She's accused of discarding Madera County child abuse reports. What she told investigators

The Fresno Bee - 8/11/2020

Aug. 11--Former Madera County social worker Sierra Lindman denied intentionally discarding hundreds of child abuse reports and told an investigator she would never "jeopardize children," according to new law enforcement documents obtained by The Fresno Bee.

Lindman has been at the center of a firestorm since early November 2019 when Madera County officials discovered hundreds of referrals to Child Protective Services had been discarded without investigation. Lindman's employment with Madera County ended the same week the issue came to light within the department.

A criminal probe launched that same week remained ongoing. Madera County District Attorney Sally Moreno on Tuesday said her office had not yet received the case back from the Madera County Sheriff's Office.

Details of the incident were first made public in an exclusive Fresno Bee investigation in March. In internal government emails, officials said there was "no doubt that at a minimum, her actions placed children in danger," and had "likely caused incredible pain and suffering."

Lindman has never discussed the issue publicly and hasn't responded to more than a dozen requests for comment.

However, records obtained by The Bee through a Public Records Act request from the Madera County Sheriff's Office shed new light on the crisis. The reports from a sheriff's investigator show Lindman denying responsibility for the incident. The documents also describe Lindman allegedly discarding police reports, in addition to the missing CPS referrals.

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The detective's reports also reveal that coworkers raised concerns about Lindman in August 2019, just weeks after she started a new job screening abuse and neglect tips that came into the department's confidential tip hotline -- months before the controversy erupted within the department.

It's unclear exactly when and how department administrators became aware of concerns about Lindman. However, a state-level review of the matter concluded CPS managers "acted appropriately" after the issue came to light, according to a letter from the California Department of Social Services obtained by The Bee earlier this year.

Michael Wald, an emeritus professor of law at Stanford with general child welfare knowledge, said the Department of Social Services should have a system to maintain the "integrity of the process."

"It certainly should be something that both the county Board of Supervisors and the State Department of Social Services are looking into because, obviously, supervision efforts weren't successful or maybe not done appropriately here," he said.

How missing child abuse reports surfaced in Madera County

Reports from a sheriff's investigator sketch a timeline of events describing when coworkers first became concerned with Lindman's work months before she was escorted from the building and resigned her position in early November 2019.

The worker's concerns went back to August 2019, soon after Lindman began working at the hotline in mid-July.

Madera County only had two employees answering hotline calls -- Lindman and another employee whose name is redacted in police reports.

The coworker told an investigator she noticed Lindman was answering the phone more often but was "producing less work." She said Lindman would socialize around the office regularly and would waste time by doing things like researching new cellphones on her work computer. The coworker said there were times she had to pick up some of Lindman's work, records show.

The worker said she informed their supervisor she was worried that Lindman's referrals weren't getting entered into the system promptly, but lacked proof.

The Madera County Department of Social Services, in August 2019, began receiving calls about uninvestigated child abuse reports, records show.

Sometime around September, the same employee said she spotted four or five police reports in the "in-box at the screening desk, and when she came back they were gone." After that incident, the employee began to scan police reports and send them to her email so she could later check whether the referrals were being entered into the system.

"She later discovered that at least some of them were not," according to the records.

In October, the department received even more calls questioning why referrals weren't investigated and police reports that weren't appearing in the system.

The employee "noted several other suspicious incidents" throughout October. For example, a person called about a suspected child abuse report and specifically referenced speaking with Lindman about the matter, but there was no record of the referral, the reports say.

On Oct. 16, a suspected child abuse report from Ezequiel Tafoya Alvarado Academy was faxed. It was followed by a call from the Madera County Sheriff's Office to discuss the referral, but "Lindman had apparently removed" it from the in-box, and no referral was generated. Similar problems and complaints poured in throughout October 2019, reports say.

About a dozen referrals went missing just days before Lindman was suspended, according to the reports.

In October, the coworker started emailing her concerns to another employee, whose name also is redacted in reports. That employee told Lindman's coworker "she would be looking into the matter and following up with Lindman," the reports say.

Requests for comment went unanswered by Deborah Martinez, director of the Madera County Department of Social Services, and Heidi Sonzena, a program manager with the Department of Social Services. Heather Sharp, a supervisor with the Department of Social Service who oversaw Lindman, declined to comment on the matter.

According to sheriff's office reports, the crisis erupted fully late in the afternoon on Nov. 6 when an employee, whose name is redacted from reports, saw Lindman put a stack of papers in a shred bin.

"Lindman then went back to her desk and brought another stack of papers and put them in the shred bin," according to the records.

On Nov. 7, Martinez told an investigator the employee notified coworkers who then found more referrals around Lindman's desk that hadn't been entered into the department's computer system.

By that same morning, staff had found 88 referrals and were "urgently searching" for more.

Previously obtained emails show there were a total of 357 referrals.

On Nov. 12, Lindman resigned, just days after she was placed on leave and escorted from the building on Nov. 7 over allegations that she was "shredding hotline referrals rather than entering them into the computer system," records show.

Lindman denies discarding Madera CPS reports

When first contacted by a sheriff's investigator on Nov. 13, Lindman said she'd been placed on administrative leave, but hadn't been told why.

"Lindman said she talked to her husband and they decided it would be a good time for her to leave work and take care of their children, so she submitted her resignation," the investigator said in his reports.

When asked about the referrals, Lindman told the investigator, "she had never thrown away any actual referrals."

Lindman told law enforcement, "she did know she was behind but they assured her they would take care of her old referrals," according to investigators' reports.

Lindman said she didn't know why there were referrals in the shred bins. Regarding the referrals and police reports found on her desk, she said she was still working on those when she was walked out and didn't know how far back they went.

Lindman's career in Madera County began in November 2013 as an "Extra Help Eligibility Worker." She was hired as a full-time employee in April 2014, records show.

Before her employment in Madera, Lindman worked in Merced County for about three months as an office assistant with the Department of Child Support Services.

Two government sources in Madera County, who spoke to The Bee on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly, said there were concerns among coworkers about Lindman's work long before the crisis came to light.

One of those sources told The Bee that Lindman "bounced from unit to unit" and "never stayed in one." The other source said concerns about Lindman's work dated back to prior positions.

It's unclear whether supervisors took any actions to address her job performance in the years before the crisis.

One of those sources told The Bee that department managers should also be held accountable for failing to intervene earlier.

"Every single piece of management that continued to allow her to work there, every supervisor that continued to promote her, and endanger children," the source said. "And every single level of management that continues to concentrate on the cleanliness of the office instead of the effectiveness of the workers."

Multiple Madera County officials didn't return requests for comment last week.

Some members of the Madera County Board of Supervisors also didn't respond to inquiries seeking comment. Supervisor Max Rodriguez has said the county's lawyer urged local authorities not to comment.

"It's serious, and we realize it's serious," he said last week. "We are not just going to put it away."

The Madera County Sheriff's Office recommended Lindman face misdemeanor criminal charges for destroying or concealing evidence. Moreno in June told The Bee the case was incomplete and was sent back to the Sheriff's Office for further investigation.

Authorities have not commented on any possible timeline for completing the investigation.

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