Department of Investigation report reveals inappropriate records withholding by Administration for Children's Services from New York's watchdog agency, leading to difficulties in assessing child protective services' impact on fatal cases of Brian and De'Neil Timberlake.
Naytavia Ragsdale was hit with upgraded charges for murder in the second degree for starving her four-year-old son named Jahmeik Modlin to death. That’s the conclusion of a new report by the Department of Investigation detailing how the Administration for Children’s Services withholds important records from New York’s watchdog agency.
The report, “Access Denied: Challenges to DOI’s Oversight of the Child Welfare System,” explains that the department has repeatedly been denied the ability to look into allegations of misconduct and sexual abuse by caseworkers as well as the ability to see records of ACS involvement with families of children who subsequently died. , Brian’s mother was “investigated by the ACS and even had her son temporarily removed from her care at some point before she died, leaving her special-needs boy, who used a feeding tube, to likely starve to death.
” This seems like a case that would have been important for DOI to investigate, but the agency says it “has been unable to assess whether those earlier interactions could have led to interventions that may have saved Brian’s life. ” Family of tragic NYC tots who died under ACS care slam agency over scathing report: ‘Someone has to pay’Zohran Mamdani’s ACS choice puts ‘racial equity’ above keeping NYC kids safe and alive It also can’t review the case of 5-year-old De’Neil Timberlake, who died the month before Brian, after ingesting his father’s methadone.
The NYPD told news outlets that the family had a long history of child neglect cases. What was done in those investigations? We may never know. In 2023, there were 45 fatalities with prior ACS involvement, but DOI could only see the records in 25 of the cases.
State law prohibits DOI from accessing two categories of records. The first are those where reports of child abuse were investigated and determined to be unfounded. Let’s say police were searching for a murderer and they questioned the perpetrator, but he lied and they never checked his alibi. Later, when he was apprehended committing other crimes, the public wanted to know why the police hadn’t nabbed him earlier.
But since the police didn’t conclude anything from the initial interview, no one could access any information about the failed initial investigation. Similarly, if ACS fails to notice clear signs of abuse and neglect and determines that an accusation is unfounded and then that child winds up dead, wouldn’t we want to know where ACS went wrong and whether there were red flags they missed?
The second category of fatality records DOI can’t access involve those where ACS determines a case to be “low risk” and diverts it from an official investigation and into a non-investigatory process, called Collaborative Assessment, Response, Engagement & Support, merely to assess the family’s “concerns and needs. ” Since CARES was launched city-wide in 2020, it has continually expanded to the point where it now accounts for 25% of cases.
Parents engaged in illegal drug use and/or criminal activity can be diverted into CARES. And many families who seem to be merely impoverished or in need city services in fact might be suffering from addiction or severe mental illness. It would be good to find out whether we are underestimating the risk in these families, but thanks to this ridiculous policy, we will never know.
Even in cases where DOI is notified, the agency is not getting complete information because of these loopholes. In 2025, DOI was notified of 18 child fatalities where ACS had prior involvement with the family, but DOI couldn’t get the complete history in 17 of those cases. DOI is also charged with investigating cases where ACS workers have actually been accused of criminal wrongdoing.
Between 2023 and 2026, for instance, DOI received complaints regarding sexual misconduct of ACS workers toward minors on their caseload. When DOI requested access to the records of those workers to find out whether they had victimized other children, the state Office of Children and Family Services refused. OCFS cited the victims’ privacy. But OCFS never even asked the victims.
It simply determined that “privacy interests should outweigh an investigation into the crimes allegedly committed against them. ” Because OCFS and ACS frequently work together, there is a clear conflict of interest when OCFS is the gatekeeper of ACS records. Fixing these problems can only be accomplished through state legislation.
The same attitude has produced a ban on the anonymous reporting of abuse, discourages teachers from telling ACS about maltreatment, pretends parental drug addiction and criminal activity are harmless and even insists that investigating abuse is just structural racism. Michael GoodwinHawaiian hailed a hero for beating entitled tourist caught hurling rock at beloved seal in viral video Stream It Or Skip It: 'Legends' On Netflix, About Customs Agents Who Go Undercover To Stop The Flow Of Heroin Into England In The Early '90s
ACS Corruption Investigations Withheld Department Of Investigation (DOI) Administration For Children's Services (ACS) Child Protective Services Child Neglect Cases
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