Foster youth Haylei Burton worked part-time at McDonald’s in Oak Hill for a year while attending Oak Hill High School. Yet when she was kicked out illegally by her foster parents for refusing to cut ties with her biological family she walked away without many of her belongings.
After seeing social service workers and legal professionals the question they all ask is the same, “Why have the police not got involved or done anything about this?” Especially with the strong evidence, she has such as text messages and bank statements. The police simply reply that this is a court matter – despite attorneys telling Haylei it should not be. Interestingly, when Haylei was with this family she did get to know them and know who their friends are. One of them is a very close friend who works at the Oak Hill Police Department.
Haylei worked as many hours as she could do so at McDonald’s, even staying over her shift without pay just so she could be away from her foster home. We have hundreds of text messages to prove the psychological abuse the parents feel comfortable inflicting on children. One thing she saved for with her money was a car. The bank statements prove all income into her bank account was solely from her job. Text messages show the discussion for the purchase of the car. The check paid for the car came from her bank account and was signed by the foster mom. On the title, there are two names and we have a text showing they intentionally put their name on the title so she would not take the car with her even though she paid for it.
Upon Haylei being kicked out, CPS attempted to retrieve all of her belongings with little success. Her and her biological family have proof of possession over some of the belongings. One important thing not returned was Haylei’s bank card and checkbook. Upon that realization, she found out the foster mother went to the bank and took all the funds from the bank account after she was no longer her legal guardian.
Remember, the bank account where ONLY her earnings from McDonald’s was the source of the funds(In the state of Ohio if there are two names on a bank account the owner is considered whoever contributed the most money into the account, Haylei contributed 100% of the money into the account thus is the owner of it).
In a text message the foster mom told Haylei she would only be removing her name from it and “money Haylei owes her” but instead decided to take all of it. Haylei to this day does not know why her foster mother told her she owed $435.
Upon investigation by CPS they found in Haylei’s bank statements there were many checks written out to her foster parents. They asked Haylei the reasons for these checks and it is clear that even though they were being compensated as foster parents to care for her they clearly felt entitled to her money. As of today the foster parents have only returned $900 and told CPS employees that is all the money Haylei had.
The last incident is a benefits card received for Haylei. It was never returned either and was used after she was kicked out and when they no longer had any guardianship over Haylei. Customer service representatives have confirmed all purchases were made in Oak Hill and Jackson and even stated the foster mother’s name. $343.27 was purchased with Haylei’s card before we were able to cancel it. Had we not found out about it I am certain they would have used it all. The fraud department also asked the same question, “Why have the police not been involved?”
As clear as the evidence is, our attorney’s claim that the belongings should have been returned immediately, and once the police report was filed the prosecutor would have seen the evidence and ordered immediate restitution. Our attorneys were surprised when we heard nothing back months after the police reports were filed and that police told us this was a court issue.
The world is already a hard and cruel place. This child already had a misfortunate life and deserved a break by having a home and welcoming family but instead was extorted and psychologically abused. It is clear they were only in it for the money and do not care about helping misfortunate children.
Currently, their foster license is in the process of being revoked indefinitely. It is also unclear why Haylei has had to do majority of legal work and neither fostering agencies took it upon themselves to discipline the foster parents at the very least charge them with neglect.
