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Harper not only handcuffed an 11-year-old boy to the porch of his Austin Road home back in 2013, but also put a dead chicken around his neck, cut the boy's face, burned him with electrical wire and failed to get him medical attention.

Harper has pleaded not guilty and rejected the plea offer.

"The plea deal was discussed three times last week. It was conferred and discussed at great deal between all the parties involved. My client is exercising his constitutional rights for a jury trial and we'll see where it goes," said Harper's attorney Randolph Lee.

"The offer probably wasn't enough of an incentive versus what the total time is. These are class E felonies, this isn't a murder case, even though the facts are horrible," said former Union County District Attorney John Snyder, who is not involved in the case.

The trial began today.

http://www.wcnc.com/story/news/loca...cused-of-chaining-chicken-boys-neck/24835681/
 
I'm just thrilled he rejected that offer. I want him to understand that what he did was wrong and not going to be accepted by the rest of society. He obviously thinks at the moment it was no biggie.
 
Harper, 58, admitted Wednesday in court that he abused the boy. He didn't say why, except that things in the house just seemed to spin out of control.

"There hasn't been a day when I haven't been remorseful," Harper told Judge Brad Long after he pleaded guilty to seven counts of child abuse, assault with a deadly weapon and maiming without intent. "I didn't want this to happen."

Prosecutor Cristin Dunne said the state accepted Harper's plea only to spare the boy — and the other children in the house — from testifying. "They have been victimized enough by this man. ...The facts are horrifying," she said.

The Associated Press is not identifying the children because of the nature of the abuse.

Opening arguments had been expected to begin Wednesday. Instead, Harper pleaded guilty. Long sentenced him to six to 10 years in prison.

It was the latest twist in the case. Harper had rejected prosecutors' plea deal Monday, saying he wanted the trial to go on. He and his girlfriend, Wanda Larson, also 58, were arrested after a sheriff's deputy found the boy in November 2013.

Larson was the boy's guardian and a Department of Social Services supervisor in Union County. Larson faces similar charges. She lost her job and has pleaded not guilty. No trial has been scheduled.
http://news.yahoo.com/opening-statements-trial-over-boy-cuffed-porch-091616732.html
 
Someone must have told him he was being an idiot not to take the plea deal. Too bad, I believe that if it would have went to trial his sentence would of been much worse. 6 -10 years definitely not long enough for this POS.
 
"I didn't want this to happen."
:wait:
Then why did it your abusive fuck?

You were the adult, you had the power to stop it and keep it from happening but you DIDN'T, therefore, regardless of what lies spew out of your mouth to save your sorry ass in my mind you wanted it to happened because you did it, repeatedly.:finger:
 
As shitty as the abuse was, 6-10 years is actually a pretty goddamn long sentence for child abuse. Some murderers don't get that much time. Even in tougher states this is usually reserved for kids who suffer brain damage, permanent disability, etc. I'm really surprised especially since he pleaded guilty.

Not complaining, just noting.
 
An appropriate sentence would be for him to spend 6-10 years standing on the courthouse steps with a dead chicken around HIS neck!

Parade him out of jail every morning, stand him on the steps, hang the chicken around his neck; bring him back in when the courthouse closes. Repeat for 6-10 years. Get lots of chickens and make sure you have several maggoty, rotten, slimy, decomposing chicken carcasses for when the one around his neck rots off. you'll have a nice new one to hang on him! Make him EAT some of the chicken...maggots included.

Provide rotten fruit and veggies so passers by can throw garbage at him. People can pee on him!
 
Video at link

(EDITORIAL NOTE: It is unusual for a victim of child abuse to speak in an on-camera interview while still a juvenile. In this case, "Michael" has told us clearly over several months that it is important to him to tell his story, in his words. He has discussed his decision with his mother and according to her, Michael's therapist is also aware of his decision. We delayed the interview for several weeks, and after conducting the interview we delayed airing it for several more weeks in order to give Michael time to carefully consider his decision. We have taken steps to protect Michael's identity including not using his real name, not showing his face, and altering his voice. While many of the things Michael has to say are difficult to hear, we feel it is the right thing to do to allow him to share his story.)


http://www.wbtv.com/story/29442232/...chicken-around-neck-speaks-out-for-first-time
 
This boy was failed by everyone and I hate to throw stones at the bio mom because she is now stepping up to the plate but she should have some part of the guilt ..it was her job to take care of him and instead of fighting to get him back when he was 3 she did nothing.. I'm hoping she is making up for all he went through..

I would love to hear how great he is doing in a year.. Sending hope ..strength and love..
 
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article119234143.html
[....]
In a lawsuit filed Nov. 14 in Union County Superior Court, the boy, now 14, contends the county and its Department of Social Services were negligent in monitoring his “dangerous home environment.”

The boy says in his lawsuit that he “was subjected repeatedly to multiple occurrences of physical and emotional harm.”
[....]
At the time, the boy’s foster mom, Wanda Sue Larson, was a child protective services supervisor for Union County’s social services division. She was guardian to the boy and had adopted four other children living in the home at the time of her arrest.

Larson was sentenced last year to a maximum 17 months in jail in connection with the abuse. She was soon freed under the plea deal because she’d already spent 16 1/2 months in jail since her arrest.
[....]
In his lawsuit filed by Charlotte lawyer Randall Phillips, the boy requests a jury trial and at least $25,000 in damages.

Union County’s legal department doesn’t comment on pending litigation, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Larson is being sued as an individual and in her former role with the county’s social services division. Phillips said a notice of the lawsuit mailed to Larson’s last known address came back as undeliverable. He has asked the Union County Sheriff’s Office to find Larson and serve the legal notice on her.
[....]
Larson is being sued as an individual and in her former role with the county’s social services division. Phillips said a notice of the lawsuit mailed to Larson’s last known address came back as undeliverable. He has asked the Union County Sheriff’s Office to find Larson and serve the legal notice on her.
 
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Odd choice of lawsuit.

Why not sue the city? It would be quite easy to argue that DSS's oversight was due to her position (and it very likely was). It would be an easy enough case to at least get a settlement. But the abuser is probably unemployable and likely has no money, what gives? Or, why not sue them both?
 
Odd choice of lawsuit.

Why not sue the city? It would be quite easy to argue that DSS's oversight was due to her position (and it very likely was). It would be an easy enough case to at least get a settlement. But the abuser is probably unemployable and likely has no money, what gives? Or, why not sue them both?

I think they are suing both:

"In a lawsuit filed Nov. 14 in Union County Superior Court, the boy, now 14, contends the county and its Department of Social Services were negligent in monitoring his 'dangerous home environment'.”
 
@Satanica
A new federal lawsuit claims officials at Union County Department of Social Services and the Gaston County Department of Social Services are responsible for abuse suffered by a boy who was found chained to a porch with a dead chicken around his neck at the home of Wanda Sue Larson in November 2013.

Larson, who was a supervisor with Union County DSS at the time of her arrest, was the foster parent of the boy. Both Larson and her longtime, live-in boyfriend Dorian Harper have pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from abuse suffered by the boy found chained to the porch and other children who lived in the home.

WBTV has previously reported details about claims of physical and sexual abuse suffered by the children.

“Well, sometimes they just used their hands. Sometimes they’d throw other things. Sometimes they’d just, you know, throw me. Or slam me to the ground,” the boy told WBTV reporter Pam Escobar in an exclusive interview in 2015.

The boy, who WBTV has not identified because of the abuse he suffered and because he is a minor, has also previously disclosed sexual abuse while in Larson’s care.

In the new federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday, attorneys who represent a guardian ad litem acting on the boy’s behalf claim the both Union County DSS and Gaston County DSS could have acted sooner to uncover and stop the abuse.

“The factual support for the plaintiff’s claims in part comes from the multiple, missed opportunities that the defendants had to discover the abuse and neglect of children in the Larson-Harper Foster Home, including J.G., when reports of abuse or neglect were made while Defendant Gaston County was overseeing the licensing of the Larson-Harper Foster Home and while Defendant Gaston County and then Defendant Union County were responsible for investigating claims of abuse or neglect of children in the Larson-Harper foster Home," the lawsuit says.

The complaint then includes a list of five specific instances where complaints were made to the DSS agencies but ignored.

The lawsuit alleges that Larson used her position as a supervisor at Union County DSS to manipulate the foster care system in order to maintain custody of the boy and, later, to quash an investigation into the boy’s care.

“Upon information and belief, Defendant Larson used her connection, friendships and associations with UCDSS to manipulate the investigation by Mecklenburg County DSS," the complaint says of a forensic evaluation Union County DSS asked Mecklenburg County DSS into the agency’s handling of Larson’s foster care case.

The complaint also says a “same-day, internal decision within Defendant Larson’s CPS unit was made not to open an investigation” into a report of potential child abuse or neglect reported by a Union County Sheriff’s Deputy at Larson’s home in December 2012.

Document in link
15356
 
Heartbreaking from the 2015 article: ‘Michael sleeps in his clothes in case he has to run away again.’

My first wish is for the kids to heal & live a normal life. But if they can’t move on, they should hunt down this bitch & get some closure.
 
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North Carolina will pay $1 million to three former Union County foster children, including a man who was chained to his porch when he was 11, with a dead chicken tied around his neck.

The foster parents, including Wanda Larson, who headed the child-abuse investigations team from the Union County Department of Social Services, were arrested. Larson’s longtime male partner, Dorian Harper, at the time an emergency room nurse at what is now Atrium Health, served five years in prison. Larson pleaded guilty to a related charge but served no prison time, according to public records.

In all, three children who were under the couple’s care will receive the money, which will be paid by the N.C. Industrial Commission into a protective trust, said Durham-area attorney Jay Trehy, who helped represent the victims. All three live in North Carolina and range in age from 19 to 22.

Larson and Harper could not be reached for comment Thursday either by phone numbers or email addresses linked to them in public records.

The 2013 incident drew headlines across the country. A 2019 lawsuit filed on behalf of the boy, identified in court documents as “J.G.,” alleged years of physical and potentially sexual abuse, neglect and even bouts of torture against the children under the care of Larson and Harper.

Harper, according to the complaint, squeezed children’s fingers with pliers, burned them with hot wires and stabbed them with hypodermic needles. He also tortured J.G. to get false confessions for things he had not done.

He pleaded guilty in March 2015 to felony child abuse in connection with the dead-chicken incident and was released from prison in February 2020.

“His crimes are so many and there are so many instances of abuse and torture — and I mean torture, sadistic torture — that he can’t do enough time as far as I’m concerned,” Trehy said.

Meanwhile, Larson, a former Union County foster parent of the year, used her position with the Union County DSS to suppress, manipulate and misdirect multiple abuse investigations into her own household. Those investigations, according to Trehy, “should have resulted ... in discovering what was going on in the home.”

Larson also undermined the efforts of J.G.’s natural mother, a one-time Charlotte resident, to reunite with her son, the lawsuit alleges, a struggle that went on for years.

When a Union County teacher’s assistant raised concerns in 2011 that one of the female children at the home might have been sexually abused, Larson helped stonewall the inquiry, then began home-schooling her children to head off further scrutiny, the complaint alleges.

She pleaded guilty in 2015 to willful failure to discharge her official duties. Other charges, including misdemeanor child abuse, cruelty to animals and false imprisonment were dismissed.

J.G. came under the couple’s care in 2006, after the Gaston County DSS “unnecessarily and negligently” removed him from his mother’s care, according to the complaint. He was 4 at the time.

Seven years later, the boy was found by a Union County sheriff’s deputy shivering in mid-20s temperatures with the dead chicken tied to his neck. He was chained by his ankle to the porch and was wearing only a T-shirt and jeans.

In the aftermath, five children ages 8-14 were taken from the home. Four had been adopted by Larson, including the two who will be receiving state money.

The upcoming payment will settle all claims arising from the case against the Gaston and Union County DSS offices for placing J.G. and the two children in unsafe conditions and failing to adequately investigate reports that Larson and Harper were abusing them.

It also heads off any legal actions against the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services along with the DSS offices in Cabarrus and Mecklenburg counties, which investigated the household in the past and because of what Trehy describes as Larson’s “manipulation,” did not report any abuse.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees DSS offices across the state, declined to comment about the settlement Thursday.

Trehy says two other abused children removed from Larson’s and Harper’s home in 2013 have not been located and may not know they have possible claims against the state.

“I’m still looking for them,” he said.
 
What’s so sad and pathetic about these lawsuits that any of these children win is…nothing will change. There have to be lawyers and big wigs up the chain that have already done the math. It’s cheaper to pay out these once in a while verdicts, than put in the time and money to overhaul a failed system.
We’d rather spend billions of dollars fighting for the rights of non existent children, than the ones that are already here.
 
$1M to be divided between 3 children who suffered the abuse is a pittance. It's disgusting that Dorian Harper only served half his sentence but worse than that is bitch Larson didn't serve any time at all. This really pisses me off; I hope they both die of a tortuous disease.
 
Larson probably has so much disgusting information on on the Department of Social Services as a supervisor in Union County, they were afraid it’d all come out if they didn’t give her a free ride
What a bunch of losers in that state, wish the other two kids would push for a trial and make them all eat shit
 
$1M to be divided between 3 children who suffered the abuse is a pittance. It's disgusting that Dorian Harper only served half his sentence but worse than that is bitch Larson didn't serve any time at all. This really pisses me off; I hope they both die of a tortuous disease.
So agree. Like I said, they have their lawyers figuring out the bottom line. 1,2,3,
million dollar payout is nothing compared to what they’d be paying annually in salaries to qualified caseworkers and adoptive families. How much money did they save by allowing this swine adopt kids from the list and then foster more. K’ching!
 

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