Submitted by Anonymous

On December 24th of 2008, I received a call from Ms. Denise Sherman, as it said Los Angeles County DCFS right on the caller ID and she also introduced herself as “Denise Sherman from Children’s Protective Services”. Mr. Carvajal told me not to worry , that she is the lady that helps him to get his children into the country from Chile every year for Christmas (which they actually come in January) and that I would be meeting her shortly as she called him to “score some weed”. We got into the red truck that Mr. Carvajal’s mother was renting for him. We went to Reseda Discount Caregivers where Mr. Carvajal went in to make a purchase with the money that Ms. Sherman had given to him in the cab of the truck. He came back out and gave her an eighth of marijuana he had purchased for her. We rushed off as she was late for the cruise she was taking that was leaving that day. They dropped us off at the friend’s house where our son was already as we were to spend Christmas Eve with them and we said goodbye.

On January 16th of 2009 Ruben Carvajal had became an abusive drunk and was causing undo hardship upon my family, so I kicked him out. He left quick, but then took his time leaving collecting his belongings.



Between January 18th and February 16th of 2009
Mr. Carvajal would come and remove a couple of items at a time. He then arrived one day and went through the closet and started to demand to know what we had done with “it”. It was an envelope that he claimed to have hidden, and not taken on his last to visits to collect his belongs, that supposedly contained 1500 dollars! He went on to ad that we were no responsible for it and that if we did not come up with his money, then “I will take what is yours”. He then started to call and ask if we had come up with his money and every time would threaten to “call Children’s Protective Services” on us, have them put our child in foster care, adopt him and “legally kidnap” our son. He said many times in this period that he would legally kidnap our child.

On February 19th of 2009 Ms. Denise Sherman was at the call box of my apartment complex. Having forgotten all about meeting this woman before, I rushed to let her in. We spent the whole day talking to her about Mr. Ruben D. Carvajal, showing her all of the personal information that he had left behind. My wife DID recognize her, although she was not from where, I on the other hand did not. She called her office and scheduled a TDM for the 25th so they could discuss services with us that would help us out with affordable housing and so forth.

On February 25th of 2009, At the Chatsworth DCFS office we went into a room and several other parties where present, the facilitator came in and was obviously agitated by the fact that we were having this meeting. Kept telling Ms. Sherman that she did not have enough to take us to court and asking her why she was doing this to this family, he even threw up his arms at one point declaring that he would not be part of this and stormed out of the room. Well, we agreed to random drug testing and counseling, all though the only thing found in our system was marijuana, which we had legal papers for.

On March 3rd of 2009, Tuesday Ms. Sherman made an appointment with me to come by in the morning and cancelled it in the afternoon.

On March 4th of 2009, Mrs. Sherman again cancelled an appointment to come see the family. I said something to her that day on the phone while she was speaking, and she replied with a very stern and angry, “I was talking”, which is what clicked in my memory. Later on I was riding the MTA and thinking what I could do to be a better father to my little ‘Manny’ and why Ruben was not up for false reports and it all came flooding back. I spoke while she was speaking in the cab of the truck on December 24th and received the same response. I remembered her now! I called up my friend Mesha, who has had a few run ins with DCFS and told her of the situation. She advised me that all I had to do was call them and advise them that I knew the worker from outside of her relationship with DCFS. I did, but her supervisor was not available, so I spoke with the shift supervisor, Ms. Sonia Polain, and told her that I knew Ms. Denise Sherman from outside relations. She advised me that she was going to advise her that she was not to come out to my house as they were going to assign me to a new worker. I called her several times, I finally contacted her and she told me that she had been advised and that I was to call Mr. Tony Kade on the following day to be assigned a new worker.

On March 5th of 2009, Went to the courthouse to try and get a subpoena for the incoming calls to my phone on December 24th of 2008 so I had proof of Ms. Denise Sherman’s involvement with Ruben Carvajal. Well, Ms. Lorain Ramirez called me on my cell and advised me that there was an emergency TDM and that I really need to be in attendance. I advised her that it would take me some time to get out there as I had someone else’s car that I had to return and catch a bus out there. While I was on the bus, I managed to reach Mr. Tony Payam Kade and advised him that I was on my way to the TDM. He replied by asking me where my son was and I told him at school and he told me that I need to go get him. Minutes later I received a frantic call from my wife whom was very upset as the school administrator whom goes by the alias. of ‘Mr. T’ confronted her and stated that they just took our son away about fifteen minutes ago and demanded to know what it was all about I told my wife to get to the DCFS office as quick as possible and I would meet her there. I was now greatly distraught and unable to think clearly anymore and got off at the wrong bus stop. I contacted my wife on her cell while I was waiting for the next bus and our neighbor was driving her from the DCFS office. when she arrived, they requested another drug test and told us that they would give us our son back. They picked me up and we went to the testing site, but it was too late as they were closed by the time we were done and our child was in there custody. Ms. Sherman made a lot of false allegations against us and against our other family members so that the child was placed into foster case as opposed to being placed with family.

On March 19th of 2009, I had another meeting with the Dependency worker, Ms. Sheron Maitland, the Dependency Investigator . Well, I told her that I know Ms. Denise Sherman, that Ruben Carvajal had introduced her to me and that this was the vendetta that he had promised. She lied about our whole conversation. Stated that I had made claims of going to Las Vegas with Ms. Sherman, that I claimed she traveled to Chile to help Ruben bring his children to the states and then that me and my wife apologized for our statements concerning Ms. Denise Sherman and stated that we did not know her and that we made it all up. She also added that I had told her that I did not know Ms. Denise Sherman and apologized for accusing her which was also untrue.

On March 31st of 2009, Ms. Maitland visited Anatola Avenue Elementary School and had a conversation with our son. She did not have permission from neither the parents nor the Aunt, whom now had temporary custody. She wrote at “LAST MINUTE INFORMATION FOR THE COURT report.. She claims that my son had told her that I took Manny to outrageous parties where people were throwing champagne bottles against the wall until someone was injured. She then adds that she asked him how he knew that it was champagne and he said that he read it on the bottle and sounded it out. She then claims that he spelled out champagne to her and that he did it correctly. I have since then asked my son to spell ‘Champagne’ and he starts with an ‘s’ and does not complete it correctly. She then goes on to add that my son stated that when he is really bad, we beat him with a shoe or a belt. She also claimed that he stated that we fed him cereal four or five times a day, he eats normal food and not cereal all day and has told me that no one has ever hit him with a shoe or a belt.
On April 14th of 2009, We brought two witnesses, had Manny with us and we were anxiously awaiting or chance to testify and for the truth to finally be told. Again, Mr. Ben Curley advised me that I better forget that I knew the worker before the investigation if I wanted to get my son home. He was only concerned with a clean drug test. Then they were claiming that my wife had missed a drug test, we had proof of all of the drug tests being attended. He said that the court was going to go on my son’s testimony and I told him that this was good as we have very rarely had to give him a swat on the behind with our hand and never beat him with a shoe or a belt. We had a sham trail, the only person to testify was me and all I did was enter three pictures into evidence. No record was made although we did bring two witnesses to testify and our evidence book, none of it was used.