I would like to know if you could help your niece Glenda Jabs Olsen and my son Roger Olsen and their family. For two years they have been fighting the Multonomah County, Oregon court and Welfare trying to get their family back to a normal life.

We have documentation of all of the following:

In May of 1996, an anonymous caller accused Roger of beating one of his children with a dog chain. The police handcuffed Roger (for objecting to his children being stripped and examined) and they and the SOSCF worker took the children [Valerie-10 yrs, Elizabeth-8 yrs, Joshua-10 yrs, Anthony 4 yrs, Jeremy 12 mo.]

Their regular nurse practitioner testified that there were not the following day, and had not been any signs of abuse for the 10 years she had been regularly seeing the children. (Court transcript)

The Judge decided she "thought there was something going on"(harsh and inappropriate discipline, based on Roger’s admission of having spanked the children) and because Glenda was home schooling the children. She ordered the children made temporary wards of the state. (Court transcript)

There were never any charges filed against Roger or Glenda.

They were ordered to have separate attorneys .(court transcript)

Roger was ordered to move out of the house before their nursing baby (Jeremy) was returned and was not to see Glenda or the baby without supervision by Teresa & Frank Bolerjack. (court transcript)

Roger and Glenda were ordered to take parenting classes (4) times, anger management, and various other classes.

Glenda was told she would be better off to leave Roger so she could get the rest of her children back. (Court transcript)

The children were sent to foster homes and were ordered into counseling, but in the nine months they were in the foster homes, they did not receive needed medical care, despite repeated requests from the doctors. (Letters from Doctors)

Judge Merri Souther Wyatt told Roger, he would not get his children back until he changed his religious beliefs in regard to disciplining his children. (Court transcript)

The children were returned to their parents in December of 1996.

In May of 1997, Roger and Glenda sold their home in Portland and bought a larger country home across the county border in Beavercreek. While they were attending the next custody hearing, the Judge ordered their children picked up by the Sheriff and placed back in foster care. Her reason was that she felt "Roger and Glenda had moved to frustrate her jurisdiction and was not going to let them get away with it." The DA told the judge "If this case is transferred to Clackamas county, it will be dismissed forthwith." (Court transcript)

The Judge ordered their new and nursing baby (Angela) be put in a foster home also, even though she was not a ward of the state, did not reside in Judge Wyatt’s jurisdiction and there were no allegations. (Court transcript)

I went to Portland in June of 1997 and requested the children be placed my son Scott Olsen and me. The baby (Angela) was returned to her parents in June after the Judge’s jurisdiction was questioned and a court trial on her jurisdiction was set (which the judge later dropped).

The Judge told Roger he didn’t have much chance of getting his children back as long as he was with Glenda. (Court transcript)

Three of the children (Valerie, Elizabeth and Anthony) had severe head lice every time they had a visitation with their parents. Glenda would treat their hair and it would be back the next time they were allowed a visitation.

The children were not allowed to attend their church because they might see their parents there.(SOSCF orders)

Elizabeth and Anthony were allowed to come and stay with me in August 1997 and Valerie two weeks later.

I immediately called their doctors to see if they needed to see the children and I was told that again the children had not been receiving needed medical care, despite repeated requests from the doctors to see them. (Doctors letters)

The Judge, caseworkers and foster parents had decided that Elizabeth’s bed wetting problems

and urinary tract infections were due to having been abused by her father. After I took her to the doctors she was scheduled immediately for surgery for a congenital bladder valve dysfunction, which the doctor informed me could have caused severe damage to her kidneys and was the cause of the bed wetting and infections. (Doctors letters)

I took Valerie to see the doctor for treatment of an infection on her ear, caused by her foster mother having her ears pierced. (Doctors records)

Valerie came to me with only the clothing she was wearing. Her foster mother had refused to let her have any of her belongings.

In August the parents and children were allowed to have supervised visitations with Joshua and Jeremy, but never with both boys at the same time.

In September, I was allowed to have Joshua on overnight visits and was able to take him to the doctor for a three-week infection on his toes, which had not been treated. I also asked the doctor about his bowel problems (which the court, caseworker, counselor and foster mother had decided was due to abuse by his father). The doctor determined after examination that Joshua’s bowel problems were due to nerve and muscle damage to his bowels caused by severe constipation. (The foster mother had decided not to give him the medication his mother had said he needed.) She felt his bowel problem was a deliberate attempt to get attention and so she tried to humiliate him by making him lie down on the floor in front of all her other foster children and put diapers on him.The doctor said his problem was strictly medical and had nothing to do with abuse. (Doctors letters and records)

The children were ordered to go to counseling once a week. They soon refused to see the counselor unless I was in the room with them. Valerie’s counselor insisted Valerie and I had to admit and believe that Roger had physically abused her if she ever wanted to go home again. She said she was going to recommend to the court that Valerie not be allowed to go home until she had long term extensive counseling. I took her to a prominent clinical psychologist. He determined that Valerie was a perfectly normal, intelligent, 13 year old who was angry at the abuse she and her siblings were receiving from the welfare and that she needed to go home and receive counseling only when and if she felt she needed it. (Psych report)

The children were finally all returned to their parents in January 1998, with the provision that Roger, Glenda and Joshua continue counseling and parenting classes for Glenda (the caseworker, as of July 1998, had still not made the referral for the counseling and classes).

In June, the children’s lawyer (court appointed) and the caseworker, let Roger and Glenda know that they were not going to recommend the parents custody of the children be given back to them, even though the schools and the Clackamas County caseworker said the children were doing really well.

Roger and Glenda fired their lawyers and they filed a petition in the Oregon Supreme Court against the Judge and the DA. Glenda fled with the children because she was afraid the Judge would order them taken away again when she found out about the petition. (Which the Judge did in a hearing in July)

October 19, a hearing was held. My lawyer filed a petition with the court for intervention. The Judge postponed ruling on it. The DA was ordered to put out warrants for the children and to check into warrants for Roger and Glenda for custodial interference.

Glenda was staying in her twin sister Brenda’s house in Denver, Colorado. Today, Feb. 23, 1999, police came to her door and demanded to take her children into custody. They did not have a warrant with them but threatened to handcuff her and throw her in jail if she did not let them take the children. They said they had warrants at the office.

Please, if there is anything you can do to help her, you can contact Glenda at Brenda’s home. Phone: 303-734-4830.

This family was a happy, healthy Christian family, active in their church and community and Roger and Glenda had been foster parents themselves. Now this family is being destroyed by the court and the CSD.

I thank you for any assistance you can give them.

Ruth Engelhardt

2701 Rocky Cliff Trail

Huntley, Montana 59037

Phone 406-348-2001

The children were returned to Portland, February 25, l999, and placed in separate foster homes. On Feb. 25, a hearing was scheduled concerning intervener status for the children’s paternal uncle Scott and for me, their paternal grandmother. The hearing was canceled by someone and a new hearing on the children scheduled for Feb. 26. In court, no one seemed to know who had canceled the intervener hearing.

At the hearing on Feb. 26, the judge ordered the children immediately be placed with their Uncle Scott and said the parents were to have no contact with the children until they had come to an agreement with the SOSCF. She also ordered expedited interstate compacts be done on both sets of grandparents.

The caseworker, Matt Cobos, made arrangements with the children’s maternal grandmother to go to Portland and help Scott care for the children without first discussing it with Scott. The maternal grandmother and Aunt had helped the caseworker find Glenda and the children. They also said they felt Roger and Glenda should not have the children until they learned to obey the SOSCF.

Scott was concerned, so he called the supervisor, Karen Eastman, and received permission to have his sister Pam go to Portland to help care for the children. Their maternal grandmother stayed in Portland with them for one week. Pam stayed and helped care for the children for two months while Glenda stayed in Montana caring for Pam’s two small children.

On March 25, I returned to Portland. On March 26, our Intervener hearing was held.

We were denied Intervener status because we had not had daily contact with the children for the past six months and the children did not consider us their Mom and Dad. At that hearing Scott informed the judge, he was moving out of his home into another home he owns. The Judge said she did not care as long as Pam or I was there to care for the children. The caseworker visited on the day I arrived in Portland and I did not see or talk to him again until the day after the court hearing on August 4. Pam returned to Montana and I stayed in Portland until August 1. . Pam then took my place until the children were sent to their maternal grandmother in Montana. on August.10.

CFS in Billings, Montana were told to take their time and do a complete Foster care investigation of my husband and me. We had been foster parents for years and had been given complete legal custody of a handicapped foster child. A social worker and the school psychologist were references for us. We were denied because "It is this Department’s opinion that you would be unwilling or unable to protect your grandchildren from further harm or danger." The children’s maternal grandparents were recommended (they and Glenda’s sister had assisted the SOSCF in taking the children from Glenda in Portland).

The grandparents told Pam and Scott there was a court order; they could have no contact with the children. When they called the caseworker Matt Cobos he said there was not a court order. It was his decision because the children said we had allowed the parents to see the children at a birthday party held on July 31. (The weekend Roger and Glenda were in Las Vegas at a David Miller seminar).

Valerie has managed to sneak one letter to me. Other than that letter, we have no idea what is happening to the children as of Sept. 15, 1999.

At a court hearing on Oct.13, 1999, the judge referred several times to a report to the court by Matt Cobos. She referred to Matt’s allegations that we had allowed the children to see their parents while in Portland and denied us visitation on those grounds. When Scott asked her to call and ask the children if it was true, she said no, she would take Matt’s word that it was true. A second petition for intervener status was denied. No notices of court hearings or any other paper work have been given to Roger or to us. At a hearing in March, Matt told the court Roger had moved out of the state and his whereabouts were unknown, even though he still was living in the same place he had been living in for two years. Even though Scott informed the court Matt was wrong and he is receiving other mail from that address, Roger still is not receiving any paperwork.

Scott finally received permission from Matt Cobos for us to write to the children on Dec. 23,1999. Matt said any letters we sent would be censored by their grandmother before the children were allowed to see them and any letters sent to us by the children would be censored by him. We sent letters to the Children and after Scott complained to the State SOSCF supervisor, the children received the letters. On Feb. 1, 2000 I received a letter back from Valerie. One sentence in it was scribbled out. I believe the censored sentence reads, "If you want pictures of us Grandma June says you have to pay for them."

To this date, There have never been any charges filed against Roger and Glenda.