State to pay $750,000 in foster abuse case
Apr. 16—The state has settled a Kona Circuit Court lawsuit for $750, 000 with the biological parents of a 3-year-old Hawaii island boy who died eight years ago while under the temporary foster care of Chasity Alcosiba-McKenzie and her husband, Clifton McKenzie, at their Waimea home.
The state has settled a Kona Circuit Court lawsuit for $750, 000 with the biological parents of a 3-year-old Hawaii island boy who died eight years ago while under the temporary foster care of Chasity Alcosiba-McKenzie and her husband, Clifton McKenzie, at their Waimea home.
According to testimony from the Department of the Attorney General to the Legislature, the money will come from the state's general fund.
The child, Fabian Garret-Garcia, was found July 25, 2017, in his own vomit in his crib at the McKenzies' home. He also had various stages of bruising on his head, neck and body and later stages of bruising blotches on his left shoulder. A county coroner's report dated March 3, 2018, showed that he died of blunt force trauma to the head, and the manner was announced Aug. 16, 2018, as nonaccidental head trauma.
The boy's biological parents, Sherri-Ann Garret and Juben Garcia, sued the state, the Department of Human Services, Catholic Charities and the two formerly licensed caregivers April 4, 2019, nearly two years after the boy's death but before prosecutors brought the case to a grand jury in Kona Circuit Court.
They alleged that the state fell below a reasonable standard of care, that it was negligent in its supervision and monitoring of the foster home while Garret-Garcia and his two siblings, A.G. and P.G., were placed in the home. They were placed with Alcosiba-McKenzie in January 2017.
The lawsuit alleges that months and even days before Garret-Garcia's death, DHS and Catholic Charities staff saw obvious injuries on the child, and on nearly a dozen occasions were notified by his mother of suspected child abuse occurring in the foster home, yet Child Welfare Services failed to remove him and his siblings until after his death.
"I think everyone involved in the case is hopeful that this settlement will bring light to a system that needs change and it needs change now, " said Jeffrey Foster, attorney for the biological parents.
Foster said that the parents also have settled for an undisclosed amount with Catholic Charities, which has a contract with the state to provide certain services for Child Welfare Services. However, the details of the settlement are not public, and neither he nor his clients could comment on it.
Police arrested Alcosiba-McKenzie on Aug. 16, 2018, on suspicion of second-degree murder, but she was not indicted until Oct. 23, 2019, on the charge of second-degree murder. A jury-waived trial in the criminal case was held, and Judge Wendy DeWeese found her not guilty Nov. 4, 2021, of second-degree murder and not guilty of the lesser offense of manslaughter.
DeWeese said in her Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Order dated Nov. 4, 2021, that the state failed to meet its burden of proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
"While there is no reasonable doubt as to the cause of F.G.G.'s death, Defendant's awareness of the need for medical care for F.G.G., and whether the absence of medical care in fact caused the death, " the court wrote, "the credible evidence presented at trial regarding the timing and possible cause (abuse or accident ?) of the fatal head injury is contradictory and inconclusive and creates a reasonable doubt in the Court's mind as to the manner of F.G.G.'s death."
Police arrived at the home at 7 :27 p.m. July 25, 2017.
Emergency room physicians at North Hawaii Community Hospital in Waimea found on the boy's body hemorrhaging in both eyes and bruising to his forehead, right orbital bone, left eyelid, left cheek to scalp line, right cheek, left chin, right forearm, left scapular region, left flank and under his right eye.
According to police, Alcosiba-McKenzie told them the 3-year-old was wearing a pair of virtual reality goggles and fell face first from a bench onto the hardwood floor at lunchtime.
He vomited between 1 and 3 p.m. She put him in his bed, and at 4 :45 p.m. he appeared to have vomited again in his crib. After giving two younger children a bath at 7 :17 p.m., she went in to get Garret-Garcia and found him unresponsive, facedown in his vomit in the crib.
But Alcosiba-McKenzie later changed her story and said the bruising was from a fall from a bench two weeks earlier on July 12, 2017.
McKenzie was at work at the time, and said his wife texted at 2 p.m. or so on July 25, 2017, and said the boy fell off the kitchen table but was fine and finished his lunch.
He said he checked on him and found the boy lying on his side making a gurgling sound, as if he had mucus when breathing, but didn't notice vomit.
He thought he was getting sick like his sibling.
His autopsy showed he had congestion and fluid in his lungs.
