Sergio Gaonzalez III

YOUNGSTOWN — A former resident of the Youngstown foster home where Sergio Gonzalez III was living at the time he raped a young girl in 2018 contacted The Vindicator recently to say Gonzalez was having consensual sex with a 13-year-old foster child also living there in 2016. Sergio Gonzalez was sentenced to 10 years to life in prison for the rapes on Monday.

The former resident, Leslie Cruz, now 24, said she told authorities, but apparently nothing was done about it.

Kathleen Gonzalez, Sergio Gonzalez’s grandmother, the licensee for the foster home, admitted to The Vindicator that her grandson was having sex with the 13-year-old foster child, but they were “in a relationship,” she reported it to authorities, and she continues to be a licensed foster parent.

Kathleen Gonzalez denies one allegation from Cruz. She denies that she ever gave her grandson and the 13-year-old permission to have sex, but she said she cannot control everything they do.

“It is my obligation (to keep them from having sex), but when you go to sleep and you have teenagers in the house, what do you think is going to happen?” she said. “I do have to sleep. I do work,” she said.

She also works outside of the home while serving as a foster parent, she said.

She agreed with Cruz’s allegation that her grandson also was in a relationship with another of Kathleen’s foster children. But when asked if they were in a sexual relationship, she said her grandson and the girl “denied it.” She noted, however, that she believes they were in a sexual relationship. And she confirmed they had a child together, but denied the child was conceived in her home.

THE RULES

She said the rules require a foster child who is having sex to be removed from the house, and that is what happened with both girls. But both girls did what they could to continue to see her grandson, who she said is also a foster child she has raised since he was a baby. Kathleen Gonzalez said it took some time to have those two girls removed because it has to be approved by her licensing organization before it can happen.

She said in addition to trying to stop foster children from having sex, she is obligated to report such sexual conduct. “Was it documented? Yes it was,” she said.

She said her obligation when she finds out about such sexual activity is to report it to the county that has custody of the child. She receives foster children from places like Cuyahoga and Franklin counties. She also takes care of some of her grandchildren “because of mother situations,” she said.

She said raising teenagers is a challenge, especially when they are “out of control.”

Kathleen Gonzalez was asked what private organization oversees her foster home, but she said, “I cannot give you that information.”

PRIVATE LICENSING ORGANIZATION

When Mahoning County Children Services was asked about the allegations that multiple foster children in Kathleen Gonzalez’s foster home were having sex with her grandson, an email from Mahoning County Children Services stated that Kathleen Gonzalez was licensed by a private organization named National Youth Advocate from Dec. 2, 2011, to July 1, 2018, and Ohio Mentor from July 2, 2018, to Sept. 10, 2022.

The email states that because Kathleen Gonzalez is “not licensed through this agency, Mahoning County Children Services does not have the legal authority to remove a license of a family / individual licensed by a private provider. That authority rests solely with the private provider and/or the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, now the Ohio Department of Children & Youth.”

Likewise, when The Vindicator asked Mahoning County CSB whether it has the authority or ever attempted to remove foster children from Kathleen Gonzalez’s foster home, Mahoning CSB stated that responsibility lies “solely with the agency that placed the child in the home. Private foster parents may accept children from any Ohio county, or even out of state placements.”

Sergio Gonzalez was convicted at trial of two counts of rape and was sentenced Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to 10 years to life in prison. The girl he raped sometimes stayed at the foster home, but was not a foster child. The rapes occurred in early 2018 when the girl was 11 and Sergio Gonzalez was 17, prosecutors said.

Leslie Cruz of California, now 24, said she lived in Kathleen Gonzalez’s foster home for two months — in April and May of 2016 — when Cruz was about 15 years old. Sergio Gonzalez also was about 15 at the time Cruz was there.

Cruz said the reason she reached out to the newspaper is that she told her case worker from Cuyahoga County Child and Family Services in 2016 about a foster child who was having sex with Sergio Gonzalez, but apparently nothing was done. Cruz named the case worker.

Cruz said the girl was 13 or 14 in the spring of 2016, and the girl was sleeping in the same bed with Sergio Gonzalez and having consensual sex with him, and Kathleen Gonzalez knew about it and allowed it.

“This foster home that’s supposed to be a safe home is not so safe,” Cruz said. “They are taking the innocence of these little girls. And I feel like that’s not fair.”

She said she learned after she left Youngstown that another foster child also was having sex with Sergio Gonzalez, and she got pregnant at age 14 by him. She thinks Sergio Gonzalez was several years older than that girl.

Cruz said regardless of whether the girls were having consensual sex with Sergio Gonzalez, it should not have been permitted.

Cruz read The Vindicator article published the day after Kathleen Gonzalez testified at her grandson’s rape trial and said she was disturbed by the testimony. The story reported that Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Day asked Kathleen Gonzalez about allegations that her grandson had been having sexual relationships with female foster children.

Kathleen Gonzalez said she ran a “safe home” and that she documented everything that happened, reported it and worked to have the girls removed from the home.

Sergio Gonzalez’s attorney, Aaron Meikle, objected to that line of questioning, saying state law prohibits questioning of that type and said he would raise that as an appeal issue if Sergio Gonzalez were to be convicted.

When Day was recently asked about his questioning of Kathleen Gonzalez, he said Youngstown police investigated the relationship between Sergio Gonzalez and foster children. But one of the foster children “denied sexual abuse,” and there was no prosecution involving her, Day said.

As for whether it is illegal for two juveniles of a similar age to engage in sexual conduct, Day said there is a law against having sex with a child under age 13, which is why Sergio Gonzalez was convicted of raping an 11-year-oid.

The question of whether sexual conduct between children older than 13 is more complicated. Anissa Modarelli, Mahoning County juvenile prosecutor, said the age of consent to have sex in Ohio is 13, “so a child cannot consent to sex under 13.”

If a 15-year-old is having sex with a 12-year-old, “that is what we consider statutory rape,” Modarelli said. If a child is 13 or older, sex is considered consensual unless force is used, Modarelli said. Force was alleged in the rape case involving Sergio Gonzalez.

If two children aged 13 to 17 are having sex and there is no allegation that force was used, no criminal charge can be filed, she said.

In the Gonzalez rape trial, the victim testified that Gonzalez blew marijuana smoke into her face that may have affected her on one occasion. On another occasion, Sergio Gonzalez threatened to tell others that the girl used marijuana if she did not have sex with him in a second instance, according to court testimony.

GONZALEZ TRIAL

Day said he would not have questioned Kathleen Gonzalez on the issue of whether Sergio Gonzalez had been having sex with foster children because Ohio law does not allow it. But when Kathleen Gonzalez testified that she ran a “safe home” and that Sergio Gonzalez had “never been in trouble before,” that “opened the door” to Day being allowed by Judge John Durkin to question her further on her grandson having sex with other children, Day said.

Mahoning County Prosecutor Gina DeGenova said there are a lot of variables that have to be considered in terms of prosecutions involving juveniles having sex, but “As a general matter, I don’t think it’s appropriate for foster families to have their foster children engaging in sex acts with their grandchildren who live in the house.”

She said that sounds like a matter that officials in charge of foster parenting certifications would need to review.

The Vindicator reached out to National Youth Advocate, the private organization that licensed Kathleen Gonzalez during the period in which Sergio Gonzalez is alleged to have committed rape and had sex with foster children. The organization was asked whether it ever sanctioned Kathleen Gonzalez for any bad behavior as a foster parent.

Jason Turnipseed, director of design, content & technical writing program excellence, responded to a Vindicator email by saying “HIPAA regulations and organizational policy do not permit us to share information about foster youth or foster homes.”

He noted that “NYAP has had no further involvement with the Kathleen Gonzalez foster home since her license was transferred to another organization on July 2, 2018.”

The Vindicator also asked the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services whether it provided any other organizations, such as Mahoning County Children Services, with the information Cruz gave her named case worker about a 13-year-old foster child in Kathleen Gonzalez’s home having sex with Sergio Gonzalez.

Jennifer Ciaccia, press secretary for the Department of Communications for the Cuyahoga County executive, replied late Friday in an email that the Department of Children and Family Services “is unable to provide any details regarding the matter into which you are inquiring,” citing “reporting mandates and confidentiality restrictions.”

LESLIE CRUZ

Cruz said when she read about the rape trial and especially when she read that Kathleen Gonzalez testified that she ran a “safe home,” she felt the need to speak up because girls in foster care should not be having sex in a foster home.

“I think even if it is consensual, whether these girls can consent or not, I don’t think it’s OK because a foster home is supposed to be safe, like a home, a family. They should not be exposed to any of this at their little age.”

Cruz said she wishes that the information she provided would have changed the way Kathleen Gonzalez ran her foster home.

“I wish they would have listened to me at that time when I said something because that would have been prevented,” she said of the rapes involving the girl in the trial.

Cruz said she thinks there was too much going on in the Gonzalez foster home at the time she lived there because Kathleen Gonzalez was taking care of foster children as well as other children.

“She doesn’t have time to keep her eyes on all of these kids. She doesn’t know what is going on behind closed doors. Sometimes she leaves her grandkids alone with these foster girls. It’s too much for her,” Cruz said.

Cruz said she had a case worker from Cuyahoga County because she had run away from her home in California with a man who was 23 years old from Cleveland. He took her to Cleveland and became abusive, she said.

She escaped from him and spent a couple of days in Cleveland but was then sent to Kathleen Gonzalez’s foster home in Youngstown.

After Cruz told her case worker about Sergio Gonzalez having sex with a foster girl in Kathleen Gonzalez’s home, Kathleen Gonzalez had Cruz removed, and Cruz went to live in Upper Sandusky near Toledo and got along well there, Cruz said.

YPD

Youngstown police officer Kelly Jankowski said she conducted an investigation in 2019 after the victim in the Gonzalez trial disclosed what happened in early 2018 to her. Jankowski said she never learned about Cruz notifying anyone in 2016 about a foster child having sex with Sergio Gonzalez.

Jankowski did learn of allegations involving three foster children, two of whom Cruz mentioned in her conversation with The Vindicator, Jankowski said.

Jankowski said she investigated the Sergio Gonzalez rape as a result of information that came through Mahoning County Children Services. She reviewed Mahoning County Children Services files as part of her investigation, Jankowski said.

Her investigation led her to obtain information about Sergio Gonzalez engaging in sexual conduct with foster children at his grandmother’s house, Jankowski said.

She cannot discuss specific children, but the investigation did indicate that Sergio Gonzalez was engaging in sexual conduct with foster girls at Kathleen Gonzalez’s house, she said.

Jankowski provided information to prosecutors when her investigation was complete. After that, it is up to prosecutors to decide whether charges will be filed, she said.

CSB’s focus is on the safety of the children, Jankowski noted. “Their job is to make sure the children are in a safe environment, that there is no abuse going on, that they are not in harm’s way. My job is to gather facts and evidence in a criminal investigation to give to the prosecutor. If they find anything criminal, they are supposed to contact us,” Jankowsk said of Children Services.

Jankowski works full time on the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force now but worked as a Youngstown police investigator at the time of the Sergio Gonzalez investigation.

Jankowski said her time investigating child-victim cases leaves her feeling that when the foster care system moves a child from county to county, it leaves open more opportunities for a child to get “lost in the system” because it separates the child geographically from their case worker.

MAHONING CSB

Mahoning County Children Services provided this statement when asked whether it was aware of allegations that Sergio Gonzalez was having sex with multiple foster children in Kathleen Gonzalez’s foster home and whether it has done anything about it. The statement was attributed to Richard Tvaroch, executive director.

“Mahoning County Children Services’ involvement included the completion of an investigation, in cooperation with Akron Childrens Hospital’s Child Advocacy Center and the Youngstown Police Department, regarding the sexual abuse allegations that led to Mr. Gonzalez’s eventual conviction.

“The referral naming Sergio Gonzalez was received by Mahoning County Children Services on 9-17-19. The records show that Sergio Gonzalez was no longer residing in the Gonzalez Foster Home effective 9-18-19. The Gonzalez Foster Home was not managed or licensed by Mahoning County Children Services but managed by a private foster care provider and licensed by the Ohio Department of Children and Youth. Mahoning County Children Services substantiated the sex abuse allegations against Sergio Gonzalez and cooperated to ensure successful prosecution.”

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