Late Wednesday afternoon, Judge Mark Jones finally threw out the bogus child abuse charges against Nick and Carrie Nowatney. We told you so!
No matter what kind of spin they try to put on this over at the offices of State Attorney Kirk Zuelch and the State Dept. of Children & Families (DCF), they had their heads handed to them. They had their lunch eaten. They got their asses whipped!
The winning attorney was Michael Barnes who represented the Nowatneys against all odds. The loser was Zuelch and his Assistant State Atorney Janine Gedmin.
It is unlikely that the baby-snatching days of Attorney Gedmin are over. But it probably will never again be as much fun for her as maybe it once was.
For the Nowatneys and Attorney Barnes, victory was sudden, but sweet.
In making his surprise ruling, he said, "I don't need to hear any more testimony."
Judge Jones did the right thing. As we have been repeatedly telling you over the past 13 weeks, the only thing this trial has ever been about was to punish the Nowatneys for daring to stand up to the all-powerful DCF— for refusing to plead guilty to something they didn't do.
The only criminals in this case are the corrupt officials at the DCF and in the State Attorney's office who went forward with this prosecution, spending thousands and thousands and thousands of taxpayer dollars, when they knew they didn't have a case!
Well, today, fellow citizens, that pack of wild dogs has been hosed down. Today, they are cowering in their dens, tails tucked, licking their sores. Today, there is no honor over at DCF and the State Attorney's office. There is only defeat and dishonor .
There will be more to say about this shameful abuse of power in coming weeks as we analyze what happened and why. But we hope that the resolution of this travesty will result in at least two outcomes:
• Every parasite in the local DCF office who had anything to do with decision-making in the Nowatney case should be fired. They should never be allowed to do anything like this to anyone ever again!
• State Attorney Zuelch's 20-year ride as an elected official should be terminated. He is the one man who, at any time, could have ended the pain and suffering of the Nowatneys. He didn't do it. He's up for reelection this year. We predict that the voters will punish him appropriately.
Let's review, once again, what these people did to Nick and Carrie Nowatney.
The story began back on Sept. 3 of last year. Ten-month-old Nathan Nowatney was home alone with his father, a medic in an elite Army Special Forces unit assigned to the Naval Air Station here. Nathan fell off the couch and broke his forearm.
At the hospital, he was treated and sent home. Attending physicians say they saw nothing unusual, certainly no evidence of child abuse.
But another doctor who looked at the x-rays spotted what looked like a previous "greenstick" fracture, a crack in a bone in the same arm, that was healing. That fracture had neither been reported nor treated. And the Nowatneys had no explanation for it.
By law, that unreported injury had to be reported to the Child Abuse Hotline— and an incredible series of events was set in motion.
Although they had absolutely no evidence that any child abuse had occurred, officials from the State Dept. of Children & Families (DCF) petitioned Judge Sandra Taylor to allow them to go to the Nowatney home and take Nathan and his older sister, Natalie, 3, and put them in a foster home. They told the judge that Natalie had also suffered a broken forearm a few months earlier while home alone with her mother.
Therefore, Attorney Gedmin argued, both parents might be child abusers.
Judge Taylor went along with the DCF— even though Nathan was still breastfeeding. And even though there were witnesses outside her chambers ready to challenge the DCF's charge of suspected child abuse. Not only were those witnesses not heard, the Nowatneys themselves were barred from that hearing for the first 20 minutes.
Over the next five months, the children were shuttled between three different foster homes up and down the Keys. But the Nowatneys could have gotten their kids back at any time, DCF officials now say.
"All we had to do was plead guilty and allow state case workers to come into our home anytime they wanted to for months or even years," said Nick Nowatney. "But we couldn't plead guilty— because we didn't do anything wrong."
So the DCF refused to return the children. During the same period, other families who had lost their children to the DCF were getting their kids back within a few days— simply by pleading guilty to child abuse and agreeing to accept the DCF's "services". These services include psychological evaluation, unannounced visits by DCF caseworkers, parenting classes, family budgeting classes, anger management classes, etc.
The Nowatneys were desperate to get their children back. "We were willing to do just about anything," said Nick.
They agreed to undergo psychological evaluations. They went to parenting classes. But they wouldn't plead guilty to child abuse charges. So the DCF continued to punish them by holding their children hostage!
As early as Oct. 28, however, Dr. Walter Lambert, the head of the DCF's Child Protection Team in Dade and Monroe Counties, told DCF officials here that, in his opinion, Natalie's broken arm was accidental, effectively eliminating Carrie as a "suspect."
"At that point, they should have returned the children to our home," Nick said. "If I was still a `suspect,' I would have moved to the barracks. I wouldn't have been thrilled about that, but at least our children would have been with their mother in a familiar environment, rather than forced to live with strangers."
But because Nick and Carrie would not plead guilty, the DCF would not return their children. And State Attorney Kirk Zuelch supported that!
Meanwhile:
• Both the Army and the Navy conducted separate investigations. No evidence of child abuse or neglect found. Both investigations had been closed.
• Two full body x-rays of both children showed no evidence of child abuse.
• Both parents voluntarily sat for polygraph examinations. No deception shown. Innocence indicated.
• Both parents had been exhaustively interviewed and fully tested by two psychologists— both of whom are frequently used by the court. Both doctors reported that the Nowatneys are committed parents and that neither have characteristics commonly associated with child abuse.
Attorney Gedmin, apparently more concerned about getting a conviction than searching for the truth, was able to get testimony from both psychologists squelched. State Attorney Kirk Zuelch supported this "get-the-Nowatneys strategy.
Last November, the Nowatneys, still unable to get their kids back, asked local DCF officials to take the necessary steps to qualify Carrie's sister, who lives in their hometown of Emden, Ill., as a foster parent so the kids might at least live with relatives, rather than strangers.
It took the DCF here two months to even send the paperwork to Illinois. But, finally, in February, Judge Jones signed an order allowing the children to live in Emden until the start of the trial on March 27.
"I was able to stay with my parents in Emden," Carrie said, "so I could at least be close to the children and be with them every day."
Nick remained on duty at the Naval Air Station here.
"When the kids were finally turned over to Carrie's relatives, Nathan had a diaper rash so serious it was blistering," Nick said. "Diaper rash is caused by neglect. Our son was neglected in foster care, supposedly under state supervision!"
Finally in late March— although the DCF and the State Attorney were still charging the Nowatneys with child abuse— Judge Jones said the kids could return to Key West to live with their parents. Duh!
"They could have and should have returned our kids back in September," Nick said. "The only reason they didn't was to try to coerce us into pleading guilty to something we couldn't do. Finally, they just couldn't justify holding our children hostage any longer."
When the trial started, several paid DCF medical experts suggested that what they saw on the x-rays "could have been" the result of child abuse. Other experts testifying for the parents— at little or no charge because this fight has financially exhausted the Nowatneys— scoffed at the state witnesses' conclusions.
"While forearm fractures are not unusual in children, they are unusual in child abuse cases," said Dr. Harry Smith of the Biodynamic Research Corp. in San Antonio. "Fracture locations that would raise suspicion would be the ribs, spine, collarbone and bones in the shoulder."
And since neither Nowatney child showed fractures in any of the "classical" locations, "the probability of child abuse is low to a degree of radiological certainty," Dr. Smith concluded.
Another defense witness, Dr. Thomas McNish, also with Biodynamic Research, scolded the DCF. "The initial appropriate concern for the possibility of child abuse . . . quickly gave way to an overly aggressive effort to prove the suspicions true, without attending to the lack of supporting evidence."
McNish is a medical expert's expert. He testified for the US Government in the famous Rodney King case.
After four days of testimony, the closed-to-the-public trial resumed for a half-day on April 14, with another half-day April 27 and another day on May 9.
Judge Jones stopped the trial Wednesday and ruled for the parents.
NOTE: The fight to get their children back and to defend themselves against those bogus child abuse charges has financially exhausted the Nowatneys. They are thousands of dollars in debt. On the other side, State Attorney Kirk Zuelch has had access to unlimited taxpayer dollars to try to grind this young couple into the ground.
If you want to help— and your help is needed— send your contribution to the Nowatney's legal defense fund. We call it the "Mama, Am I Still in Foster Care Fund" because that's what little Natalie always asked her mother every time she saw her during those long months when she was being forced by the DCF to live with strangers.
To contribute, drop your check off at our office at 422 Fleming St. or mail it % Key West The Newspaper, PO Box 567, Key West FL 33041. Questions: Call Dennis Reeves Cooper, 292-2108.