Lawsuit Filed Against State After Latest CWS Child-Torture Death
Excerpt from lawsuit (1CCV-25-0000342) filed March 4, 2025, after arrests of Janae Perez and her partner, Ashleigh Utley, for the torture and starvation death of three-year-old Sarai Perez-Rivera. Suit filed on behalf of the three surviving children, identified as “I.P., E.P.-R., and P.P.”, by their grandmother, Leah Schnabel, in Oahu First Circuit Court, March 4, 2025:
EXCERPT
… 5. At all times material, the subject minors were youths in the State of Hawaii in the custody of Janae Perez, their natural mother, and her partner, Ashleigh Utley, and were subjects of an ongoing case with DHS.
6. On or about February 14, 2024 CWS was informed, through a call to its hotline, that the subject minors had been removed from school, appeared dirty and uncared for, and appeared to be skinny and losing weight.
7. On or about March 5, 2024, a representative of Parents and Children Together (PACT), a child services contractor of Defendant State of Hawaii was informed by telephone of the same concerns regarding the physical condition of the subject minors.
8. Concerns about the welfare of the subject minors were again raised with PACT representatives on or about May 23 and 26, 2024.
9. Despite these complaints the subject minors were left in the Perez home without adequate, supervision, care, or services.
10. The minor sibling of the subject minors, S.P., who was also in the custody of Janae Perez, and her partner, Ashleigh Utley in the Perez home died in their care on June 13, 2024.
11. Only then did Defendant State finally remove the subject minors from the Perez home.
12. S.P. was reportedly found in the home malnourished and unresponsive, with ashen skin, bruises on her legs, hips, arms, face, back, and head.
13. Upon removal the subject minors were transported to the hospital displaying signs of neglect including, inter alia, dehydration, noted thinness, and looking tired.
14. Defendant State failed to take appropriate action upon learning of the conditions in the Perez home including, without limitation, counseling, support services, supervision, and/or removal of the children from this dangerous situation.
15. Defendant State knew or should have known about Perez and Utley’s abuse of the children in their care.
16. Defendant State knew or should have known about Perez and Utley’s were unfit to care for children and that children were not safe in their care.
17. Defendant State knew or should have known about the physical condition and evident abuse of the children in the Perez home.
18. Defendant State owed the subject minors a duty of reasonable care because it had superior knowledge about the risks presented by the Perez home and by abusive caregivers generally. Defendant State had a fiduciary duty to the subject minors.
19. Defendant State breached its fiduciary duty and other duties to the subject minors by failing to act upon or insufficiently acting upon or responding to information obtained by virtue of its superior status, known only or secretly to Defendant State, which was indicative of a pattern of wrongful, unlawful or grossly negligent conduct, and danger in the Perez home.
20. Defendant State and Teixeira failed to take action to protect the subject minors from abuse and violence and in the Perez home.
21. As a direct result of Defendant State’s conduct, the subject minors have suffered and continue to suffer from injuries including, but not limited to: great pain of mind and body; severe and permanent emotional distress; physical manifestations of emotional distress; psychological injuries, including post traumatic stress disorder and depression; feelings of shame, embarrassment, and powerlessness; will incur expenses for medical and psychological treatment, therapy and counseling; and has incurred and will continue to incur loss of income and/or loss of earning capacity.
read … COMPLAINT
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BACKGROUND:
Another CWS Hell House: Four Children Tortured, One Girl Starved to Death
CB Feb 27, 2025: … At a press conference late Thursday, Honolulu Police Department Lt. Deena Thoemmes said the children — ages 6, 5, 3 and 2 — had been beaten by Perez and Utley with hands, sticks and paddles. After Sarai was found unresponsive at the Kapolei house, two of the other children were admitted to the hospital suffering from extreme dehydration.
The girl’s grandmother last year told Civil Beat that she had tried to alert the state’s Child Welfare Services after noticing how skinny Sarai had become.
“I did see something. I did say something,” Sarai’s grandmother said. “But the problem is that it didn’t matter. It didn’t work because no one listened.”
Two weeks later, Perez emailed a different relative to say that the CWS investigation had been closed.
Perez texted the relative a photo of a shelf full of soup and other canned food and asked the relative to tell her mother, Sarai’s grandmother, that she had been cleared by CWS….
“Their Kapolei residence possessed sufficient food to feed their children, but they chose not to,” Thoemmes said….
Civil Beat reported on Sarai’s death last year after obtaining a heavily redacted report from a team of experts about the circumstances. Emergency responders found the girl on June 13 after being called to the home.
The almost 4-year-old girl was severely underweight and had bruises at different stages of healing on her lower legs, left thigh, back and trunk, as well as a “massive” bruise on her left hip and abdomen….
Eighteen minutes after arriving at the hospital, she was pronounced dead. The experts, known as a multidisciplinary team, found that she had suffered from extreme pain, mental distress and exposure to domestic violence.
She had been deprived of food, clothing, medical care or education, the panel found, and she had been given dangerous drugs….
KHON: HPD: 2 arrested in connection with child’s death | KHON2 -- Police have identified the suspects as 25-year-old Janae Perez, the child’s mother, and her partner, 33-year-old Ashleigh Utley. The pair was arrested on Thursday, Feb. 27, in the Kalihi area.
SA: Hawaii's State Legals & Public Notices (Paternity Suit by CSEA)
KITV: Two arrested in connection to death of 3-year-old girl in Kapolei
HNN: Mother, girlfriend appear in court on murder charges in toddler’s death
KITV: Neighbors heard cries of children go ignored before murder of toddler Sarai Perez-Rivera
read … Honolulu Mother And Her Partner Arrested In Abuse Death Of 3-Year-Old - Honolulu Civil Beat
SB281: Outlaw Child Torture
SA Feb 27 2025: … On Thursday, Thoemmes advocated for Senate Bill 281 and its companion bill, House Bill 388, which died in early February before the House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs. The bills aim to directly address the torture of children.
“Child torture is insidious. It is gradual, calculated and systematic, and designed to break the victim’s will,” Thoemmes said. “Its effects are deliberate and devastating. Our existing legal framework does not adequately address those acts of torture, making it difficult to hold offenders accountable.”
There is no specific child torture statute in Hawaii’s laws. Instead, child abuse cases are typically prosecuted under existing laws, such as assault, endangering the welfare of a minor, manslaughter or murder, depending on the severity of the abuse.
SB 281 would clarify definitions, prohibit the offense of torture, and make torture a Class A felony.
“Passing this bill will equip law enforcement with the necessary tools to intervene effectively and hold offenders fully accountable,” Thoemmes said. “Right now, without this law, we are failing the victims.”…
read … 2 Oahu women arrested in starvation death of 3-year-old girl | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
HNN: ‘Utter failure’: Grandmother of murdered toddler sues state over handling of child abuse reports
KITV: Family of Kapolei toddler allegedly killed by her mother sues state | News | kitv.com