Teen Sues County for Placing Her in Custody of Sex Offender Grandfather
A Washington teen is suing after being sent to live with a sex offender.
April 9, 2010 — -- A Washington state teen is suing for millions of dollars in damages after she said a family court investigator "ruined her life" by knowingly sending her to live with her grandfather, a convicted sex offender who proceeded to abuse her nearly every day for a decade.
In court documents filed late last month, the unidentified teen claimed that she was just six years old when Cowlitz County Family Court Services investigator Mark Workingor took her from her mother and placed her in a home with her father and grandparents.
The teen said in the court documents that it happened in spite of her own father warning Workingor that his father, Vernil Jones, had been convicted of sodomizing a 10-year-old girl.
"She went through 10 years of incest of every kind almost daily by her grandfather," said Lincoln Beauregard, the attorney representing the teen.
"The bottom line is, regardless of where she lived, she should not have lived with a pedophile," said Beauregard.
Jones since has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the assaults against the teen.
Attempts to reach Workingor were unsuccessful, and messages left for Ron Marshall, the Cowlitz County's chief civil deputy prosecutor, were not immediately returned.
Marshall told The Daily News in Washington that while he had no comment on the pending litigation, Workingor no longer was working for the county.
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