A New York woman, Judith Leekin, 63, admitted she used false names to adopt 11 disabled children. She also admitted to sending officials phony school report cards to qualify for adoption subsidies - one million dollars in two decades.
If this isn’t bad enough, she kept the kids like prisoners in in her Port St. Lucie, Florida home. Leekin admitted to restraining the kids to their beds with plastic ties and beating them. She also did not send them to school or bother feeding them much. All the children were found nearly starved to death, and had never received medical care.
A surveillance system let Leekin keep watch over the children via closed-circuit TV monitors. She would also lock the kids in a passageway to hide them from unexpected visitors. The children said she would threaten to shoot them or cut off their heads if they made noise.
The children are now 16 to 28, nine are who in foster or group homes. Another one lives on his own in Florida.
Leekin is facing federal mail and wire fraud charges. She must give back all the money and could get up to eight years in prison. That’s the least of her worries. Leekin is also suspected of killing one of the kids, a boy named Shane Graham, and disposing of the body.
I’m blown away that the abuse and fraud went on for 20 years and affected so many children. How did she manage to get away with this for so long?
(Thanks to reader Rebecca for sending a link to this story.)
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