Former Counselor Defeats First Motion to Dismiss, Forces Woodside Trails Case Before a Judge
Four months after filing a federal lawsuit in district court alleging multiple civil rights violations by DFPS and various state officials, former Woodside Trails counselor and pro se plaintiff, Jackie DeWayne Reynolds, Jr., scored a major victory by defeating defendant’s attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed and forcing TDFPS to schedule a due process hearing.
(I-Newswire) - Please type your press release hereFollowing a motion filed in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas by Jackie DeWayne Reynolds, Jr., the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services was forced finally to schedule a due process hearing to substantiate the allegation, made in July 2004, that he abused a child while working as a counselor at Woodside Trails, a therapeutic wilderness camp in Bastrop County.
TDFPS has been ignoring Reynolds’ request for a hearing on their allegations since late 2004. This allegation was based on the outcry of a child known by DFPS to have made previous false allegations. The allegation against Reynolds was retracted by the child barely a month after he made it.
“I’ve been asking them to take this to an impartial judge since this nightmare began, a year and a half ago,” Reynolds said. “I say the allegation was the result of DFPS’s moral cowardice in the face of Comptroller Strayhorn’s political pressure. I think they have known all along that the allegation could not withstand a contested challenge, and that is why they have refused to defend their actions. This will mark the first opportunity for me to stand up in a court and defend myself against this groundless and politically-motivated allegation. It is an absolute outrage that it got this far.”
Reynolds was one of two employees of Woodside Trails arrested and indicted last year on child sexual assault charges. Mr. Reynolds denied the allegation from the outset and within months of the criminal charges being dismissed, filed a federal lawsuit alleging multiple civil rights violations by employees of TDFPS, Bastrop County, and the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts and current Republican gubernatorial candidate, Carole Keeton Strayhorn.
Reynolds filed a motion to stay his lawsuit after attorneys for Bastrop County argued that it should be dismissed because a plaintiff is barred from bringing federal claims against a state defendant while state remedies are still available. In the motion filed on November 3, 2005, Mr. Reynolds requested the federal court compel TDFPS to schedule a due process hearing as a condition of the stay.
Federal Magistrate Judge Andrew W. Austin, during the hearing on Reynolds’s motion, stated that he, too, was troubled that the state had not scheduled a hearing regarding the allegations made a year and a half ago. The state had until December 5, 2005 to “reach an agreement to stay the litigation,” according to the judge’s order issued November 30.
Reynolds was notified by letter earlier this month that a hearing has been scheduled for January 30, 2006. At the hearing, attorneys for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services will have to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Reynolds abused the child.
Woodside Trails came under heavy political attack before and after a report entitled “Forgotten Children” was issued by Carole Keeton Strayhorn and her Office of the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Because of what Woodside Trails officials called, “the extensive and relentless political pressure exerted against the agency . . . by Carole Strayhorn,” TDFPS forcibly removed the children from the camp against their wishes on August 13, 2004 with very little notice and without consulting the children, their parents, or even the children’s own caseworkers.
According to the lawsuit, many of the children removed were bounced around from one temporary shelter after another, others were placed in inappropriate foster settings, and still others escaped CPS custody and wandered the streets. TDFPS has never responded to a demand by Woodside Trails officials to account for all of the children forced out of the camp.
Within weeks of their removal, TDFPS announced their intention to revoke Woodside Trails’ license to operate a therapeutic wilderness camp for the state. The license revocation is the subject of another due process hearing scheduled the same week as Mr. Reynolds’, as are several other decisions by the agency related to the facility and its employees.
Mr. Reynolds’ lawsuit was received by the United States District Court, Western District of Texas, Austin Division on August 12, 2005, at 2:34 pm and officially filed eleven days later. It was assigned case number A05CA638 LY.
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