Judge Janis Graham Jack, who has overseen foster care reform in the state for more than a decade, says she has lost faith in the state’s investigation into claims a former staff member at a shelter for former child sex-trafficking victims, was producing and distributing child porn of two girls that lived there.
The investigation stems from accusations of misconduct at The Refuge in Bastrop, Texas.
The Texas Rangers had previously “cleared” The Refuge of allegations of “sexual abuse or human trafficking” according to Gov. Greg Abbott. But Judge Jack will be asking two court appointed monitors who have already been overseeing foster care reforms in the state to make a criminal referral to the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas about the allegations and whether they qualify as sex-trafficking. She is also asking the attorney to look into whether obstruction of justice occurred in connection with the allegations at The Refuge.
Bob Garrett is the Austin bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: The hearing yesterday at times apparently was pretty heated – U.S. District Judge Janice Graham Jack calling into question the state investigation and getting pretty testy with state officials now.
Bob Garrett: Absolutely. She reminded them that in 2018, she issued orders where her monitors – her eyes and ears – are supposed to have access to pretty much everything, And of course, they have provisions for keeping confidential the identities of kids, and things that need to be kept confidential. But lately the state was trying to shield things from her monsters, and she was literally asking lawyers to put their heads on the guillotine – like who wants to show up and go to jail right now for contempt? And it was quite a spectacle.
It appears sort of somewhat more substantively, I suppose, that Judge Jack is also requesting a federal probe of the facility in Bastrop and possible criminal charges. What do you know about this?
Well, Judge Jack does not like how the state handled The Refuge from start to finish. That includes CPS, the licensing agency, the Texas Rangers and the governor. And she’s bringing in the federales. She’s having her monitors refer this issue of what happened at The Refuge in Bastrop to a U.S. attorney here in Austin.
And someday, somebody is going to do a case study on this thing because the way all these details about a place that houses sex trafficking victims got out in a premature phase of criminal investigations was very extraordinary. Perhaps early on, things got hyped a bit, but it was still some pretty bad stuff. Keep in mind, these are victims, and this is supposed to be a safe place for them. And there were some employees there that clearly didn’t pass the smell test and were doing strange things with these girls.
Where did this contentious hearing conclude and where does that leave young people who are being protected by the state through Child Protective Services and the agency itself? Where do we stand on the morning after this very contentious proceeding?
There’s raw politics to it all. The governor, who’s up for reelection, sort of ordering the Rangers in. He had given this place, The Refuge, a half-million dollar grant and then revoked it when all of this originally came out. [Democratic gubernatorial candidate] Beto O’Rourke jumped on it.
The larger thing to keep in mind is this Refuge flap is kind of a sideshow. Judge Jack really wants action on mental health – more services that would prevent kids and their families from even being on CPS radar. And she wants more capacity built so the kids don’t have to sleep in offices and hotels.
And she’s on kind of thin ice on the latter with the appellate court in New Orleans. She’s on strong, thick ice on safety and the well-being of these kids. So mental health is something she can bully the state on. She is trying to bully them. They, of course, are very tight with money at the Texas Legislature. And unless, as she points out, it’s border security. When it comes to foster kids, she’s really targeting how they have. 518 of the kids in long-term foster care out of state, because there’s not enough placements.
There were recommendations that were given a Child Protective Services back in January. I gather the judge was asking about the status of implementation of those recommendations. What did they have to tell her?
Well, they’ve hired a few people initially, but they’re very timid and not willing to ask, the governor. As [the judge] pointed out, he could call a special session and spend Rainy Day fund money now on this if he deemed it a sufficient emergency. She clearly thinks it is, and so she was kind of beating up the
in the last 20 years in Austin, David, the bureaucrats have been told don’t ask for money without permission from us in advance, so they don’t. They’re afraid of their own shadow when they’re testifying before a judge like this. So she’s not satisfied. They’re moving very slowly and missing deadlines.
