A Southern California poultry supplier that employed children as young as 14 to operate power-driven lifts and debone chickens with sharp knives has agreed to pay nearly $3.8 million in back wages, damages and penalties. Investigators with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found The Exclusive Poultry Inc. and related companies with … Read more
SAN JOSE — In an extraordinary show of force, Santa Clara County social workers spoke out against their own agency Tuesday during a county Board of Supervisors meeting, criticizing leaders for “family preservation” practices that left Phoenix Castro in the care of her father despite drug problems and other red flags that led to the … Read more
A 34-year-old Fairfield woman linked to a 2018 child abuse case likely will serve four months of supervised release after essentially being in “custody” for nearly five years after earlier pleading no contest to 10 charges of child cruelty, her defense attorney told The Reporter on Thursday. Ina A. Rogers While the attorneys in the … Read more
SAN JOSE — She grew up in a lovely home in the Almaden Valley. She was a cheerleader at West Valley College and a fan of the San Jose Sharks. She rescued kittens for a nonprofit agency. But when police arrested Kelly Richardson a day before Thanksgiving, they found her with the drugs that had … Read more
SAN JOSE — The scourge of fentanyl has claimed the life of another Bay Area toddler, an 18-month-old San Jose girl named Winter, born on Christmas eve. This time, the parents are being charged with murder. The San Jose couple didn’t call police for at least 10 hours after they woke up in the early … Read more
SAN JOSE – The fallout from the fentanyl death of baby Phoenix Castro is growing as the director of Santa Clara County’s child welfare agency scrambled to impose new policies to prevent future tragedies while county supervisors expressed outrage Saturday that they have been kept in the dark about the life and death decisions affecting … Read more
Baby Phoenix Castro, the 3-month-old San Jose girl who died of a fentanyl and methamphetamine overdose in May, should be alive today. Santa Clara County’s child protective services system failed her. The state is investigating. In the meantime, county officials should stand down and abandon their own internal investigation that was tainted from the start … Read more
SCOTTS VALLEY — A 5-year-old boy was killed Wednesday after being stabbed in the back by his twin sibling. The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office reported Thursday that, after consultation between their agency’s detectives and the Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office, no criminal charges will be filed in the fatal stabbing. According to a … Read more
SAN JOSE – In an extraordinary rebuttal, a union representative for Santa Clara County social workers stepped forward Tuesday, directly refuting the account of the child welfare agency director who blamed a social worker and supervisor for decisions that kept a baby girl with her troubled father before she died of a fentanyl overdose. “I … Read more
SAN JOSE – Looking back, it was hard to miss the signs that foretold the tragedy of Phoenix Castro’s short life. Two months before the baby’s birth, her pregnant mother and father submitted to a drug test as part of a safety plan to get their two older children back from Santa Clara County’s child … Read more