Starletta Banks displays pictures of her children. She hasn’t seen them since 2000.
July 2, 2004
Mother sues state for racketeering
She says officials kidnapped her children
By Diane Bukowski
The Michigan Citizen
Starletta Banks displays pictures of her children. She hasn’t seen them since 2000. |
DETROIT — Starletta Banks has not seen her three children, Darius, now 11,
Danielle, now 7, and Darren, now 5, since the year 2000, but she says she is
determined to have them come home again to her loving arms.
“It’s been devastating,” said Banks. “It’s been hard holding jobs and
eating and sleeping. You can’t even imagine the Christmases and birthdays
I’ve spent. When we get them back, whenever that is, it will be Christmas
because I’ve gone on buying presents for them all this time.”
Banks says her children were essentially kidnapped by Governor Jennifer Granholm,
Attorney General Mike Cox, and various judges, administrators and doctors to be
used as “cash cows” for the benefit of the state’s child foster care
system. That system is largely farmed out to private non-profit agencies who
receive federal funds for each child. She says the alleged kidnappers have
profited because they sit on the boards of agencies in that system.
On June 6, Banks filed suit in U.S. District Court under federal racketeering
and civil rights statutes, demanding her children’s return, and calling for an
immediate investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into the alleged
misuse of federal funds by the State of Michigan in hers and thousands of other
foster care cases.
“I’m going to fight them with everything I’ve got, until my children are
returned to me, and I want other families to join me,” said Banks, who, so
far, is representing herself in the case. Banks resides with her mother and
father Barbara and Leo Banks, who are supporting her suit. The suit was inspired
by a similar action in Los Angeles County that opened an investigation into
30,000 foster care cases there.
“Plaintiff was severely damaged and her family destroyed by the kidnap under
color of law of her three children,” reads Banks’ complaint. “Defendants
used the Michigan state foster care system as a ‘child for profit’ machine,
with eighty percent of their caseload contracted out to private agencies who are
paid federal monies by the case. . . Defendants sat on the boards of agencies
that received federal monies for the ‘care and custody’ of children, while
actively participating in, or making judicial decisions on cases involving child
custody or termination of parental rights including plaintiff’s case.”
Banks’ parental rights to her children were terminated by Wayne County
Juvenile Court Judge Patricia Campbell in October, 2000, after a series of
events that began two years earlier when Banks took Danielle, then an infant, to
Henry Ford Hospital after she fell out of bed. (See “Attorney General Seeks to
Take Children,” Michigan Citizen Mar. 12-18, 2000.)
The baby sustained a skull fracture, but the hospital contended at the time that
other X-rays showed evidence of old rib fractures. Subsequent studies, however,
showed no such old fractures. The family now believes that Danielle’s X-rays
were initially mixed up with those of another infant.
At the time, the court took temporary custody of Banks’ two children. Her
third child was born later and also taken based solely on the accident with
Danielle. The children were assigned to Orchard’s Children’s Services, where
workers eventually recommended that they be returned to Banks after she
successfully completed a parenting course at Black Family Development.
The workers said the children had been traumatized by their removal from their
mother, repeatedly cried and asked for her, and were scared of being left alone.
However, after an Orchard’s worker withdrew the recommendation for return,
Campbell terminated Banks’ rights, despite the fact that no charges of abuse
or neglect had ever been brought against her. Banks’ parents were later
appointed as guardians, but that status was terminated in 2001 and the children
were returned to foster care.
Banks appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals, which ruled against her in July
of 2002. The State Supreme Court has since refused to hear the case.
Banks contends that numerous state officials who participated in the termination
of her parental rights also are members of non-profits connected with the foster
care system, creating a blatant conflict of interest. They are cited as
individual defendants in her case.
They include appeals court judge Kathleen Jansen, one of the three judges who
denied her appeal, who sits on the Macomb County Child Abuse Neglect Information
Council, and Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Weaver, who chairs the
“Governor’s Task Force on Children’s Justice and Family Independence
Agency.”
Although she was not the attending physician, Dr. Annamaria Church testified
against Banks on behalf of Henry Ford Hospital. Besides heading the pediatric
residency program at the DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, she is
also involved with the state’s non-profit Children’s Trust Fund, which doles
out $70 million annually in funding to various non-profit child welfare agencies
including foster care programs.
“My lawsuit showed every foster care case was tainted because officials in Los
Angeles County failed to disclose their conflicts of interest,” said Dr.
Shirley Moore, National Director of Legislative Affairs for the American Family
Rights Association.
In response to Moore’s actions, as well as an American Civil Liberties Union
lawsuit and an expose by the Los Angeles Daily News, a judge ordered a review of
foster care placements in that county.
“Up to half of the 75,000 children in the systems and adoptive homes were
needlessly placed in a system that is often more dangerous than their own homes
because the county receives $30,000 to $150,000 in state and federal revenues
for each placement,” wrote the Daily News.
Moore said the situation in Michigan is far worse, because officials at all
levels up to the state are involved, and there is no recourse here except
federal court.
Press representatives for Governor Granholm and the state’s Human Services
Department would not comment on Banks’ action due to the pending litigation,
and the attorney general’s representative would not comment due to
“attorney-client privilege.” An attorney for Dr. Annamaria Church had not
returned a call for comment by press time.
613-797-3237
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