CHARLESTON – A Mason County grandfather says a state agency allowed three young girls to live with a registered sex offender, who later was sentenced on 136 counts for up to 1,210 years.
The plaintiff, identified as David B., filed his complaint as guardian of minor J.B., minor M.B. and S.M. in federal court February 20 against West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources employees Joshua VanBibber, Adam Gandee, Stephanie Kerns and Tasha Ruppert. S.M. now is an adult, but the complaint says identifying her would make identifying the minor children easy as well.
The plaintiffs assert a variety of constitutional and state law violations against the individual Child Protective Services workers and supervisors. The complaint states that under well-established case law, a child living in a home with a registered sex offender constitutes a threat to the child’s health and safety and meets the statutory definition of a neglected child.
According to the complaint, S.M. is the biological daughter of a woman identified as M.J.K. and lived with her mother in Ravenswood. J.B. lived in the home with them for several years, the complaint states. J.B. and M.B. were removed from the custody of their biological parents by DHHS (formerly the Department of Health and Human Resources or DHHR) and eventually adopted by M.J.K. in 2015.
Soon after she adopted the two girls, M.J.K. allowed her boyfriend identified as J.L. to move into the home with the three minor children. When he moved into the home, J.L. was a registered sex offender, having been convicted of raping a nine-year-old female relative in Monroe County and had served time in prison.
J.L. is John Lawson, who was sentenced to anywhere from 554 to 1,210 years in prison in 2023 after being convicted in 2022 of 136 sex-related offenses.
On March 24, 2015, a relative called the Jackson County DHHR office to report MJK had a registered child sex offender living in the home. The complaint says Kerns was assigned to investigation the claims.
When Kerns and another CPS worker interviewed Lawson and J.M.K. the next day, Lawson told them “although he is a sex offender, he is allowed to be around children.” Kerns was told J.M.K. had a babysitter for the girls when she was at work and said she did not leave the children home alone with Lawson.
In her resulting Family Functioning Assessment, Kerns said that although she “does have concerns with (Lawson’s) past conviction,” she found no impending dangers. VanBibber, Kerns’s supervisor, approved the FFA.
On April 25, 2018, the DHHR received a referral advising that M.B. “told another girl that someone was kissing her private parts.” Ruppert was assigned to investigate this time. Lawson, who had since married J.M.K. in 2016, told Ruppert he was under no restrictions, adding State Police had visited with him to make sure he is doing well and “Trooper Dan Herdman would commend him for doing a complete turnaround.”
Despite having concerns about the situation, Ruppert later testified that Gandee, her supervisor, told her nothing else could be done.
On July 22, 2020, S.M. reported Lawson regularly had sexually assaulted and abused her. S.M. was 17 years old at the time. She said he had been sexually abusing and having sexual intercourse her for the past five years since she was 12.
“The mother is aware of the alleged sexual abuse and has allegedly allowed it to continue without reporting it to the police,” the complaint states.
CPS arranged for the three girls to be seen by interviewer Maureen Runyon with the Child Advocacy Center in Charleston. During the interviews, S.M. said she had been abused multiple times by Lawson for a number of years, including digital penetration, oral sex and sexual intercourse. J.B. said Lawson had touched her vagina multiple times, and M.B. said Lawson had begun giving her baths and applied lotion to her private parts.
Lawson was indicted by a Jackson County grand jury of 136 counts of first- and second-degree sexual abuse, sexual assault, sexual abuse by a guardian, incest and soliciting a minor via computer. On December 21, 2022, a Jackson County jury found Lawson guilty on all counts. The next October, he was sentenced to serve from 554 to 1,210 years for the crimes.
The complaint states that the defendants violated the DHHR’s own policies in the handling of the 2015 and 2018 investigations.
The plaintiffs say they have suffered physical pain and suffering, mental pain and suffering, past and future medical bills, humiliation, embarrassment, degradation, loss of enjoyment of life and other injuries.
They accuse the defendants of violating the 14th Amendment right to bodily integrity, civil conspiracy, state-created danger, violating the West Virginia Human Rights Act by aiding and abetting and negligence.
They seek compensatory damages, punitive damages, court costs, attorney fees and other relief.
The plaintiffs are being represented by Lonnie C. Simmons and Robert M. Bastress III of DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress in Charleston.
In a 4-1 November decision, the state Supreme Court of Appeals held the DHHR was not liable as a matter of law to these three young girls in an earlier negligence action. A rehearing petition was denied earlier this month, with Chief Justice Bill Wooton being the only vote in favor of granting a rehearing.
Wooton also was the lone dissenting vote in the November decision.
“This court historically and routinely affirms abuse and neglect adjudications and subsequent terminations of parental or custodial rights based, in whole or in part, on children being exposed to registered sex offenders,” Wooton wrote in his November dissent. “Exposing children to sex offenders is so egregious a failure of parental supervision and protection that our abuse and neglect statutory scheme unequivocally provides that reunification of the family is not necessarily required. …
“Nonetheless, the majority has determined that despite being fully aware that the child victims in this case were living with a registered sex offender — and having received two formal referrals in that regard — there existed no ‘clearly established’ legal obligation for petitioner DHS to intervene to ensure the children’s safety. Respondents more than adequately identified clearly established law that gave DHS ‘fair warning’ that a failure to act was potentially violative of that law. …
“As a result, I believe that DHS does not enjoy qualified immunity and I would permit a jury to consider the reasonableness of its conduct. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.”
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number 2:25-cv-00109