Attorney specializing in child welfare cases, Michael Discioarro, called out Child Protection Services (CPS) for ignoring “dying children” across the U.S. on Monday while discussing the ongoing treadmill abuse murder trial.
Discioarro appeared on “Cuomo” to discuss the trial involving the death of 6-year-old Corey Micciolo, who prosecutors believed died due to blunt force trauma he suffered from his father forcing him to run on a treadmill, even after falling multiple times. Before bringing on Discioarro, NewsNation host Chris Cuomo explained that his team attempted to get in contact with a CPS official, however, none were willing to respond.
As Cuomo slammed the government agency, he questioned Discioarro on how CPS was allowed to “get a pass on accountability” as Micciolo’s mother reportedly contacted CPS multiple times about the father. (RELATED: Mommy Vlogger Ruby Franke’s Abuse Diaries Released)
“We have to start the conversation that CPS, it’s called ACS in New York City, is a large nationwide, highly dysfunctional agency. This may be the first time we’ve had this in New Jersey [that] you’ve heard of this. But in New York City, we’ve had legendary cases just like this where CPS what’s called ACS in York City, has ignored dying children,” Discioarro stated.
“And that’s not me saying, that’s the Brooklyn DA office [that has a] report. Your viewers can look it up and the most famous one is Nixzmary Brown. These agencies are built to attack parents, not protect children.”
“What’s the difference?” Cuomo pressed.
“Their goal is to manufacture cases against parents in order to increase funding. CPS is funded by two ways. One, when they remove a child, they get about $50,000 a year per child and put them into foster care. But more importantly the real business they have is putting parents into services. Once you put a parent in the services, you can get funding for that and we’re talking about funding billions of dollars,” Discioarro responded.
“Right, I’m good with that. I’m saying they didn’t do that here,” Cuomo responded.
“No, they don’t — because what they’re doing is they’re attacking good families with children that are fine and they’re too busy to find the one that’s actually being injured. Right? If you treat all the cases the same, none of them are important. So this is a dysfunction that happens throughout the nation. In New York City it’s happened at least 44, 45 times,” Discioarro stated.
In August 2007, The Department of Investigation of Examination released a report regarding the death of 11 children and one near fatality, detailing investigation failures into the cases. One of the most publicized cases discussed was about Nixzmary Brown who was found beaten to death in her family’s Brooklyn apartment in 2006. Brown’s step father was later indicted for murder, manslaughter, unlawful imprisonment, and sexual abuse as well as being charged with assault and attempted assault against Brown’s siblings and mother.
Before Brown’s death, both the step father and mother had been the “subjects of two reports to the SCR hotline alleging physical abuse and educational neglect,” according to the report. Additionally, the CPS in New York, known as ACS, was called several times “directly from school officials” who stated that Brown and her siblings “had been absent from school for considerable periods of time.”
