Custodial dad, adoptive "mom" charged with child abuse (Chautauqua County, New York)

Custodial dad DR. KENNETH YAW and the "adoptive mom" lost custody after being charged by New Mexico officials of neglecting and abusing his four daughters. The girls have been living since then with a foster family in Chautauqua County, New York, where an adoptive aunt and uncle live. But now Daddy is fighting to get them back--basically to keep the girls from testifying against him. (No word here on what happened to the biological mother, or whether she's even alive.) My prayers are with these girls. The family court in Chautauqua County is very corrupt and compromised, and the ones in New Mexico don't have a good reputation either.

http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/862517.html

Child neglect case against New Mexico couple returns to Chautauqua family court
By Dan Herbeck
November 15, 2009, 10:19 AM

Child welfare officials in New Mexico last year took four daughters away from a doctor after police charged him with subjecting the girls to cruel and bizarre punishments.

Police said the doctor made the girls live in a garage for weeks at a time, with only bread, water, peanut butter and sleeping bags. They also accused him of waking three of the girls in the middle of the night and driving them to a dangerous neighborhood, where they were left alone in a run-down trailer for two months.

The children have been staying in recent months with a foster family in the Chautauqua County community of Sherman, where the girls' adoptive aunt and uncle also live.

But now the doctor wants the girls back.

And a hard-fought legal battle over the girls has landed in Buffalo's federal court.

In addition to the criminal child abuse charges filed in New Mexico, Dr. Kenneth Yaw, an orthopedic surgeon originally from Pittsburgh, and his wife, Rita Starceski, are fighting a child neglect action filed against them by Chautauqua County Social Services lawyers. The surgeon's attorneys want the girls to be taken out of New York State and placed with two friends of Yaw's in Cincinnati, while Yaw seeks to have them eventually returned to him.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara on Friday refused a request from Yaw's attorneys to hear the case in federal court. Arcara sent the case back to Chautauqua County Family Court, where it has been debated for the past year.

"That is very good news," said Robin Starceski, aunt of the four girls who lives in Sherman and wants to adopt the girls. "For now, I know the girls are safe. That's all we've wanted, all along."

Her husband, Paul Starceski, is a brother of the girls' adoptive mother, Rita Starceski.

Robin Starceski said she and her husband love the girls and are sure they can make them a happy home on their dairy farm in Sherman.

Yaw's legal efforts to get his daughters back have upset friends of the girls in the small community of Sherman, near Mayville.

The girls … 17-year-old twins, and two other sisters, ages 14 and 12 … attend the town's public school, where the school superintendent said they are popular, happy, well-adjusted and involved in a wide range of activities.

"They are wonderful young ladies, and we're thrilled to have them in our school," said the superintendent, Thomas W. Schmidt. "They're totally immersed in school activities. I was glad that a family came forward to provide a safe and loving place for the girls in this community."

The names of the four girls have not been made public in any court papers, and family members asked The Buffalo News not to publish their names.

The legal battle over where they will live began in August 2008, when police in Las Cruces, N.M., arrested their father and their adoptive mother on child abuse charges.

The child abuse charges are still pending. Yaw and his wife deny the allegations.

"[Yaw and his wife] love their children very much and are striving to reunite their family," said one of Yaw's attorneys, Charles A. Messina of Amherst. "We have every confidence the federal court will make an appropriate decision."

Messina said he could not comment further on any other aspect of the case. Yaw, who has an unlisted telephone number in New Mexico, could not be reached to comment.

A grand jury in New Mexico indicted Yaw and his wife on six felony child abuse charges in October 2008, according to court papers filed by Daryl P. Brautigam, a lawyer for the Chautauqua County Social Services Department.

Police learned in August 2008 that Yaw and his wife had moved the three oldest girls into "a bug-infested" old trailer with "little more then peanut butter, flour and pinto beans to eat," Brautigam said in court papers. Yaw and his wife live in a $600,000 home adjacent to a golf course.

The girls were punished for taking money from their adoptive mother's purse, and were told not to leave the trailer, according to police. One of the girls was allowed to leave it after two weeks, but the other two girls remained there for two months, the Social Services attorney said in court papers.

"The children testified that they ran out of food, and were able to survive due to the good graces of a neighbor," Brautigam said in court papers.

"After their plight was revealed, further investigation by police showed a long-standing pattern of locking these children in the garage or in their bedroom for weeks at a time, with nothing more than peanut butter or bread to eat. The punishment was meted out for innocuous behavior such as putting one's feet in a mop bucket, not having the family dog on a leash, or taking two books from the family bookshelf into the bedroom."

After Yaw and his wife were arrested, they asked Paul and Robin Starceski to take the children to Chautauqua County, Robin Starceski said.

"We didn't ask for any of this .‚.‚. We had no idea how bad things had gotten in New Mexico," Robin Starceski said. "We had the girls from August of 2008 until February of this year, when they went to a foster home. My husband and I have filed papers to adopt them."

Ultimately, Yaw's attorneys indicated they would prefer the courts in New Mexico to decide where the children will live.

"New Mexico is the most convenient and appropriate forum to determine this matter," Yaw's attorneys said in federal court papers.

Brautigam said a Family Court judge in Chautauqua County has suggested that Yaw and his wife want to move the girls away from Sherman in an attempt to prevent them from testifying in their criminal child abuse case in New Mexico.

"These children are the chief witnesses in that proceeding," Brautigam said in court papers.

"The Chautauqua County Family Court has heard evidence from the youngest child that, a few days before Kenneth Yaw and Rita Starceski were arrested, Rita Starceski went through the house, locked all the windows and told the children not to answer the door. When the children expressed concern about whether they would ever be taken away from their parents because of the recently discovered abuse and neglect, Rita Starceski stated that .‚.‚. "we'll just go to Canada.'‚"