The state has agreed to pay nearly $5 million to three children who were severely neglected and tortured by their great-aunt over five years despite more than 20 complaints made by their teachers and counselors to state child welfare workers and police.
Merlinda Avalos, now 56, was sentenced in January 2019 to 12 years and seven months in prison after pleading guilty to six counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment in Washington County Circuit Court.
The settlement, reached after lengthy mediation with the help of two retired state judges, was to be divided evenly, awarding $1.65 million to each of the siblings, two girls and a boy.
Shortly after the eldest of the children, then 18, was told of the pending settlement, he died by suicide on Aug. 19, 2024, in New Mexico, according to the lawyers who filed suit against the state. His share will go toward his estate and a probate court will determine how the money will be distributed, they said.
The children were not in the care of the state at the time of the abuse, which made the case more challenging, said attorney Josh Lamborn, who along with attorneys Paul C. Galm and Jeremiah V. Ross filed the suit.
Jake Sunderland, a spokesperson for the state Department of Human Services, said he could not comment on the litigation. The settlement was filed in federal court this week, awaiting approval by U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman.
The children suffered chronic starvation, were deprived of sleep and forced to urinate in “pee jugs” in their room at night, according to the suit. They were prevented from using the bathroom, had their mouths duct-taped closed and were repeatedly hit with a flyswatter, broom handle, belt or wooden spoon, the suit said.
Avalos made the children attend school in urine-drenched clothes, restricted showers to every Sunday with cold water and forced the children to sleep naked on bare mattresses with their bedroom window open even when it was cold outside, the suit said.
She also taped tacks to the rungs of the children’s bunk bed to thwart them from climbing down at night, kicked them, choked them and shot them in their backs with a BB gun, according to the suit.
Neighbors, school staff and other mandatory reporters made at least 20 reports to the state Department of Human Services and 911 between April 2013 and April 2018, when the state finally removed the children from Avalos’ home, the complaint said. In April 2013, the two girls were 5 and their brother was 7.
On April 16, 2013, for example, school staff reported to the state child welfare agency that the children had disclosed Avalos was forcing them to stand for hours in a corner until late at night as punishment, denied them food, and covered their noses and mounts with a shirt so they couldn’t breathe, according to the suit. The school also reported suspicious bruises and wounds on the children.
A state worker ruled the threat of harm “unfounded,” but the state failed to take photos of the suspicious injuries or have the children examined by a medical professional within 48 hours of the report, as state rules required.
Instead, the state developed a protective plan but included Avalos in it — a violation of agency rules that said such a plan should not include the “alleged perpetrator of physical abuse,” according to the complaint.
On May 4, 2015, an anonymous caller to the Department of Human Services reported concerns of excessive discipline in the home, saying Avalos often locked the children outside in the rain, made fun of the children because they smelled like urine and feces and forced the children to use the bathroom all at once, according to the suit.
The state agency closed the report without investigation or assessment and failed to review the history of the children or assign the complaint for a child abuse assessment, the suit said.
On Feb. 11, 2016, a school employee reported that one of the children had a small bruise around her eye and dried blood in her nose. It was the second time the school counselor had seen the girl’s eye injured, according to the suit.
The state child welfare agency did an assessment but concluded the reports were “unsubstantiated,” the suit said.
A month later, a school employee reported to the Department of Human Services that one of the girls had a new bruise on her right eyelid and broken blood vessels around her eye. The girl was not taken to CARES Northwest, a child abuse assessment center, until nine days later and by then, her injuries had faded, according to the suit.
On May 19, 2016, a school employee reported to the state agency that the children showed up in dirty clothes wreaking of urine. The school would “secretly” have the children change into clean clothes at school but the girls would change back into their dirty clothes before Avalos picked them up out of fear of retribution, according to the suit.
One of the children was so worried that Avalos would find out she wore clean clothes at school that she often broke down crying, the suit said.
On Sept. 7, 2016, a neighbor reported to the state that the boy was locked outside and forced to do yard work in his underwear while Avalos screamed and cursed at him. The neighbor reported often hearing smacking noises, followed by children screaming, the suit said.
By late October 2017, the boy had suspicious injuries to his eye, wrist and ankles and disclosed that Avalos hit him with a bag of books, forced a urine-soaked rag over his mouth while he was crying, squeezed his eye and tied him to the bed with a dog leash, causing ligature marks around his ankle, according to the suit.
He detailed to his school counselor those and prior injuries suffered from Avalos, which he had previously hidden out of fear and “because in the past nothing ever happened when he reports,” the suit said.
Again, the state assessment done three days came back “unfounded,” according to the suit.
Hillsboro police said they started an investigation in April 2018 after one child disclosed abuse to a school counselor. Detectives and experts from CARES Northwest interviewed the children, by then ages 9, 10 and 12, and found extensive evidence of ongoing abuse, police said.
“After detectives first confronted Avalos with the allegations, an officer spotted Avalos and her husband attempting to destroy evidence at their home,” Washington County District Attorney’s office said in a statement after Avalos’ sentencing in 2019. The evidence, later gathered by law enforcement, corroborated the children’s allegations, police said.
Early in the civil case, the state’s lawyers moved to dismiss the suit, arguing the allegations and the suit should be filed solely against the person who abused the children.
The suit was allowed to proceed after the Oregon Supreme Court, in another case, ruled that a claim of abuse of a vulnerable person under the state’s Vulnerable Person Act could be made against a public body, such as the state child welfare agency, when the claim is based on the acts or lack of action by employees of a public body acting in the scope of their jobs.
The state admitted in court records that it had received multiple child abuse “hotline reports” regarding the children in Avalos’ care, and noted the “details” and “results” are in the state reports that “speak for themselves,” according to the state’s lawyers. The state took the children into protective custody on April 6, 2018, according to filings by the state’s lawyers.
In addition to her prison time, Avalos was ordered to pay more than $20,000 in compensatory fines to the children, more than $6,000 in restitution and ordered to have no contact with minors other than her own son when she is released, scheduled for late March 2029.
After the state removed the children from her care, they were returned to their mother, who moved them to New Mexico. The mother then relapsed on drugs, and New Mexico’s child welfare agency took the children into its care, according to court records.
Eventually, the mother regained custody of the girls and the boy turned 18 and was working picking onions in New Mexico to earn a living before he died, said the lawyers who filed suit.
The sisters continue to live in New Mexico with their mother. One is now 16 years old and the other is 17.
Retired Multnomah County Judges Jean Maurer and Eric Bergstrom helped in the mediation.
— Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com, follow her on X @maxoregonian, on Bluesky @maxbernstein.bsky.social or on LinkedIn.