Sacramento County Child Protective Services sued by "Girl with a hundred scars"

From the SacBee:

Since the moment she was born 10 weeks premature, with cocaine rippling through her 21/2-pound body, Lilly Manning has been the recipient of other people’s poor choices, bad judgment and terrible timing.

Now, the 19-year-old woman who escaped torture in a south Sacramento home is seeking retribution.

Last week, lawyers for Manning filed a claim for damages against Sacramento County’s Child Protective Services and the Sacramento City Unified School District.

The claim, a precursor to any lawsuit, alleges child welfare workers and school employees failed to protect her from the violent household into which she was adopted.


“Lilly and her siblings were kept in a virtual prisoner-of-war camp where they were repeatedly, systematically and sadistically beaten and tortured by their adoptive mother, Lillian Manning-Horvath, and her husband, Joseph Horvath,” according to the claim.

The legal matter has opened the curtain on Lilly Manning’s past, and how she and her four siblings wound up in their great-aunt’s care, only to endure savage beatings, tongue-lashings and death threats.

Confidential records recently released by the county reveal how one CPS social worker aggressively promoted the Manning children’s adoption in the 1990s. The worker lavished praise on Lillian Manning-Horvath, while dismissing alarms raised by others, according to CPS and Juvenile Court documents.

The claim also singles out six workers associated with the Sacramento City Unified School District for allegedly failing to report their own suspicions of abuse, as required by law. The workers include a teacher, a school nurse, a Head Start coordinator, a vice principal, an assistant principal and an attendance clerk.

Read the rest at the SacBee.

Lundstrom, M. "Sacramento's 'girl with a hundred scars' files claim for damages." The Sacramento Bee. Dec. 19, 2011. http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/19/4132033/sacramentos-girl-with-a-hundred.html