Group Home Owners Accused Of Using Foster Care Money For Luxuries
A Riverside couple together face 149 felony charges for allegedly stealing around $500,000 in public funds intended for physically and sexually abused children in foster care, prosecutors announced today.
Purcell Johnson, 50, and his wife, Laverne Johnson, 47, are accused of taking state money meant for the support of foster children and using it to pay for high-end automobiles, fine-dining and other personal expenses.
“They were supposed to be taking care of these kids … who are the most damaged, broken kids in our society,” said Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco. “These kids have no safe harbor. Our society contracts with folks like Mr. and Mrs. Johnson to provide that safe harbor. Instead, they were preying on our most vulnerable children.”
A grand jury indicted the Johnsons last Thursday on a slew of charges, including misappropriation of funds, grand theft, identity theft and falsifying checks.
Each defendant is being held in lieu of $1 million bail at the Robert Presley jail in downtown Riverside.
The indictment alleges that between 2004 and 2008, the Johnsons skimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars from business accounts tied to their corporation, T-Town Group Homes, which went belly-up in 2008.
T-Town contracted with the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services to place children removed from abusive households into foster homes.
Over a four-year span, 89 youngsters were assigned to T-Town, which placed them in 18 different group homes, often failing to notify the county when the children left the facilities or were emancipated, according to Pacheco.
The defendants continued collecting monthly state disbursements — $5,613 per child — even after the youths were no longer in the system, the county’s top prosecutor alleged.
The defendants were also paid salaries for their work.
“They made a lot of money over time,” Pacheco said at a news briefing at the Regency Tower downtown. “This type of crime is extremely common. In the future, you will be hearing from us again on this topic.”
Court documents allege the defendants used taxpayer funds to make payments on a 2002 Cadillac Escalade and a 2005 Land Rover Discovery, as well as write checks to themselves in varying amounts, buy expensive meals, purchase gym memberships and pay for pedicures.
