Money for Moesha

Today, attorneys for the Florida Department of Children and Families will begin trying to persuade a jury that the state should not have to pay the lifelong therapy costs and medical expenses for a 6-year-old who was irreparably brain-damaged as a toddler on DCF's watch. Given the state's admitted failure to heed the warning signs of abuse, the only question should be how much Marissa Amora needs.

Refusing to pay only furthers the state's poor response to the girl formerly known as Moesha Sylencieux. Moesha was nearly beaten to death in January 2001, a month after abuse reports had been made to DCF. Nurses and doctors at Miami Children's Hospital who treated the girl for medical problems her mother could not explain begged DCF not to send Moesha home to Lake Worth until an investigation could be completed.

Instead, DCF allowed Moesha's mother to take her, while Palm Beach County played a game of jurisdictional hot potato with Miami-Dade, each district tossing the case to the other. A caseworker did not follow up after a visit to the house, and one month after her hospital release, Moesha was beaten unconscious, probably held by her feet and shaken. Investigators believe that the mother's boyfriend did it, but no one has been charged.

Renamed Marissa by her adoptive parents, the girl is brain-damaged, wheelchair-bound, unable to swallow and dependent on medicine for seizures and pain. Moesha's legacy -- a what-not-to-do warning for investigators -- is the same as that of 2-year-old Joshua Saccone and 4-year-old Dylan Cassone, who died from abuse within six months prior to Moesha's beating, also despite DCF's involvement. A grand jury recommended that DCF fire nine people in the wake of the boys' deaths and Moesha's near-fatal abuse. A Palm Beach County grand jury reiterated this year that training for all new DCF investigators should include "a review of the inadequacies found throughout the cases concerning Joshua, Dylan and Moesha."

Even if the jury determines that DCF should pay for Marissa's care, estimated between $8 million and $25 million, Dawn and Ric Amora won't get quick relief for their daughter. The Legislature would have to approve any payments. Ray Liberti, now a West Palm Beach city commissioner and then interim director of DCF's Palm Beach County office, said this in a deposition: "No one wanted to take responsibility." Right. So now the state must accept the bill for that failure.