Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

St. Petersburg DCF files to get privacy review

By MELANIE AVE
Published July 3, 2007

A judge Monday delayed releasing state child welfare records on a former Pinellas County foster child whose caseworker failed to report her missing for four months, to give a child advocacy attorney time to review them for privacy concerns.

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Chief Judge David Demers said he believes there is "good cause" to release the records on Courtney Clark because of an overriding public interest in the case.

But first, he ordered the Florida Department of Children and Families to allow the records to be examined by Christina Clemenson, attorney for the Guardian ad Litem program.

Courtney, now 2, disappeared with her mother from a Sorrento foster home in September, but her caseworker did not report her missing to the Lake County Sheriff's Office until January. The delayed hunt ended June 14 when authorities found Courtney at a Portage, Wis., home. She and her two younger sisters were found safe, but an 11-year-old boy was found mutilated and starving in a closet and his mother's body was found buried in the back yard.

On Monday, Clemenson joined a Wisconsin attorney representing the four children in asking the judge to weigh the children's privacy rights against the public's interest.

Unless Clemenson finds objectionable information in the 885 pages of records, in which names and other information have been removed, Demers said, they will be given to the St. Petersburg Times and the Tampa Tribune at 8 a.m. Friday.

[Last modified July 3, 2007, 00:50:24]