Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / June 2010

http://www.twincities.com/ci_15281760?nclick_check=1

ADOPTED Son says Hennepin County ignored his claims of hidden camera
in home

He says he reported it in 2007; father indicted in May on child-porn
charges
By David Hanners  Updated: 06/12/2010 09:40:16 PM CDT

An adopted son of Minneapolis foster parent and accused child
pornographer Gregg Larsen says he told a Hennepin County social worker
in 2007 that Larsen had a secret camera in the bathroom of his home
but says his claim was never investigated.

When federal agents searched Larsen's home last year, they found
evidence he had filmed young boys — including his two adopted sons and
their friends — while they were in the bathroom, according to court
records and the oldest of those sons, Pierre Ramone Larsen.

"It was frustrating not having anyone listen to me," Pierre, 21, said
in an interview. "I don't know if they weren't listening because I was
a bad kid with a juvenile record or they thought I wanted to get back
at him. Or maybe it was just something they didn't want to hear."

A spokeswoman for the county questioned the son's claim, saying social
workers are required by law to report suspicions of abuse, and no such
report was ever filed involving Larsen.

"Any of our people, if they would've heard something like this and got
a report, would've filed something with child protection," said the
spokeswoman, LuAnn Schmaus. "If they had talked with a child who
indicated something was occurring, they are mandated by law to report
to child protection, and child protection would have a record of the
alleged event. There was no record."

The elder Larsen, who was a teacher at St. Paul's Central High School,
was indicted May 19 on federal child pornography charges. Two of the
four counts accuse him of producing child pornography in the spring
and summer of 2006.
The FBI raided his Minneapolis home last July after an agent working
undercover supposedly accessed pornographic photo and video files
Larsen shared online. Among the items agents found in the home were
images of children apparently taken with a camera hidden in Larsen's
bathroom.

Larsen is in custody while he awaits a criminal trial. His next court
hearing is June 28. His attorney, Joseph Tamburino, declined to
comment for this article.

At the time of the raid, another of Larsen's adopted sons, now 10, was
living in the home, along with a 9-year-old foster child. Both were
taken from the home, and Hennepin County child-welfare officials went
to court to terminate Larsen's parental rights.

Despite that, the child's court-appointed guardian ad litem continued
to recommend that Larsen have regular, albeit supervised, visits with
the boy, according to court records.

Those recommendations continued until March 19, when the guardian ad
litem concluded that when Larsen spent time with his son, he
"continues to minimize the impact" of the impending federal charges
and "continues to reinforce (the child's) belief that everything is a
mistake and that (the child) will soon be coming home."

The guardian ad litem, Julie Mueller, wrote in her report that she
"recognizes the bond between parent and child but feels she has no
choice but to recommend immediate cessation of supervised visits with
father as being in (the child's) best interest."

The guardian ad litem office did not return calls for comment for this
article.

BATHROOM VIEW ON THE TV

Pierre Larsen claims at least one child-welfare worker knew as far
back as 2007 that the man who had adopted him may have been filming
children in his home's bathroom. He said in an interview that he
discovered the camera in 2005 and told a social worker about it two
years later — and also told the FBI about it when they questioned him
about his father last year and again earlier this year.

Pierre Larsen was interviewed at the state prison in St. Cloud, where
he is serving the final days of a 34-month sentence for stealing a
truck in Minneapolis in 2007. He is scheduled for release July 19.

He claimed that one day in 2005, he skipped school and stayed home to
watch lesbian pornography that his father kept locked in his bedroom
closet.

Pierre said that when he turned on the television in his dad's
bedroom, "I got the bathroom right away."

He said he figured there must be a camera in the bathroom.

"I looked at it for a couple of seconds and went in the bathroom and
did a full 360-degree turn, and I couldn't find it," he said of the
camera.

Wondering if the view was "live," he opened the shower curtain and
went back to look at the TV screen. The shower curtain was now open on
it, too.

"I kind of got freaked out," he said.

He said he questioned his father about it that evening as Larsen was
preparing dinner.

"He told me it was because he didn't want me to take no pills or hurt
myself," Pierre said, adding that although he had used marijuana as a
juvenile, he had no history of taking pills or self-abuse.

"I never asked him about it again," he said.

SAYS HE REPORTED CAMERA

Pierre came from a physically abusive home and was separated from a
brother and sister when he entered the foster-care system at age 9. He
said that when Larsen adopted him, he gave Pierre his first stable
home.

"He was OK. He wasn't a bad parent," Pierre said. "He was kind of
controlling. I didn't have as much privacy as most teenagers have."

Pierre said he rebelled and had "a stealing problem." Minneapolis
police reports show that between September 2001 and March 2005, he was
reported as a runaway four times. Twice in 2004, Larsen called police
to complain that Pierre had used his credit cards to buy items online,
including pornography.

Pierre said he ran away again in 2007 in an attempt to find his
biological mother in Nebraska. He decided to return to Minneapolis but
changed his mind and instead went to Milwaukee, but Larsen bought him
a plane ticket home.

Pierre claimed that when he returned, a social worker with the county
spoke to him about running away. Pierre said he can't remember the
man's name — only that he drove a Dodge Caravan — and said he believed
the man was with the Children Services unit of the Hennepin County
Human Services and Public Health Department.

"I kept on telling him I didn't want to go back," Pierre said.
Eventually, he told the social worker about discovering the camera in
the bathroom.

"He had me write it down on a lined piece of paper," Pierre said. "I
signed it, he signed it, and that's the last I ever heard of it."

Pierre said he never went back to live with his father. He claims he
told others about the camera, including a staff member at St. Joseph's
Home for Children, a day and residential treatment facility operated
by Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Rebecca Lentz, spokeswoman for the organization, said she couldn't
comment on Pierre's claim because federal law prohibited her from
confirming or denying whether someone was a client.

Pierre said he never saw any indication anyone looked into his
allegation, so he eventually quit repeating it.

"I just gave up on trying to do something about it because no one's
going to listen to me," he said. "It was a waste of stress. I buried
it away, buried it in the past. But it was always there. You can't
really leave something like that in the past."

COUNTY: YOUNGEST SON MAY HAVE BEEN ABUSED

The search warrant inventory from the July 1 search of Larsen's home
showed that among items agents seized were a laptop computer, a VHS
recorder, 20 VHS videos, 93 DVDs, four cameras, a video camera, a
remote camera, six memory cards and two computer hard drives.

Another FBI affidavit says a "review of the electronic media reveals
that at least one hidden camera was installed in a bathroom in the
residence. One of these hidden cameras recorded images of children,
including one prepubescent boy using the toilet facilities or changing
clothes during which the genitals were exposed."

Pierre claimed an FBI agent showed him still photos from the bathroom
camera to see if he could identify any of the people pictured. He said
some of them were of himself when younger as well as Larsen's other
adopted son and friends whom the two youths had invited over for
sleepovers.

"When they'd spend the night, he (Larsen) would have them take a
shower, and I wouldn't think anything of it. I just thought it was a
'clean' thing," Pierre said. He said some photos the FBI showed him
were of children "getting out of the shower."

Supervisory Special Agent E.K. Wilson of the FBI's Minneapolis office
confirmed that agents interviewed Pierre but said he couldn't comment
on what he might have said.

Pierre said an FBI agent told him there were photos going back to
2000, a year after Larsen adopted him. That was also the year Larsen
became a licensed foster parent with Hennepin County.

His license limited him to two children younger than 18, according to
state records. Hennepin County officials said he had two children in
the home in 2006, the year the indictment alleges he produced
pornographic images.

Six days after Larsen's home was searched, Hennepin County filed a
"Children in Need of Protection or Services" petition, saying that
Larsen's youngest son may have been a victim of physical or sexual
abuse or lived with a perpetrator of domestic child abuse.

A judge approved the petition, and the county moved to terminate
Larsen's parental rights.

WILL TERMINATE PARENTAL RIGHTS

Mueller, of Hennepin County's Guardian ad Litem Program, was appointed
to represent the child's interest. In the first two of three reports
she wrote to the court, she recommended father and son adhere to a
schedule of supervised weekly visits.

The first report, dated Dec. 1, noted Larsen was continuing "with
medication for depression and treatment for chemical dependency."

That same day, Minneapolis police took a report from a staff member at
CornerHouse, a nonprofit group that helps investigate suspected child
abuse. The staffer told police a 9-year-old child at Larsen's address
"may have been sexually abused," according to the report.

The guardian ad litem's second report, dated Jan. 22, again
recommended weekly visits between Larsen and his son. She didn't
change her recommendation until her third report, March 19 — more than
eight months after the FBI raid and more than three months after the
police report mentioned possible sexual abuse.

Larsen fought the move to terminate his parental rights, but in a May
7 letter to a federal prosecutor, Tamburino, Larsen's attorney, said
the man was prepared to give up the child. A review hearing is
scheduled for Wednesday before Hennepin County District Judge Tamara
Garcia.

It is unclear when the county became aware Larsen allegedly suffered
from depression and chemical dependency. With a foster child in the
home, he was supposed to be subject to regular visits and monitoring.

After the FBI investigation began, Tamburino had Larsen examined by a
forensic psychologist, who later wrote that Larsen had "needed
immediate psychiatric intervention and chemical dependency
treatment."

"To his credit, he did not oppose such interventions, and we were able
to coordinate treatment for his severe depression and his alcoholism,"
the psychologist wrote of his patient.

RESIGNED AS ST. PAUL TEACHER

Larsen is originally from Michigan and studied history at Eastern
Illinois University in Charleston; an online alumni newsletter lists
him as being in the class of 1990-91. It also lists him as a curator
for the Minnesota Historical Society.

The state historical society, citing privacy laws, declined to confirm
Larsen had worked there.

St. Paul Public Schools hired him in March 2003. Most recently, he was
a special-education teacher at Central High, and he served as faculty
adviser for the school's film club and paintball club.

After school officials learned of the FBI raid, Larsen was placed on
paid leave and taken out of the classroom. He resigned May 4.

In his May 7 letter to the prosecutor, Tamburino said Larsen was
willing to plead guilty to a single count of possession of child
pornography. In return, he planned to plead for a sentence less than
the 10 years recommended by federal sentencing guidelines on that
charge.

Twelve days later, Larsen was indicted on two counts of producing
child pornography and one count each of distribution and possession.
He could be sentenced to 90 years in prison.

Larsen has been jailed since his indictment. At a May 24 hearing in
St. Paul, U.S. Magistrate Jeanne Graham refused to set bail, saying
that although Larsen wasn't a flight risk, he remained a danger to the
community.