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SUPERVISORS ORDER REPORT ON FITNESS OF HOME.


Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

PALMDALE - The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is the five member governing board of Los Angeles County, California. Members of the board of supervisors are elected by district, the current members as of April 2006 are:
  • District 1: Gloria Molina, Democrat
 directed Children and Family Services to report on whether the department has an open case file on a Palmdale family whose two children died in a house fire last month and to report on whether it requires homes to have smoke detectors smoke detector
n.
An alarm device that automatically detects the presence of smoke. Also called smoke alarm.
.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich Michael Dennis Antonovich (born 1939 in Los Angeles, California) is a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors representing the Fifth District, which covers northern Los Angeles County, the Antelope, Santa Clarita, Pasadena, and parts of the San Fernando and San , whose district includes Palmdale, asked for the report after a Feb. 20 fire killed Racheall Fuentes, 7, and Joseph Jacobo, 4, and injured in·jure  
tr.v. in·jured, in·jur·ing, in·jures
1. To cause physical harm to; hurt.

2. To cause damage to; impair.

3.
 Jacob Jacobo, 3, and the children's uncle, Nathan Maropulos, 22.

In December, the children's grandfather and mother were awarded a $200,000 settlement by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department This article is about the Los Angeles County Sherriff's Department, not to be confused with the smaller Los Angeles County Police

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) is a local law enforcement agency that serves Los Angeles County, California.
 for a 1997 incident in which county officials said the home had wrongfully been declared unfit unfit

not properly prepared, e.g. physically incapable of performing hard work as in racing, because of lack of training. Said also of food prepared unhygienically.


unfit for human consumption
 and six children put into foster care.

``Unfortunately, this tragic accident indicates that the house may have been unfit,'' the Antonovich motion read.

The Department of Children and Family Services was directed by the board to report back March 19 in a closed session on whether there is an open case file on the family.

A spokeswoman for Children and Family Services said the department could not publicly discuss whether there is an open file on the family. In general, the department does consider the lack of smoke detectors in determining whether a home is fit, the spokeswoman said.

The cause of the Feb. 20 fire is still under investigation. The blaze appeared to have broken out in the kitchen, fire officials said.

The three children were found by firefighters in a smoke-filled rear bedroom. Their uncle was found badly burned in the kitchen.

Another uncle and aunt got out of the house on their own.

In December, Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850.  County supervisors agreed to pay Theodore Maropulos and Daniele Fuentes $200,000 to settle a civil-rights lawsuit they filed after an Aug. 4, 1997, incident at their home.

Authorities said that during a probation check, they found Theodore and Donna Maropuloses' daughter, then 16, smoking marijuana in her bedroom and the house in a ``deplorable de·plor·a·ble  
adj.
1. Worthy of severe condemnation or reproach: a deplorable act of violence.

2.
 condition,'' with clothing piled on the floor and no food in the cabinets.

Theodore Maropulos, Fuentes and her boyfriend were arrested on suspicion of child endangerment. All three were released two days later without being charged. Marijuana charges were later dropped against the 16-year-old.

Theodore Maropulos said the girl had an ordinary tobacco cigarette, the kitchen was stocked with Adj. 1. stocked with - furnished with more than enough; "rivers well stocked with fish"; "a well-stocked store"
stocked

furnished, equipped - provided with whatever is necessary for a purpose (as furniture or equipment or authority); "a furnished apartment";
 food and that their home, a 1950s tract house, was no different than their neighbors'.

The day the children were taken away, Los Angeles County Department of Children's and Family Services workers said in a report that they were unable to verify the home's conditions because sheriff's deputies denied their request to inspect it.

When DCFS DCFS Department of Children and Family Services
DCFS Division of Children and Family Services
DCFS Descriptional Complexity of Formal Systems (conference)
DCFS Data Communication & Functional System
 staffers finally inspected the home three weeks later, they decided it was not an unfit residence for children, county documents show. The children were then returned.

County officials say they offered the settlement because if the case were to go to trial, a jury could find that Maropulos and Fuentes were arrested without probable cause Apparent facts discovered through logical inquiry that would lead a reasonably intelligent and prudent person to believe that an accused person has committed a crime, thereby warranting his or her prosecution, or that a Cause of Action has accrued, justifying a civil lawsuit.  and that the six children should not have been removed from the family's home for three weeks.

At the time of the settlement, Theodore Maropulos said the family believed it was singled out since the late 1980s because a former neighbor with whom the family had a dispute was a friend of sheriff's deputies.

Theodore Maropulos said the house was inspected just 13 days before the Aug. 4, 1997, arrests, after the Department of Children's and Family Services received a report that the children were being neglected.

Department officials said that allegation was unfounded, documents show. The DCFS report said five abuse or neglect allegations made against the family as far back as 1988 had all been ruled unfounded.
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Publication:Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
Date:Mar 6, 2002
Words:632
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