DHS, Concilio and the full-court press against this story

DHS, Concilio and the full-court press against this story

By REGINA MEDINA
Philadelphia Daily News
medinar@phillynews.com 215-854-5985

When the Department of Human Services learned that the Daily News was pursuing a story about a 16-year-old girl in DHS care who had a late-term abortion in New Jersey, it began a legal battle against the People Paper, and a provider agency began to pressure one of the story's main sources.

* The girl and her attorney, child-advocate Robin Banister, requested a temporary restraining order against the Daily News April 21 in Common Pleas Court, asking that the girl's name not be published.

Judge Paul P. Panepinto approved the order the same day and added other details not to be published, including the location of the girl's school and foster home, and the name of her birth mother or those of any other direct relatives. He later allowed for the birth mother's name to be published.

An attorney for the Daily News said yesterday that the newspaper is appealing the judge's order.

"The First Amendment guarantees the Daily News' right to publish whatever details it sees fit," said the lawyer, David Laigaie. "However, within its journalistic prerogative it could tell the story without invading the juvenile's privacy."

* The foster mother said that since word got out that the Daily News was working on a story, she has been called constantly by representatives of Concilio, the provider agency that subcontracts with DHS.

Zenaida Maravi, family-services director at Concilio, told the foster mother not to speak to reporters or to allow any "new faces" into her house, the foster mother said.

* Maravi and another Concilio employee entered the foster home at 9:30 p.m. April 20 without announcing their presence, the foster mother said. When she learned that they were in her house, the foster mother looked for them in the teen's room, but when she tried to enter, they shut the door in her face while the teen remained with them in the room, the foster mother said.

* Maravi has told colleagues at the agency that "the [Daily News] story is not going to run," sources said.

The teen told her foster mother that "DHS is going to stop the news," according to the foster mother.

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20100503_DHS__Concilio_and_the_full-court_press_against_this_story.html