by April 30, 2020, it was dismissed.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson

The judge who dismissed it is one who has found her way into the news a lot recently: Judge Amy Berman Jackson.

Judge Jackson presided over the trials of Paul Manafort and Roger Stone.

Just on August 10, 2020, Judge Jackson made a significant ruling on executive privilege. Here is part of a story in Politico.

“A federal judge has rebuffed the Trump administration’s attempt to invoke executive privilege to withhold a batch of emails about a hold President Donald Trump put on U.S. aid to Ukraine in 2019.

“U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said Monday that the government had failed to make a convincing showing that the 21 messages between White House aide Robert Blair and Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey were eligible for protection under legal privileges protecting the development of presidential advice or decisions made by other government officials.”

In the Sutz case, she seemed to have dismissed the case before the lawsuit was even served to the defendants. She ruled before the defendants themselves had provided a legal reasoning for the case to be dismissed.

Sutz insisted to me that her legal reasoning was defective. That is difficult to assess, but even if Sutz lawsuit should have been dismissed, it is rare a judge decides to dismiss it before the defendant has had an opportunity to raise an argument.

I called her chambers for an explanation but received no response.

Daniel Scott Schechter, M.D.

Another interesting detail in this case is the presence of Dr. Daniel Scott Schechter. Dr. Schechter is a world-renowned child psychiatrist.

In 2019, he received the Sandor Ferenczi Award, which is given yearly “ the best published psychoanalytically-oriented clinical or research paper on trauma and/or dissociation in adults or children,” according to the award’s page.

Dr. Schechter was an American working at the University of Geneva who was summoned onto the case before the boys were even seized at the Geneva University Hospital.

Medical Kidnap had more, “As we stated in the introduction, SPMi brought in an American psychiatrist living in Geneva, Dr. Daniel Schechter, to handle the Sutz case.

“The first thing he reportedly did, was to go visit Cortnie at Belle-Idée, the Psychiatric Hospital of The Canton of Geneva.

“Dr. Schechter’s is world-renowned for studying the effect of mothers with post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) on their children. He was the winner of an award for this work shortly after taking on the Sutz boys’ case (link), and continues to win awards for his work on studying the effects of mothers with PTSD on their children. (2019 award link).”

The article continued, “After Cortnie’s 60-day confinement was over, Dr. Schechter reportedly advised SPMi to allow her to have almost unlimited visitation rights to the two boys, while advising that Neal have very limited contact with them, and requiring Neal to get psychiatric treatment.

“So the mother, who had just spent 60 days in a psych ward for an attempted double suicide, was granted more visitation rights than the father, who was previously a successful writer and film producer for mental health advocacy work.”

It is noteworthy that Cortnie eventually left Switzerland, have already signed the rights to her children to Neal before the Sutz family even came to Switzerland. Switzerland’s Family Court never acknowledged the validity of that American document.

Sutz told me that Dr. Schechter was and continues to be instrumental in keeping him away from his two sons.

I reached out to Dr. Schechter at the University of Geneva, but he did not respond to my questions.

Recent Media

Since the Spring 2020, Neal has been able to get all sorts of new attention.

He has appeared several times on The Steel Truth with Ann Vandersteel, with RedPill 78, Jeff Dornik, Eric Matheny, National File, and others.

All that media attention culminated in three Arizona political candidates coming out publicly in backing Sutz.

Two of the candidates - Steve Robinson and Shelby Busch - were write-in candidates for the Arizona legislature, but the third - Josh Barnett - recently won his primary for the US Congress in the 7^th District as a Republican.

The three initially put a statement on video on July 25, 2020.

     (the three politicians making their announcement from left to right: Robinson, Barnett, and Busch)

“We are Arizona candidates,” Busch says in the video speaking for the three, “that have been provided extensive files, and videos, and audio footage regarding a case of a father and his two sons. We are here today to make a diplomatic demand.”

Barnett continued, “We are here this evening to formally and collectively make disclosure demand as a matter of international humanitarian urgency in support of an American citizen and father, Neal David Sutz, and his two sons, who have been detained by the Child Protective Services in Switzerland for three years now.”

The video was put out on the three-year anniversary of the seizure.

I spoke with Busch and she said Sutz’ case is like many she’s been exposed to.

“You’re talking to somebody who’s seen a lot of corruption within the CPS and DCS system,” Busch said, “A lot of people are under the impression that these organizations are just about protecting children and that mistakes can sometimes happen. I guess I’ve been looking into this too long to realize that’s not really the case.”

She said in 95 percent of CPS cases she believes people are denied due process, “In Neal’s case, he was most definitely denied any form of due process.”

She continued, “There’s no crime committed here. Neal’s not being charged with harming his kids, sexually abusing his kids, doing drugs.”

Busch said one thing which stands out about this case is the US government’s failure to protect its citizens, “Our government is not doing its job to protect American citizens from this kind of egregious intrusion into our lives by foreign governments.”

I had been working on my own article when he sent me an email on July 31, 2020, stating in part, “If there is anything else you need re details to finish the article, I have to ask you to do it yourself.  I received one more severe warning this afternoon here in Switzerland and I am now off social media totally and not doing any more interviews for the foreseeable future.”

I would speak again with Sutz, after having contacted the State Department, Dr. Schechter, and others, and he sounded more hopeful, but he has done only one brief interview in August.

Conversation with Omar Agustoni, Swiss Film Maker and Journalist

 I spoke with Omar Agustoni to get some context on all this.

 Agustoni is the only person to produce a documentary to examine the Swiss social service system; that documentary is entitled, “Trees of Shame – Switzerland’s Crimes Against Children.” Sutz and Agustoni initially met last Autumn when a mutual acquaintance

Introduced the two of them, this meeting resulting in Sutz translating the film from its original French/Italian version into English, including both English subtitles and Sutz doing an English voiceover.

 “For the last five years, I see this reality every day, “Agustoni said, “The system is well built by psychologists and judges: they all work together.”

 Besides Agustoni’s film, Swiss CPS was previously the subject of scandal when it was revealed that many foster children had been turned into “slave children.”

 Neal had mentioned that he believed that approximately as many people were in foster care in Switzerland as in the US; this would be a dramatic number given that the population of the US is 330 million people while in Switzerland is about 8.57 million.

 I asked Agustoni about this, but he said it was impossible to know because the government does not compile such statistics, despite the Swiss Government’s detailed statistics on the swiss cattle population throughout that Alpine nation.

 Neal also mentioned that due to Switzerland being a socialist state, the free speech is not altogether free.

 Agustoni explained that about 90% of all media was financed by the government and as such journalists need to tip toe around sensitive topics like a broken social service system.

 Mr. Agustoni had only this to say in conclusion, “How long will this go on before this father’s two sons are unconditionally returned to him? How many more powerful politicians and journalists will choose to bury the nightmare story of this wrongly persecuted father and his two, now horrifically sad, abused and alienated sons?”

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