PHOTO CAPTION: "Mark Pinsley, Lehigh County controller, speaks about his investigation that has uncovered evidence of an abnormally high number of medical child abuse diagnoses in the Northeast region of Pennsylvania that impact Lehigh County costs Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, at Lehigh County Government Center in Allentown."
GIST: "Lehigh County’s controller called for a third-party investigation into what he alleges was a cover-up of his report last year regarding child abuse misdiagnoses.
“From my perspective, there seems to have been a concerted effort to stop the report from coming out,” Mark Pinsley said during a Thursday virtual news conference.
During the news conference, which saw attendance from District Attorney Gavin Holihan and reporters, Pinsley restated claims that The Morning Call reported on last month.
Holihan did not comment on Pinsley’s claims.
Documents provided by Pinsley indicated that his report, “The Cost of Misdiagnosis,” received criticism from some county officials, including Lehigh County solicitor David Backenstoe, who warned Pinsley and his staff of potential liability.
Pinsley’s report detailed what it said was an “abnormally high number” of medical abuse cases in the region and criticized doctors for what it alleges were rushed medical decisions that led to children being taken from homes by child welfare workers in both Lehigh and Northampton counties.
“We need to get to the bottom of this so that changes can be made to our system, and that we can protect our families and children,” Pinsley said.
The Board of Commissioners would need to approve such an investigation, he said, adding that he wouldn’t know the motivation for a cover-up.
“That’s why we need the investigation,” Pinsley said. “I don’t know.”
Pinsley detailed the following timeline of events:
On the same day of Backenstoe’s warning, Aug. 16, the county Finance Department informed Pinsley’s office that two positions were being cut from the controller’s office for the 2024 budget.
After Pinsley said Aug. 17 that he wouldn’t issue the misdiagnosis report, he said he was told Aug. 18 that his two positions were no longer being cut.
Pinsley waited until the 2024 budget went to print Aug. 23, with the two positions included, and then released the report to the public.
During Thursday’s news conference, Pinsley restated previous accusations that Commissioners Geoff Brace and Jeffrey Dutt were aware of the staff cuts, with Dutt having worked to prevent those positions from being restored.
Pinsley further alleged that Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong said the budget cut was a “scare tactic” while speaking with Director of Administration Ed Hozza. Hozza recommended against the budget cut, Pinsley said.
The county controller said that after releasing his report, the county refused his request for an additional $10,000 to hire independent legal counsel, and that Dutt tried to cut a $2,000 budget request from Pinsley with “no stated reason.”
“It seemed like retaliation,” Pinsley said.
In a news release from Pinsley’s office, Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, said the findings “demand urgent action, and the allegations of intimidation and retaliation demand an independent investigation.
Armstrong, Brace and Dutt again denied Pinsley’s claims.
“There was no cut in [Pinsley’s] department,” Armstrong said, adding that a third-party investigation would be a waste of taxpayer money.
“The assertion of threats or retribution does not reflect what happened in the budgeting process, all of which occurred in public during September and October after his report was released on Aug. 23,” Brace said, adding that he would ask the county’s finance committee to review the budget process and explains how it works.
“My response to [Pinsley’s accusations] would be ‘absolutely not,’ ” Dutt said.
Armstrong previously explained that the county considers all departments for potential ways to save costs and ultimately decided it could afford to not make cuts to Pinsley’s staffing.
Armstrong said he vetoed the budget amendment for independent counsel because the controller’s legal budget already had the funds needed for it. He added that he had already signed off on Pinsley’s hiring attorney Matthew Mobilio as the controller office’s solicitor.
While no action has been taken by the county, a number of lawsuits have been filed against Lehigh Valley Health Network, Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen and others by families who say they were wrongfully accused of child abuse and split up as a result.
While not specifically named in Pinsley’s report, families singled out Esernio-Jenssen, then-head of the LVHN’s John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center, the only child advocacy center in the region. LVHN would later replace her with Dr. Sarah Kleinle after what the network said was a yearlong search.
“The parents have not felt like they’ve gotten any satisfaction, so they have continued to move forward,” Pinsley said. “I think what is nice for us is that you can now see some of the stuff that I saw.”
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.mcall.com/2024/02/22/lehigh-county-controller-calls-for-third-party-investigation-into-cover-up-of-his-child-abuse-report/PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801
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