They stumbled upon a child porn ring, then did nothing

The tip came in six days before Christmas. Someone called a child abuse hotline, reporting that a parent in Desert Hot Springs was molesting two boys. The caller said the man also kept pictures of boys posing in their underwear on his computer.

And so, as it often does, Riverside County sent social workers to investigate the man, a licensed foster parent. He lived in a two-bedroom house with two adopted sons, a preteen boy for whom he was seeking guardianship, and a neighborhood teenager who had moved in after an argument with his parents.

When questioned, the children denied the abuse. But the tipster, it seemed, had been at least half right. Searching the man's computer, social workers found two photos of children, unrelated to the parent, posing in their underwear. The pictures had been taken by one of the foster parent's friends, one of the boys said. Sometimes they spent time with that friend, the boy said.

To these social workers, these underwear pictures were concerning, but they were not concerning enough. Social workers classified the investigation as "inconclusive," then closed their inquiry, according to Riverside County court documents.

The boys were left in the man's home. His foster license was left intact.

Today, that same parent, John David Yoder, sits behind bars, a suspect in what officials have called one of the worst child pornography rings in Southern California in recent years. Yoder and three other suspects have been accused of victimizing as many as 15 children in Desert Hot Springs, including some of the boys that lived with him. Yoder was arrested in February as result of a separate investigation by law enforcement in Nevada. The charges he now faces are nearly identical to the allegations that were reported to the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services shortly before Christmas.

If social workers had acted differently in December, the boys in Yoder's home could have been rescued six weeks earlier.

"I couldn't believe it," said the biological mother of one of the boys, whose name is being withheld to protect his identity. "If they found the pictures, how could they let that go? How could they not look further into it? They could have saved him — all of the boys — a lot sooner."

In Riverside County, and throughout California, the overwhelming majority of Child Protective Services (CPS) investigations end with unsubstantiated allegations, just like the Yoder investigation did. Riverside County social workers investigate tens of thousands of parents each year, but more than three-fourths of those investigations end up with either "inconclusive" or "unfounded" findings. This pattern is even more prevalent in investigations of foster homes, where the county has an even larger responsibility to protect wards of the state, but only four percent of complaints are substantiated.

In almost all of these cases, the substance of investigations is kept confidential, making it difficult to know if there are other cases where social workers overlooked alarming evidence of abuse. Social services officials operate in near-impervious secrecy, which is bolstered by some of the nation's strictest confidentiality laws, making public oversight and accountability of individual child welfare investigations almost impossible.

Because of this, it would have been easy for the troubling details of the Yoder case to stay buried forever.

The Desert Sun is the first news organization to reveal that social workers found alarming pictures on Yoder's computer long before his arrest. That revelation became possible because the newspaper obtained a confidential report about the CPS investigation of Yoder's home, filed in a juvenile court case that is invisible to both journalists and the public. However, it is still not known who was directly responsible for the bungled investigation, and what steps, if any, have been taken to prevent such a mistake from happening again.

The Riverside County Department of Social Services refused to be interviewed for this story.

Susan von Zabern, the director of the department, initially scheduled an interview to discuss child welfare services, but withdrew after being told she would be questioned about the Yoder investigation. Zabern said confidentiality laws barred her from discussing the case in any capacity, then canceled the interview.

From that point on, Social Services officials would only answer questions in writing, Zabern said.

The department's unwillingness to talk came as no surprise to Gerald Singleton, a San Diego civil rights attorney who specializes in lawsuits over abuse and negligence in government child services.

Earlier this year, Singleton successfully settled a lawsuit against Riverside County on behalf of a foster child who received minor chemical burns after he was accidentally bathed in bleach water.

But for every case like that one, there are more that were never filed, Singleton said. Foster children have a year-long window to sue the government, but many winnable cases don't surface until after that window has closed.

That happens, at least in part, because Social Services guards the findings of child welfare investigations so closely. Agencies are able to hide their own mistakes behind a privacy wall that is intended to protect children — not the government — Singleton said.

"If I was going to change one thing about this system, it would be to dramatically change the confidentiality requirements," Singleton said. "The way it functions now, confidentiality has really become a veil of secrecy, so there is no meaningful form of outside oversight. In this society, we have the press to act as a watchdog, and attorneys who bring lawsuits. But in this system neither of those things can happen because almost nobody has the relevant information."

Nobody has that information because, when it comes to CPS investigations, California law is one of the most restrictive in the nation. All CPS reports are automatically confidential, with disclosure exceptions for law enforcement and hospital officials but few others.

Many other state laws allow Social Services to unseal investigations under extreme circumstances, but California law does not.

There are at least 17 states where CPS officials would be free to answer questions about their investigations in circumstances similar to the Yoder case, according to a state-by-state analysis of confidentiality laws, which was performed by the federal government and analyzed by The Desert Sun. In some of these states, details from the Yoder investigation would be unsealed because he was arrested. In other states, Social Services could answer questions about the case because The Desert Sun already knew Yoder had been investigated.

But in Riverside County, neither of those exemptions exist. Despite public interest in knowing what went wrong in the Yoder investigation, these answers are forbidden by law.

Brett Drake, a child welfare expert at Washington University in St. Louis, said this kind of absolute confidentiality is appropriate in most CPS cases because children and families deserve privacy, even if they are being investigated.

However, Drake said the same secrecy becomes far more ambiguous in especially troubling cases, where there are questions not only of parental maltreatment, but also of government negligence.

"Child welfare is perhaps the most secretive system there is — even more restrictive than criminal cases," Drake said. "It can be tantalizing, and frustrating, because although we see some of the facts of these situations, there is no way to break into CPS and see what really happened. ... On the other hand, we would all scream like stuck pigs if it was the policy of CPS to violate a family's confidentiality right and left."

In the Yoder case, more details might become public when Yoder goes to trial in November.

Yoder has pleaded not guilty, and insisted in a letter to The Desert Sun that he has been falsely accused. Two of his co-defendants, William Clyde Thompson and Erick Monsivais, have also entered not guilty pleas, but the fourth suspect, Noland Harper, has pleaded guilty to participating in a child exploitation enterprise.

Yoder has been charged with molesting at least one boy and luring other children into the grasp of the pornography ring, which targeted preteen boys from poor homes with no father figures. According to law enforcement, the ring masqueraded as a child modeling agency and preyed on boys at the Desert Hot Springs skate park. Suspects would give the boys expensive gifts —including cash, scooters and iPhones — in exchange for pictures of them in their underwear. Thompson and Monsivais are accused of molesting boys once they had earned their trust.

Yoder's attorney, John Patrick Dolan, has described his client as a patsy, who helped the other suspects because he believed they were running a legitimate modeling agency. Dolan stressed that Yoder's boys have repeatedly denied that they were abused, and that authorities have never found any child pornography in Yoder' possession.

When asked about the pictures found by social workers back in December, Dolan said that pictures of boys in their underwear might be "concerning," but they are not illegal.

"Why would you take the boys out of the house for that? There has to be something illegal or inappropriate," Dolan said. "You can't presume conduct is illegal."

On just about every school day, at a couple of schools somewhere in Riverside County, a handful of teachers make a phone call that nobody wants to make.

Worried, they call Child Protective Services to file a report. A girl in class has mysterious bruises. A boy came to school filthy, wearing the same shirt every day, with cockroaches in his backpack.

On average, Riverside County teachers make more than a dozen of these calls each day. Thousands of their reports are investigated each year. But only a few pan out.

Teachers and other education officials are one of the most common groups to report allegations of abuse and neglect to Child Protective Services, and yet — despite the widespread belief that teachers know their students better than just about anyone — these complaints are among the least likely to be substantiated.

Since 2010, Social Services has investigated more than 30,000 complaints reported by education sources, but substantiated less than one in nine.

In cases of teacher-reported physical abuse, substantiation was ever rarer — only 1 in every 28 cases, or less than 4 percent.

"That's bizarre, and frustrating to say the least," said Mark Acker, president of the Palm Springs Teachers' Association, who has made that abuse call to CPS himself. "That's a really hard call to make, and a lot of hand-wringing happens before you dial. Teachers don't take that decision lightly."

"I think the teachers are trustworthy."

The surprisingly low rate of verification of abuse reported by teachers is just one of the mysteries of Riverside County's child welfare substantiation rates, which explain how often CPS investigations find sufficient evidence that a child is being abused or neglected. Experts say substantiation rates paint an incomplete picture of child welfare work, but due to California's strict confidentiality laws, this data is the only public barometer of the effectiveness of CPS investigations. The data is published online by UC Berkeley.

During the five-year span from 2010 to 2014, Riverside County Social Services received about 175,000 CPS complaints. Social workers decided that approximately 150,000 of the complaints were worthy of investigation, but only 33,000 of those allegations were substantiated.

Another 96,000 complaints were dismissed as "unfounded." The remaining 20,000 investigations were "inconclusive," which meant social workers suspect something troublesome was going on, but they couldn't find enough evidence to make it stick.

In total, Riverside County had a five-year substantiation rate of 19 percent. Somewhere in the rest of those case are reports of real abuse, or real neglect, that got away, experts said.

"Are social workers catching every case of abuse or neglect? Absolutely not," said Drake, the St. Louis child welfare expert, who previously worked as a CPS investigator in San Diego.

"You can get fooled in a lot of ways," Drake added. "Sometimes you close a case with a warm feeling, but it's because you missed something. And sometimes you know in your heart what is really happening, but you can't move forward because you don't have enough evidence."

When asked about CPS complaints from teachers, Drake said teachers are among the most dependable reporters, because they can spot subtle clues of neglect that might be invisible to others. However, those complaints are likely the hardest to prove too, Drake said.

To substantiate a case in California, social workers must find a "preponderance of evidence" of abuse or neglect, which means enough evidence to show that it is more likely than not that maltreatment occurred. This burden of proof is higher than what is needed for police to make an arrest, but lower than necessary for a criminal conviction.

One of the strongest signs that maltreatment is being overlooked comes from studies of re-occurrence, which show that social workers frequently find themselves returning to the same homes to re-investigate the same parents, regardless of whether or not the initial complaints are substantiated.

The same is true in Riverside County. Since 2005, in about 35 percent of cases with unsubstantiated allegations, those same parents were re-reported and re-investigated within two years. The second time around, allegations are much more likely to be substantiated, casting doubt on the findings of the first investigation.

Drake, who has been studying child welfare investigations for decades, said statistics like that show how substantiation rates are an almost meaningless way to measure child maltreatment.

Not only do some cases of abuse and neglect get overlooked, but in many other cases, social workers don't need to substantiate a complaint to help a family. If parents are willing to work with Social Services voluntarily — which is preferred — substantiation becomes unnecessary.

Because of this, substantiation is likely under-reported in some cases, not due to lack of proof, but due to lack of need.

"As a social worker, I wrestled hard with the issue of if I should substantiate a case," Drake said. "But the real issue that I needed to answer is if a family needed our help, and if I could compel them to take my help without a court act."

When questioned about substantiation rates, the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services noted that rates in this county are actually slightly higher than the statewide rate, which is about 17 percent.

Social Services also stressed that both supervisors and quality control staff are dedicated to reviewing cases, and team meetings and consultations are routine steps in investigations.

"We make every effort to ensure investigations and case practice are thorough and well documented to support the decisions made," the county agency said in a written statement. "Safety, permanence and well-being of the children and families are our main objective and we take that responsibility seriously."

Ashley Adkins was 2 when her mother, a drug addict, abandoned her in a house in the Coachella Valley. A few days later, neighbors called CPS to report a crying toddler, left alone. Social workers rushed to the house, then Ashley was moved into her new home – foster care.

At first, the foster system tried to keep Ashley with her immediate family, sending her to live with an uncle in Florida. She stayed there until she was 4, when she got shot as two relatives argued over a faulty car battery. Once she recovered, Ashley was sent to live with her paternal grandparents, but they were too old to take care of her for long.

By age 9, Ashley was out of relatives to stay with. She came back to Riverside County, where she spent the next nine years placed with foster families and group homes. Some of the foster parents were kind, she said. Others were cruel. One woman would punish her by making her stand on one leg until she fell, then do it all again.

But, no matter what, Ashley was afraid to tattle. When social workers would come to inspect her home, her foster parents would put on a loving act. Ashley would nod and smile, or lie, or say nothing at all.

"The charade was to act like we were a happy family, which we weren't. At all," said Ashley, now 22, a college student in Riverside. "They would clean the house, dress us nicer and tell us to be on our best behavior. And, if the foster parent was mean in any way, out of fear or a need to protect yourself … you would pretend everything is fine."

Stories like Ashley's cast doubt on the investigations of Riverside County foster care, where substantiation of abuse or neglect is much rarer than in standard CPS investigations. From 2012 to 2014, Riverside County recieved more than 2,300 complaints against foster parents, and investigated 1,560. One hundred investigations led to a substantiated case of abuse or neglect, according to the Department of Public Social Services.

Each year, the county reports that less than 2 percent of foster children are the victims of substantiated mistreatment while in the foster system.

Ashley called that number "ridiculous." And she is not alone in that opinion, according to interviews with experts and former foster kids.

"It's not 2 percent," said Kristi Camplin, the founder of Inspire Life Skills Training, a nonprofit that works with former foster children in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. "My kids would disagree with that for sure."

For the past 10 years, Camplin has supported young adults who have aged out of the foster system, but are struggling to make ends meet and attend college. Through this work, Camplin has gotten to know dozens of young adults who spent years in Riverside County foster care. These kids tell horror stories, Camplin said, and although there is no way to tell which stories are true, she believes many are.

Confirmation is a common problem when researchers speak with former foster kids, which is one of the only ways to independently measure maltreatment in foster care, said Jill Duerr Berrick, the co-director of UC Berkeley Center for Child and Youth Policy.

Berrick said these studies are in "contested territory," with wildly different results depending on who you ask, and answers that are further muddled by blurred definitions between abuse, neglect, maltreatment, and unfairness.

However, if you look at enough research, a fuzzy consensus starts to emerge. It's not as rosy as the government reports.

"I don't really know what to make of the official numbers," Berrick said. "When you pull all these data sources together, the picture says that some percentage of these kids — probably greater than 2 percent — are not having very good care, and that some percentage of kids — probably greater than three-fourths — are having a relatively positive experience in care."

There are about 4,550 children in Riverside County foster care, according to the latest data, collected in April. Of those kids, about 1,500 are placed with relatives who have been given expedited licensing as a foster parent, allowing the child to stay with their extended family. The rest of the kids are split between foster homes, group homes, guardianship programs and other less common placement types.

According to Social Services, allegations against foster parents are investigated by a specialized team, the Out-Of-Home Investigations Unit, but conducted in a similar manner as standard CPS investigations.

The county agency said it is not "concretely known" why substantiation rates are lower within foster care, but believes a contributing factor is the fact that, unlike standard parents, foster parents are trained, licensed and monitored on a monthly basis.

Then again, that was also true for Yoder, the foster parent and child porn suspect.

According to Riverside County court documents, Yoder has been a California foster parent since at least 2004, and had run his foster home in Desert Hot Springs since at least 2008. Both of his adopted sons were previously foster children, placed in his home by the counties of Los Angeles and Riverside, respectively.

At least two other young male foster children were temporarily placed in Yoder's home since 2008, but the total number of children exposed to Yoder through the foster system is unknown. The full record of Yoder's time as a foster parent is sealed, and only some snippets are available in public court documents. Those documents show that Yoder's behavior raised concerns back in 2013, more than a year before the first child porn allegations surfaced.

In November 2013, Yoder was vying for legal guardianship of a 12-year-old boy through a public court proceeding that is separate from foster care or adoption. During this process, a judge sent a court-appointed investigator to Yoder's home as part of an effort to ensure it was safe for kids.

The investigator, Deanne McCollum, was a former Riverside County social worker.

It took her less than a minute to turn Yoder down.

According to court documents, McCollum walked into the Desert Hot Springs home, then turned around and walked right back out. Standing in front of the house, she told Yoder that she would oppose his bid for guardianship.

Then she called the boy's biological parents.

Her tone was serious.

"She didn't say what she saw, but she said something like 'get your son the hell out of there,'" the boy's mother said.

Court documents do not say what McCollum saw in Yoder's home. Her testimony on the visit has been sealed by a Superior Court judge. McCollum did not respond to numerous attempts to reach her for comment over several months.

However, whatever it was McCollum saw, it appears that she reported it to the county.

Social Services received a complaint about Yoder the same day of McCollum's home visit, then opened a "general neglect" investigation, according to confidential documents. The agency decided later that the neglect allegations were unfounded, despite the fact that they may have come from another social worker.

The investigation was closed.

The children were left in Yoder's care.

Three months later, Yoder's phone rang. It was Social Services. They wanted to know if Yoder was willing to take in another foster child.

Yoder turned them down, saying his hands were full with the boys he already had.

Desert Sun Reporter Barrett Newkirk contributed to this story.

Reporter Brett Kelman can be reached at (760) 778-4642, by email at brett.kelman@desertsun.com, or on Twitter @TDSbrettkelman.