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One of the few ways to crack the unusual secrecy of the bureaucracy that is supposed to protect Hawaii’s children is to sue them — and even then it can be infuriatingly hard.

Exhibit A: Joy Graves v. Hawaii et al. The lawsuit alleges that the state negligently placed a 13-year-old girl, known as T.G. in court filings, in a Kailua-Kona home where she was sexually assaulted.

Right away, this case —  filed in 2019 — included a shocking charge: A Child Welfare Services worker brushed off a warning from T.G.’s older sister that T.G. was about to be placed in a foster home frequented by a man who had sexually molested the older sister.

“Don’t tell her that,” the social worker Kerry Perez said to the sister, according to the lawsuit. “Otherwise she won’t go there.”

The state and Perez, no longer at CWS, deny in court filings that this conversation took place. 

Now, almost five years after the suit was filed, the plaintiffs have managed to pry out some new and troubling information. They found a 2015 report from someone warning that young children were being sexually exploited in the same home. This was two years before T.G. was placed there.

T.G.’s lawyers unearthed this, not from CWS, but through a subpoena to the Hawaii Police Department for any records pertaining to the foster mother. The police investigator said he contacted CWS about the allegations, and that they had found them without merit.

Here’s the kicker: The state told the plaintiffs quite plainly that it knew nothing about any earlier reports about sexual abuse in the foster household. Despite requests for any reports over the last 15 years, the plaintiffs got nothing.

“It’s highly prejudicial to our case,” said Carlos Perez-Mesa, one of T.G.’s attorneys. “It does appear they’re playing hide the ball.”

None of these allegations have been proven. No one has been convicted of anything. But the lawsuit is shining a light into processes that are usually opaque, and it’s raised some pressing questions about the state’s actions in this case.

It’s provided the kind of review that lawmakers and others with oversight powers should be doing in response to horrific deaths of children — namely, Ariel Sellers and Geanna Bradley — allegedly killed by people who started off as their foster parents.

But in these cases, too, it looks like we will have to wait for the adversarial process to play out in court to get any answers.

A Warning At A Starbucks?

The narrative described in Graves v. Hawaii is as follows:

In 2017, T.G. — then 13 — met with social worker Kerry Perez at a Starbucks in Waimea to discuss T.G.’s placement in the foster home of a woman named Gloria Holmes. T.G.’s older sister was also there.

The sister said that, when she was a minor, a man named Tye Puaoi-Marcellino, a frequent visitor who sometimes stayed at the Holmes residence, had sexually abused her. That prompted Perez’s alleged admonition for the sister not to talk about it, lest T.G. be afraid to go to that foster home.

A short time later, T.G. did move in with Holmes. And within two months, Puaoi-Marcellino snuck into her bedroom and tried to have sex with her, the lawsuit alleges. A month after that, when Holmes was taking another foster child to a medical appointment, Puaoi-Marcellino allegedly led her into a bedroom and forced her to have sex, despite her protestation that “I’m scared and I don’t want to do this.”

The lawsuit alleges that Holmes’ son, Wayne, also sexually assaulted T.G. Neither Puaoi-Marcellino nor Wayne Holmes has ever been charged. T.G. claims in the lawsuit to have suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts because of the events.

Gloria Holmes, Wayne Holmes and Puaoi-Marcellino could not be reached for comment.

The plaintiffs embarked on a yearslong effort to get CWS records. At one point, the state was arguing that either all the parties had to sign releases or the court had to review the records to determine which ones were relevant to the case.

The first option would have required Gloria Holmes, Wayne Holmes and Puaoi-Marcellino to agree to the release of records. In fact, the state sent them the forms but never heard back. 

This outraged T.G.’s attorneys. “Plaintiff can’t, and shouldn’t, have to wait for the signature of one of the men who raped her in order to obtain her own records,” they wrote.

Eventually, the second option — judicial review — led to the plaintiffs getting some documents.

One thing T.G.’s attorneys wanted to know was whether there had been earlier complaints about the foster home where the girl was alleged to have been assaulted. Obviously, this kind of information would help bolster their case that the state was negligent in placing T.G. there.

They asked for all documents on Gloria Holmes, including any investigations of her and for any report or complaint made to the Department of Human Services, the parent agency of CWS, in the last 15 years. 

Also, social worker Kerry Perez was asked in written questions whether she’d had any communications about sexual abuse of T.G., her older sister or “anyone else” in the Holmes household. 

“There was no communication regarding alleged sexual abuse of anyone in the home of Gloria Holmes, prior to the initial disclosure to the State of allegations of sexual abuse by T.G. on or about February 26, 2018,” the state responded.

Keep in mind that, though these questions were directed at Perez, they were answered by the state and its attorneys. A number of officials were listed as assisting in the responses, including Elladine Olevao, the head of CWS. Olevao read all the answers and verified that they were true to the best of her knowledge.

Then how can the state account for the 2015 report of sexual abuse dug up by T.G.’s attorneys?

A Call To A National Hotline

The person who made these accusations initially called a national hotline to report missing or exploited children. 

The person reported seeing possible redness and irritation in a 5-year-old’s vaginal area. Adult men watched movies with nudity, possibly when the young children were there. The person claimed to overhear Gloria Holmes call a girl “a little fat bitch” and see a man pick up a boy by his pants. The children never left the house, the person claimed, and a 6-year-old looked like she was 3. 

The national center conveyed the complaint to the Hawaii Police Department, which contacted CWS. The officer talked to a CWS worker named Wendy Robinson, who reported CWS had gotten a “call of concern” about Holmes the week before, presumably from the same person, and gone by her house to check.

But “no allegations were confirmed,” the police report states. 

“CWS related that there are no current concerns,” it said.

We cannot know if CWS had good reason for dismissing these allegations. 

But how did this report not get shared with the plaintiffs in response to its questions and demands for documents? How did it not qualify as a report made to CWS in the last 15 years, as T.G.’s lawyers requested, or a “communication regarding alleged sexual abuse of anyone in the home of Gloria Holmes.”

What’s more, one of the people listed as assisting in the preparation of Perez’s official responses was Wendy Robinson, the CWS worker named in the Hawaii Police Department report.

“It’s really frustrating,” lawyer Carlos Perez-Mesa said. “It’s in the public’s interest to have all this information to have some idea that child welfare works. The state is working against the general public.”

I asked CWS why the plaintiffs didn’t get the 2015 report. The agency deferred to the judge, “including the Judge’s authority to limit disclosure of confidential material consistent with State law.” 

Is CWS saying that it gave the 2015 report to the judge, but that the judge decided to withhold it from the plaintiffs? That seems unlikely.

A few years after that 2015 incident, several months after T.G. made her allegations, CWS got another report involving Holmes, this one alleging that she had sexually molested a 5-year-old who lived there from 2015 to 2018. This accusation was made after the child had gone to a different foster home and said something that caused the new foster parents to become concerned.

Police referred the case to the prosecuting attorney’s office, but Holmes was never charged, according to records from the Hawaii Police Department. In terms of the state’s disclosure to the plaintiffs, this incident differs from the 2015 report because it only came to light after T.G. said she had been assaulted. 

Many Questions, No Answers

We cannot know which, if any, of the allegations about Holmes’ foster home are true.

But questions abound. How thoroughly did CWS investigate the very detailed 2015 report and why did it dismiss the allegations? Why did the plaintiffs not get the 2015 report from CWS?

Did two adult men later accused of sexual assault frequent the Holmes household? Did CWS know this and, if so, why did it not screen them? Did a social worker ignore an allegation of sexual abuse in making a foster placement?

Maybe the civil lawsuit will get answers. Or maybe it will settle out of court, and that will be that. Holmes herself has already reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount. 

In the meantime, State Auditor Les Kondo the context in which cases like this unfold.

Though it was not the focus of his audit, Kondo found that — as of December — 34% of CWS’s 389.5 positions were vacant, the highest rate in a decade. As of the end of March, it was still at 32.1%.

CWS told the auditor that workers “who investigate abuse allegations are the hardest to retain … some assessment workers do not pass the six-month probation period.” 

There are so many problems at CWS crying out for legislative scrutiny and oversight. They’re the ones who should be piercing the veil of secrecy. 

And Perez-Mesa is left to wonder about the T.G. case. “If they’re hiding this information,” he asked, “what else are they hiding?”