South Carolina agency gave child to 'monster,' according to lawsuit
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
A South Carolina state agency that's supposed to protect vulnerable children left a teenage girl "in the hands of a monster," according to a lawsuit.
Gregg Martin, a suspected predator facing over a dozen sex crime charges since 2022, allegedly groomed his victim, pumped her full of drugs and mentally and physically abused her for six weeks, the lawsuit says.
The legal action targeted the state's social service department and individual caseworkers for allegedly ignoring the victim's mother's "repeated requests" to remove her daughter from the home — even before the sexual abuse allegations came to light — and failing to ensure the Martin home was a "safe environment."
"What that child suffered at the hands of a monster was just incredible," the family's lawyer, Debra Butcher, told Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital sent South Carolina's Department of Social Services a list of questions, but a spokesperson declined to comment.
"DSS does not comment on pending litigation or cases involved in litigation," a spokesperson said in an email.
Martin, 56, was arrested by the Richland County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina as recently as March on warrants for alleged sex crimes against a minor in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
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The Peach State criminal charges include use of computer services to seduce, solicit, lure or entice a child to commit illegal acts; electronically furnishing obscene material to minors and obscene internet contact with a child. That brings the total of criminal charges to 14 in South Carolina, most of which stem from the alleged abuse of the teenager in his care in 2022, plus at least three in Georgia, according to court records.
A judge revoked Martin's bond in mid-April, and he's being held in a Richland County jail. His lawyer couldn't be reached for comment.
The teenager was initially removed from her home by the Department of Social Services as it investigated allegations of abuse and neglect against the girl's father.
She was sent to live with Martin, who was family of the victim's best friend, despite her mother's objections, according to a lawsuit filed in South Carolina in February by the Foster Care Abuse Law Firm.
But the victim's family believed it couldn't say no after Protective Services allegedly "threatened" to place her in foster care and essentially strong-armed them into signing a safety plan.
A safety plan, also known as an alternate living arrangement, typically places a child with another relative or close family friend during an abuse investigation, one of the family's lawyers, Robert Butcher, explained to Fox News Digital.
In this case, the state placed her in the hands of Martin for about five to six weeks.
During that time, no one from the agency checked on her, according to the lawsuit, which allowed Martin to allegedly shoot explicit photos of his victim and abuse her, Debra Butcher said.
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"DSS (Department of Social Services) not once came out to that home," Butcher said. "All these five weeks or so, her mom kept saying, 'My husband can move out of the house. We can put her with a relative. We put her with a neighbor. … We don't want her to stay there [in the Martin home].'"
This was even before the criminal allegations bubbled to the surface.
Texts between the mom and a caseworker, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, allegedly show how hard the teen's mom fought to get her daughter back.
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In multiple texts from late February to mid-March 2022, the victim's mom said her daughter's father would move out if her daughter could return home. She also left voicemails, Debra Butcher said.
"I have been trying to communicate with you since 2/23 and have not yet heard from you," the mom texted the caseworker. "Is everything ok? I'm concerned by the lack of communication."
Another week passed without an answer. Again, the victim's mom texted the caseworker and begged her to respond.
"I don't understand the delay in this and why no one is calling us and responding to our requests," her mom said in a text.
After about a dozen messages — most of which went unanswered — the caseworker said they couldn't remove the victim from Martin's home because the paperwork was already signed.
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About six weeks after protective services left the victim with Martin, a new caseworker took over and moved the child out of Martin's house, Debra Butcher said, and the victim and her mom were finally able to talk "freely."
That's when "the child disclosed what happened," Debra said, and Martin was arrested shortly thereafter.
The trauma still haunts the victim more than two years later.
"She spoke about this, probably two weeks ago. And when she finished, she had to get up and leave and was in tears and shaking," Debra said. "It's still very traumatic for her."
The Foster Care Abuse Law Firm has three — soon to be four — other lawsuits alleging the state agency conducted unnecessary, invasive exams on children under the guise of checking to see if children were sexually abused.
But there were no allegations of abuse, or physical symptoms to suggest sexual trauma, according to the lawsuits.
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All the legal actions against two groups and four doctors were filed in South Carolina as recently as May 15 and reviewed by Fox News Digital. Robert said a fourth lawsuit is in the works but hasn't been filed yet.
The language and allegations are similar in each lawsuit, and the victims are young girls and boys.
The legal action includes serious allegations the lawyers said is "essentially rape," and asks the courts to stop the defendants "from performing unnecessary and intrusive pediatric genitourinary exams … when there are no allegations, or even suspicions of sexual abuse. … As a direct result of longstanding, well-documented failures of defendants … children … have been and continue to be harmed physically, psychologically and emotionally and continue to be placed at ongoing risk of such harm."
Robert Butcher said it's concerning there are "possibly hundreds of thousands of images of children's genitalia" in the possession of Prisma Health, which was named as one of the defendants.
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Prisma Health said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.
The alleged exams described by the Butchers are graphic and disturbing. Their bodies are exposed and physically probed, according to the lawyers.
"Sometimes, in the process of wanting to do good, some of these folks are doing harm to these kids," Robert Butcher said.
"This is sexual abuse," Debra Butcher said.
Each of the lawsuits implores the courts to prohibit the Department of Social Services and Prisma Health from performing these types of exams without allegations.