Vermont Gentle Lady Suspected of Four Homicides After State Took Custody Of Her Daughter From Her

Victim: Lara Sobel is seen here with her family. The family said that it hopes that the tragedy 'can create awareness of the dedicated professionals who devote so much of their energy to ensuring the welfare of children'.

[From article]

The woman charged in the slaying of a Vermont social worker after losing custody of her daughter has entered a not guilty plea at her court arraignment Monday afternoon in Barre, Vermont where she was formally charged with Lara Sobel's murder.
Jody Herring is also 'the alleged perpetrator' of the deaths of three relatives whose bodies were found Saturday morning, Gov. Peter Shumlin said.
According to court papers, Herring was 'very calm and laughing,' after shooting Sobel, reports Burlington Free Press.
Police say she was 'making small talk about the incident like it was no big deal.'
[. . .]
The three women found dead at a Berlin home Saturday morning were an aunt and two cousins of 40-year-old Jody Herring, the governor said at a news conference Saturday night after returning from vacation in Nova Scotia upon hearing of the deaths.
Sobel, 48, was gunned down after work Friday outside a state office building in Barre.
She handled a case for the state Department for Children and Families in which Herring lost custody of her 9-year-old daughter, authorities said.
She died Friday after she was shot twice at close range with a .270 caliber rifle in the parking area outside the Department for Children and Families office.
[. . .]

Suspect: Jody Herring , pictured, has been accused of killing her aunt and two cousins. She has also been accused of killing a social worker after losing custody of her 9-year-old daughter.

Herring is also a suspect in the deaths of three women whose bodies were found in a house Saturday morning in nearby Berlin.
The women, two cousins and an aunt, were all related to Herring.
'I think all Vermonters are as shocked, dismayed, horrified and grief-stricken as all of us are,' Shumlin said. 'I cannot remember, in my lifetime, four people being murdered by the same alleged perpetrator.'
Shumlin tentatively identified the three victims found Saturday as Rhonda Herring, 43, and Regina Herring, 48, the suspect's cousins; and Julianne Falzarano, 73, an aunt.

[. . .]
Tiffany Herring, 23, who identified herself as the daughter of one of the victims, told the Burlington Free Press her mother received a threatening phone call from Jody Herring on Friday morning.
'She said: 'You guys need to stop calling DCF unless you guys are going to have it coming to you,'' Tiffany Herring told the newspaper.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3192944/Mother-shot-dead-social-worker-losing-custody-daughter-pleads-NOT-GUILTY-suspect-FOUR-murders-police-discover-bodies-aunt-two-cousins.html

Mother who lost custody of her daughter was 'laughing' when she 'shot dead her social worker' but denies murder - police also believe she killed two cousins and aunt
Jody Herring, 40, was charged with shooting Lara Sobel, a children's welfare caseworker, after she lost custody of her daughter
Sobel worked on a child custody case involving Herring and her 9-year-old daughter
Witnesses say Herring was 'laughing' after allegedly shooting Sobel in a parking lot - she was then 'tackled' by bystanders
Police say she talked about murder like it was 'no big deal'
The next morning, three women were found dead at a home in Berlin, Vermont - they were all related to Herring
Herring has not been charged in those murders as investigation is in its 'infancy'
By DAILY MAIL REPORTERS and KIRI BLAKELEY FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 17:23 EST, 10 August 2015 | UPDATED: 00:39 EST, 11 August 2015

Social Worker At Immigrant Detention Facility Says It Is Like Jail And Like Torture

Silvia Lopez, Social Worker

[From article]
She described a facility where guards isolated mothers and children in medical units, nurses falsified medical reports, staff members were told to lie to federal officials and a psychologist acted as an informant for federal agents.
[. . .]
The facility is operated by the nation’s second-largest for-profit prison company, Boca Raton, Fla.,-based GEO Group, and overseen by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
López’s story is a troubling counter narrative to the accounts given by federal officials and company representatives who describe the facility as a safe and comfortable place where mothers and children can stay during their asylum proceedings.
[. . .]
But López said nothing changes the fact that the children were locked up and under the threat of being deported at any moment.
[. . .]
Her masters’ thesis looked at the living conditions of immigrants. Her dissertation for her Ph.D. focused on immigrant women and health.
She was not naive to the mothers’ immigration status. She knew many would be deported, but López felt she could make a positive difference by helping them with the transition either back home or into the United States.
It was not her expertise that company officials sought, she said. They hired her to help give the appearance of a well-supported medical unit, she said.
[. . .]
López said she quit in April because she could no longer work in a facility that asked her to withhold information from federal officials, punished residents who required medical treatment and required her to follow policies that she said were in violation of her license.
“What is happening there is tantamount to torture,” she said.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article28696174.html

JULY 27, 2015
Exclusive: Family detention social worker speaks out
BY FRANCO ORDOÑEZ
fordonez (at) mcclatchydc.com

NY Social Worker Accuses Ex-cop Boss of 18 Rapes

[From article]
Her “distress was accentuated by the fact that she had already been sexually assaulted as a young girl by six youths in the subway,” the filing says.
The woman finally reported the incidents to human resources director Maria Collura, who allegedly told the victim that “you have to go or he will hurt you,” according to court papers. She resigned on July 8, 2013.
After the woman’s attorney filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Reingold was fired last fall, lawyer Derek Smith told The Post.
[. . .]
Reingold now works as an investigator for a hospitality company that serves the Yankees.
Smith said he is pursing the claim in civil instead of criminal court because the encounters were behind closed doors and difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

http://nypost.com/2014/04/17/woman-claims-ex-cop-boss-raped-her-18-times-in-torture-chamber/

Woman claims ex-cop boss raped her 18 times in ‘torture chamber’
By Julia Marsh and Erin Calabrese
New York Post
April 17, 2014 | 10:03am

British Government Seizes Visiting Italian Woman's Baby From Her Womb

Posted December 3, 2013 8:52 PM ET; Last updated December 4, 2013 8:35 PM ET


[From article]
Today the woman's Italian lawyer said that forcing the woman to have a caesarean was 'absolutely unreasonable'.
Stefano Oliva said the unnamed woman wanted a second chance to prove she could care for the baby girl with the help of her family.
He told Radio 5 Live: 'I do not understand why my client has been forced to have a Caesarean section. It is a very unusual statement to be issued by a judge.
'From my point of view this decision is absolutely unreasonable.'
He said he understood the baby had not yet been formally adopted by anyone, and added: 'There is absolutely no reason why this woman should not be allowed a second chance.'
'This woman has only a minor mental disease, which can be cured with medicine. She is not a woman who is not able to understand what is happening around her.'
His comments came as the 35-year-old mother, who is Italian and suffers from bipolar disorder, said she was suffering 'like an animal' after having her baby taken from her womb without her knowledge or consent.
[. . .]
Speaking from Rome Mr Oliva said: 'It sounds like something from a Hitler regime. We have been in touch with the Italian Ministry of Justice and we are also pursuing a legal path in England.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517944/Judge-Roderick-Newtons-remarkable-message-baby-girl.html

'Your mother loved you very much and wanted to keep you': Judge's remarkable message to baby girl of woman who was forced to have caesarean
Judge Roderick Newton, who ruled that the baby born to sedated mother be put up for adoption, tells child her mother wanted to keep her
Girl was born to mother, who has bipolar disorder, by court-ordered caesarean 15 months ago
Her Italian mother, 35, says she has suffered 'like an animal' at having child she wants to raise taken away from her
Judge Newton wrote: 'If she reads this judgement I hope she will appreciate that her mother loved her and wished to bring her up'
He explained his decision by describing how the mother had been hospitalised when unwell
Judge also said one of her older children had suffered trauma after witnessing her mother's bipolar episodes
The mother says she is 'suffering like an animal' after treatment in Britain described by her lawyer in Rome as 'like something from a Hitler regime'
Lawyer Stefano Oliva says forcing the woman to deliver baby by caesarean was 'absolutely unreasonable'
By HARRIET ARKELL
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 04:47 EST, 4 December 2013 | UPDATED: 07:35 EST, 4 December 2013

* * *

[From article]
Preparing to return home to Italy, having successfully passed the course, she had a bipolar episode at the airport and became over-excitable when she thought she had mislaid the passports of her two daughters who were still in Italy. She contacted the police for help.
When they arrived, she was on the phone to her mother, so she handed one of the officers the receiver. The mother explained to the police about her daughter’s mental condition and said she had not been taking the medication and needed to calm her down.
The police then apparently contacted Essex social workers — as they are routinely instructed to do in such cases — and told the woman they were taking her to ‘a hospital to check that your baby is OK’.
On arrival, she was startled to find that it was a psychiatric hospital.
She protested that she wanted to return to her hotel, but was forcibly restrained, sectioned under the Mental Health Act and told she must remain in the psychiatric hospital.
What happened next, however, was truly astounding.
Having been held there for five weeks, pleading many times to be given permission to return to Italy, she was told one morning that she would not be allowed breakfast.
They would not explain why, and, again, she protested. She was then strapped down and drugged into a state of unconsciousness.
Waking up hours later, she found she was in a different hospital, and that while she had been unconscious, her baby had been removed by Caesarean section and handed over to social workers.
[. . .]
But there is now abundant evidence (and the Mail has played a valiant part in bringing this to light) that many thousands a year are being removed from their parents for no good reason at all.
Secondly, there is the readiness of the police to collaborate unquestioningly with the social workers — as in this case, where they were even prepared to tell the mother a lie to trick her into entering the psychiatric hospital.
[. . .]
If the story of what was done to her serves any useful purpose, it will be to bring home more forcefully than ever just how rotten this system has become and what terrible acts of inhumanity it too often wreaks on those children and parents who have become its helpless victims.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517144/Explain-snatched-baby-girl-birth-Judges-order-social-workers-forced-caesarean.html

Explain why you snatched baby girl at birth: Judge's order to social workers behind forced caesarean
Sir James Munby has demanded answers in extraordinary case
The child was taken from the 35-year-old Italian in forced caesarean
The case shines light on murky secrecy of Court of Protection
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 18:20 EST, 2 December 2013 | UPDATED: 20:42 EST, 2 December 2013

Columbia University's Social Worker Ex-Convicts

Kathy Boudin was recently approached by a Fox News Channel producer at Columbia University after public outrage over her adjunct teaching position at the school. (Fox News Channel)

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/19/columbia-cons-ivy-league-social-work-program-run-by-team-former-prisoners/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

Columbia's Cons: Ivy League social work program run by team of former prisoners
By Perry Chiaramonte
Published June 19, 2013
FoxNews.com