Over the next four years, the reports about a child in danger kept arriving at what's now the state Office of Children's Services, but the agency didn't do its job and the child continued to be molested and worse, a lawyer for the child told an Anchorage Superior Court jury Wednesday.
The man, Claire Thomson, is a retired Anchorage junior high teacher who eventually was convicted of criminal sexual abuse of a minor.
Now it's the state Office of Children's Services on trial.
Lawyers for the boy want $4 million to provide for his medical expenses, support and treatment for the rest of his life, plus an unspecified amount above that to compensate him for his lost childhood.
Because of the nature of the case, the Daily News will identify the boy, now 18, only by his initials, C.M.
The boy's mother "had an early and definite pattern of abandoning (C.M.) to the type of people and the type of situations that gravely endangered him. And OCS was regularly alerted to this," Cynthia Strout, one of his lawyers, told jurors Wednesday morning in her opening statement.
When parents can't protect their children, OCS must step in, she said.
"The damage C.M. suffered and will continue to suffer is based primarily on the length of time the abuse was allowed to continue," she added.
Nevertheless, a state lawyer countered, OCS is not to blame for damage caused by his mother's neglect and Thomson's abuse.
"We will provide you with testimony and evidence that OCS acted reasonably in screening referrals for suspected abuse and neglect, in the investigations it conducted, and in making decisions about what was a safe environment and in (C.M.'s) best interest," said Alice Rahoi, an assistant attorney general.
And that's how jurors should assess whether OCS did its job, she said. Were caseworkers' actions reasonable, given what people knew at the time?
Also on Wednesday, jurors heard from the state's first witness, Susan Heuer, a guardian appointed to watch out for the boy's interests during earlier court cases.
When she got involved in 1998, new on the job, the boy was 7 and seemed fearful and lost, Heuer said. He soiled his pants, wet his bed, and was scared of the dark. She asked for him to get counseling, but that didn't happen back then. Now a young man, he has no friends and seems desperate, she said.
"He's totally alone," she said.
The boy's mother was a drug addict whose life included other addicts, drunks and visits from the police, Strout said.
In late 1996, the mother and her two children, C.M. and his little sister, moved in with Thomson at his four-bedroom condo in Whittier, Rahoi said.
In March 1997, the mother failed to pick up C.M. from a baby sitter. The sitter was pregnant and feeling pains to the point that she needed to go to the hospital. She called police and OCS got involved.
C.M. told an OCS investigator a little about the man he called his "Great-Grand-Uncle Claire" though in reality, they weren't related.
Thomson was 70 years old. He wasn't romantically involved with C.M.'s mother, the boy's lawyers said.
"He said Claire is nice and not mean and that Claire was helping his mother," Strout said.
The pivotal moment came less than three months later, in June 1997.
The boy told his mother Thomson had been "getting in the shower with him and washing his penis and his butt without a washcloth even though (the boy) told him he could do it by himself," Strout told jurors.
He also said Thomson dragged him into the bedroom to sleep with him when his mother wasn't home. When Thomson found out he had told, he hit the boy, Strout told jurors.
The mother didn't call police. But she did take him to counseling and relayed what her son had told her.
The counselor reported the situation to OCS, as certain professionals must do by law. OCS did a quick assessment, but didn't investigate, both sides agree. The boy's lawyers says OCS failed the boy. But the state says the decision was reasonable.
Rahoi, the state's lawyer, said the family had moved to Anchorage by then, and was no longer living with Thomson. OCS referred the report to Anchorage police, who sent it to Alaska State Troopers since troopers investigate crimes in Whittier.
No charges were filed as a result of that trooper investigation.
"The district attorney's office determined that there was no sexual gratification on the part of Thomson, but normal caretaker activities, and declined to prosecute Thomson for sexual abuse of a minor," Rahoi said.
"It is inaccurate to describe this incident as sexual abuse," she said.
But Strout said OCS had a duty to get to the bottom of the situation. Was Thomson still involved? He was naked in the shower washing the private parts of a boy old enough to bath himself. Maybe OCS would have seen something inappropriate, even if a prosecutor didn't find it criminal, Strout said.
Over the next four years, Thomson continued to molest the boy, Strout told jurors.
The family moved into an Anchorage home Thomson owned and he was often the children's primary caregiver, which OCS knew, Strout said.
OCS continued to get reports alleging sexual abuse and neglect of the children.
One caller told OCS the mother knew what Thomson was doing to her boy but allowed it since he was wealthy.
"She was basically pimping him out," Strout said.
Finally, in 2001, C.M. was put into emergency custody while the state investigated a new round of complaints.
Thomson pleaded no contest in 2004. He's now on probation and is a registered sex offender living in Anchorage.
"If they had followed their own policies, it is more likely true than not that (C.M) could have been protected and that the next four years of anal penetration, masturbation by an old man, and worse conduct would not have happened," Strout told jurors.
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