Shell Shock

Our oldest child was seven years old when Adrienne Driggers and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services began terrorizing us. He was a sweet child. Friendly, thoughtful, quick to laugh. When Adrienne Driggers and her goons(Childcare Licensing Representatives: Veronica Fernandez, Geneva Hudel, Jessica Zombrana) began to terrorize us they started by attacking him. If he crawled under a table to get a toy that had rolled under it they would write us up and claim that we did not have him under control. Though he would crawl under the table as carefully as anyone. If he was reading a book when the other kids were napping the childcare licensing representatives would write us up by claiming that we were giving him preferential treatment even though other children who could not fall asleep were doing the same. They made it a point to attack him and write us up for any thing that they could think of despite the fact that not a single violation of the State of Texas Minimum Standards ever took place.

When Adrienne Driggers closed our daycare when I was running it he asked "Dad, how can they close our daycare when we didn't do anything wrong?" I had to explain to him that he was being forced to experience something that no child should ever experience. Racism. Hate. Adrienne Driggers, the Southwest District Director was clearly targeting us. She had created her own rules against my his mother, and was determined to prevent us from operating a children's daycare. He couldn't understand this as we did not know Adrienne Driggers nor did she know us. How could she possibly hate someone that she didn't even know? I had no choice but to give him a lesson in history.

When he got older I told him that throughout history there have been incredibly evil and cruel people. I told him about Adolf Hitler and how he exterminated millions of Jews simply because they were Jewish. Just as I told him about the millions of Russians that died from this man's attempt to wipe them off the face of the earth. I told him of the hundreds of thousands of German women that were violated at the end of World War II and the Rape of Nanking where the Japanese Imperial Army massacred as many as 300,000 Chinese.  I told him of the countless lives(millions) that were exterminated by the Spaniards when they arrived to the Americas and of the millions of Africans that perished in the slave trade. I told him of the Killing Fields in Cambodia and of the genocide of the Native Americans and the Armenians.  There have been Adrienne Driggers throughout history. They are a people with no conscience or sense of remorse in harming others for no other reason than the fact that they are driven by a sinister hatred and are typically in possession of an incredible amount of unbridled power to do as they wish with an entire system falling in behind them.

 He changed after we were forced to leave San Antonio for the safety of Oklahoma. You read of soldiers that are shell-shocked, today we call it having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, who have difficulty sleeping, they have nightmares, they become withdrawn. That is what happened to him as a result of Adrienne Driggers and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. He developed a hatred that he did not previously possess as well as an incredible amount of anger. I couldn't blame him though we did our best to help him.

Though he has improved, he will never be the same. He can never get those formative years back. Adrienne Driggers, the ultimate child predator, made sure that our child understood that his life meant nothing. As a father and a person who believes that good will ultimately overcome evil I was pleased to have humiliated and destroyed Adrienne Driggers and her Department of Family and Protective Services, just as I was glad to destroy the Texas Attorney Generals Office. But it's not enough. Not for what those animals did to us.

This blog has exposed their behavior to the world but many I am sure still do not believe it to be true. To them I say this "Would you like to hear it for yourself?" The State Office of Administrative Hearings, the Attorney General's Office, and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services have tried to frighten us from releasing the recordings that prove that everything that I have written in this blog are true. What they forget is this. When you have taken away everything in a person's life what have they got to lose?  My goal is simple. I am going to expose every single person and State entity that has supported and enabled Adrienne Driggers to destroy our lives and the lives of so many children.

Battle of the Minds: Lawyer Jokes

Going to court can be a scary thing and I'll be honest, the cards are stacked against you. When fighting against the State in a SOAH hearing you can be either represented by an attorney or you can represent yourself. The people that you are facing do not care about what is best for the children of the community that you served nor do they care about your Constitutional rights or what happens to your family. Before I go further, please forgive me as my intention is not to scare you. My intention is to persuade the Legislators that are reading this blog to make some very important changes to a broken system that allows State officials and employees to abuse their power against good people like yourself. Like us.

Many people get intimidated going into court. The Attorney General's Office is out to destroy you. They have deep pockets and their sole job is to destroy good people. The presiding judge, who is not only a State employee and views DFPS and the Attorney Generals Office Attorneys as coworkers, has already been influenced by the Attorney General's scheduling of the hearing where the Attorney General's Office is allowed to put forth their argument against you without any objection. SOAH is without a doubt as much of a sham as Childcare Licensing's Administrative Reviews.

But I digress. Many daycare operators are fearful of the Attorney Generals Office and the court system. It's understandable. You are a person whose only dream was to care for children while your opponents are assassins without conscience or ethics. I had no fear of them. I will share the main reason for my lack of feat in a later date.

To help me prepare for this hearing I had to develop a perception of the people that I was going to face. The people that I was going to face were some very unethical lawyers from the Texas Attorney General's Office. I share this with you to help set you at ease. They are not invincible. They are far from it. If you have read our closing statement, the unethical tactics used by childcare licensing and the Attorney General's Office and how you can sue the State and each of their employees realize that I figured everything out on my own.Without much in resources. I have shared them to make it easier for you to beat them. I have bloodied them and it permeates the waters. It's just a matter of time for the sharks to feast. What I am going to share now will amuse you. Enjoy!

After having recently gone through a divorce and experiencing many other legal problems, Larry had become thoroughly disgusted with lawyers. One evening in a bar, the conversation got around to his pet peeve and he started to complain. "All lawyers are jerks!" he loudly proclaimed. Another man nearby heard the insult, looked disturbed, and sauntered over to Larry. "Look, I heard what you said," he sneered. "I am highly offended by it."

"Why is that?" Larry retorted. "Are you a lawyer?"

"No! I'm not a lawyer," the man replied. "I'm a jerk!"

Jackson, a successful attorney, was speeding down a dark country road late one evening when he collided with a car coming from the opposite direction.

Neither driver was hurt, but Jackson, seeing that the other driver was a little shaken up, helped him from the car and offered him a drink from his hip flask. The other driver gratefully accepted, took a long swig, and handed the flask back to Jackson. He closed it and put it away.

"Aren't you going to have a drink yourself?" asked the driver.

"Sure," replied Jackson, "After the police leave."

The following joke could apply to the Attorney General's Office as well as the judge that presides over your hearing before the State Office of Administrative Hearings!

A sailor took the witness stand in a trial. 

"Would you please tell the court," began the attorney, "if you recognize either the defendant or the plaintiff."

"Beg pardon, sir," said the sailor, "but I don't know what those terms mean."

The lawyer's eyes narrowed. "Shame on you! How can you come to testify at an important trial and not even know those basic terms?"

"Sorry, sir."

The lawyer sighed. "Okay, where were you when the accused is said to have struck the victim?"

"Sir, I was abaft the binnacle," replied the sailor.

"What? Where?" demanded the lawyer.

"Shame on you!" said the sailor. "How can you try a case about a boat and not even know those basic terms?"

Many of you have been disgusted at the tactics that the Attorney General's Office used against us including creating their own rules and regulations and trying to pass them off as if they were in the  guidelines that govern childrens daycares. It's not just using this unethical practice. It's much worse. By using these tactics they are helping to endanger the lives of the children in our care. Please take particular enjoyment from these jokes. 

Newmark was stuck in a traffic jam that hadn't moved for more than half an hour. Looking out his car window he saw a kid on a skateboard weaving his way towards him through the line of stranded vehicles.

"Hey kid, what's the hold up?" he asked.

"It's some crazy lawyer," replied the kid. 

"He's lying in the middle of the road and he's doused himself with gasoline. He's threatening to set fire to himself. We're taking up  a collection for him. Would you like to donate, mister?"

"How much have you got so far?" Newmark inquired.

"Oh," said the kid, "about thirty boxes of matches and twenty-three lighters."

Two lawyers were walking through the courthouse, negotiating a case.

"Look," the first lawyer said to the other, "let's be honest with each other."

"Okay, you first," replied the second.

And that was the end of the discussion.

"You are lying so clumsily," said the judge to the defendant, "that I would advise you to get a lawyer."

A Priest was called out the house of an elderly attorney. 

"How is the patient?" he asked the doctor.

"I'm afraid he's lying at death's door."

The Priest sighed. "Poor soul. Going to meet his maker, and he's still lying."

What's the difference between a vacuum cleaner and a lawyer on a motorcycle?

The vacuum cleaner has the dirt bag on the inside!

Why do they bury lawyers under 20 feet of dirt?

Because deep down, they're really good people!

What do lawyers and sperm have in common?

One in Three Million have a chance of becoming a human being

What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 60?

"Your Honor"


There are two kinds of lawyers-those who know the law and those who know the judge!

Unethical Behavior from the Texas Attorney General's Office

I have previously mentioned that the Attorneys from the Texas Attorney General's Office are clueless as to the rules and regulations that govern Childcare Centers. Unfortunately, so are the Administrative judges that preside over Administrative Hearings! I have been asked if I believed that the Attorneys from the Attorney General's Office are truly ignorant of the State of Texas Minimum Standards that govern Childcare Centers or if they are deliberately misrepresenting the rules and regulations when they are trying to incriminate someone for wrong doing. The truth is that it doesn't matter. You just have to be prepared to attack them and call them out when they misrepresent the rules and regulations which they will do. They will repeatedly make false statements of material facts to the presiding judge. They are not the most ethical of individuals and should be disbarred for using these tactics.

What we have witnessed from the Texas Attorney General's Office, as it is the Texas Attorney General's Office that represents the Department of Family and Protective Services in all legal matters, is a blatant misrepresentation of the rules and regulations when targeting daycare operators. Their attorneys will go as far as to fault daycare operators even when those daycare operators are operating within the State guidelines.

In our hearing before the State Office of Administrative Hearings, the Attorney General's Office faulted Marla for not being at the daycare at the time that a child allegedly stepped out of the building. While the rules and regulations clearly state that the daycare operator does not have to be at the daycare for all hours of operation it didn't stop them from using that against her. Adrienne Driggers, who was very much aware that this was not a violation, used the fact that Marla was not at the daycare during the time of the incident to place Marla on the Texas DFPS Central Registry!

The Texas Attorney General's Office also attacked Marla for having young caregivers working at her daycare. The State of Texas Minimum Standards state that age 18 is the minimal age a caregiver can be expected to make independent decisions and respond appropriately to the needs of children. In addition to this, the Minimum Standards indicate that a high school diploma or its equivalency is a recognized indicator of basic literacy in our society. Every one of Marla's employees was over age 18 and had High School Diplomas. The Attorney General's Office attempted to fault Marla for having some young employees on her staff even though it was not a violation!

As you may remember, the Texas Attorney General's Office tried desperately to avoid the disclosure of information that they planned to introduce before the State Office of Administrative Hearings. You now know that they will misrepresent and flat out lie about violations of the State of Texas Minimum Standards that govern Childcare Centers when there are no violations. Be prepared for them to also cite violations that do not exist. In our hearing Patricia Fernandez, the lead attorney for the State, argued that it was Marla's responsibility to train her staff one-on-one. Ms. Fernandez was blatantly creating her own rules and regulations as this rule does not exist in the guidelines that govern how daycare centers operate!  You must be prepared to object and call them out for their misrepresentations whether they are intentional or not.

But it doesn't end there. For those of you who have experienced the corruption of childcare licensing representatives you very well may have been cited for what are typical occurrences in daily operations. For example, we were written up for there being food on the floor by childcare licensing representative Christina Cantu. What was left out of her report was that she came to the daycare when the children were eating. The toddlers, being toddlers, dropped food on the floor. While we cleaned this up immediately as we always would it didn't stop her from writing us up! The Attorney General's Office in failing to understand typical daily operations argued that Marla's daycare was not safe for children because toddlers were dropping food on the floor when they were having their meal!

Another example are School age children arriving at the daycare after school. It would be common sense for those of you who have either worked with children or have children of your own to know that these children are excited to be out of school and would enjoy playing with the many toys and games that we offered. It is normal for children to put toys/games out of order. It won't look nice when they do it but we would always rearrange the items into their proper place. Christina Cantu presented this in her report as if the rearranging of the toys and games were a danger to the children. But she admitted in the SOAH hearing that the children were not in any immediate danger. The Attorney General's Office, despite hearing Ms. Cantu's testimony that the children were not in any danger would still argue that this was reason enough for Adrienne Driggers to close the daycare! I can't blame them for trying as I had so completely destroyed their case that they really had nothing to fall back on. It was pretty pathetic.

I have been told by other daycare operators that the Attorney General's Office, in smearing the daycare operator, will introduce writeups given to daycare operators since their daycares inception even if it goes back 10 years! The problem with this is that they do not provide comparative numbers for all daycares within that same period. In the DFPS website, the number of writeups only go back 2 years. We proved in court that our daycare had significantly fewer writeups than the average number of daycares for the Southwest District and in doing so proved that we ran an exceptional daycare. Monica Martinez, the childcare licensing representative that investigated the incident of the child walking out of the building, acknowledged in the hearing that this was exceptional. Because I was aware of the Attorney General's Office unethical tactics I was able to either dismember their arguments before they had the opportunity to present them or I was prepared to counter them. I knew what they were going to do before they did them. That would explain Patricia Fernandez meltdown at the end of the hearing!

I have also been told that the Attorney General's Office will also present writeups that daycares receive for failing to complete FBI fingerprinting on some of their staff. While we didn't have this problem, I can tell you that what often happens is that childcare licensing representatives will disregard the rule that states that a caregiver can work with the children without having completed an an FBI fingerprinting if that caregiver has has completed a criminal background check and you need that caregiver to satisfy State mandated ratios. The daycare operator must ensure that the caregiver completes an FBI fingerprinting within 30 days of having completed their criminal background check. In addition to this I can provide you with a list of daycares that have been given writeups for not having completed FBI fingerprinting and Criminal Background Checks that total as many as 17 in one visit alone without Childcare Licensing giving these daycares as much as a slap on the wrist. Here is an interesting thing about this. When we were operating in San Antonio, childcare licensing representatives would be apt to separate each of those deficiencies to pad the number of our deficiencies as we ran such a great operation that Adrienne Driggers Childcare Licensing Department had to be creative on how to create deficiencies against us. It is easy for us to prove that this exact same Childcare Licensing office would group those exact same kind of deficiencies to represent only one deficiency for those daycare operators that they were not targeting! Be prepared for the Attorney General's Office to try and prevent you from presenting this information as it would prove that you are being subjected to a different set of standards from the norm.

Another thing that Patricia Fernandez and the Attorney General's Office did in our hearing was to present a "witness" from the Corpus Christi Childcare Licensing Office to state that this office felt that our daycare should have been closed as a result of the child walking out of the building. Her name escapes me at this time as she was so insignificant. I'll do an update on this post at a later date when I remember her name. It was difficult for me to contain myself from laughing when she was being questioned by the Attorney General's Office as she appeared to be no more than a puppet to them with her answers! In cross-examining this poor girl it was obvious that she was unaware of simple rules and regulations that childrens daycares and childcare licensing operate under. One funny thing about her and the Attorney General's Office is that they were completely unaware that I would present documentation that would prove that the Corpus Christi Childcare Licensing Office ruled that the daycare did not pose a danger to the safety and well-being of the children. The Attorney General's Office presented this "witness" to lie to the court. Please read the Closing Statement that I presented to Melissa Ricard, the presiding judge for our hearing in the following link.

SOAH CLOSING STATEMENT

So I say to you that your best approach to a hearing against these people is to challenge the Texas Attorney General's Office on everything and you will find that they will fold like a cheap suit. After the beat down that I gave them they will fight tooth and nail to prevent someone like myself to represent someone again as the rule in representation in SOAH hearings is that a person can represent themselves or be represented by an attorney (who is not likely to be familiar with the rules and regulations that govern childcare centers). This sets daycare operators up to lose as the judge that is presiding over the hearing is also a State employee and as a result is already going to be leaning their way. They are comrades. The Attorney General's Office begged and pleaded to try and prevent me from representing my wife. They will make sure that nobody else is able to do so again. I say to them what the childcare licensing representatives would tell us when they were harassing our daycare: "If you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear!" They and the presiding judge underestimated me.

Closing Statement for the State Office of Administrative Hearings

The atmosphere for the Hearing was electric. I had been looking forward to this hearing for two years. I had promised that I would attack Adrienne Driggers and her Department of Family and Protective Services as well as the Texas Attorney General's Office mercilessly and make them pay for what they had done to my family and to the children in our care. We had the truth, the law, and God on our side. I would be so relentless that I would force their first witness, Monica Martinez a childcare licensing representative to collapse after I cross-examined her. The hearing was so lopsided in our favor that Patricia Fernandez, the lead attorney from the Texas Attorney General's Office would have a meltdown at the end of the hearing. I had posted a message on Facebook, with the hope that the Texas Attorney General's Office was keeping tabs on me, that I was going to kick their ass. I did not disappoint and they were monitoring my posts! This hearing was beautifully brutal.

Other individuals that have also been targeted by Childcare Licensing were thrilled that Childcare Licensing and the Attorney General's Office had gotten a taste of their own medicine. You will be too.

Below is a link to our closing statement provided to Melissa Ricard, the presiding judge of the State Office of Administrative Hearings. You will agree after reading this closing statement that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services is out of control and is in desperate need of either a massive overhaul or perhaps elimination. You will also come to the conclusion that Adrienne Driggers and her staff should face criminal prosecution and that the attorneys from the Texas Attorney General's Office should be disbarred.

SOAH CLOSING STATEMENT