Gail Fry |
In September 2021, Black Voice News and IE Voice reported a federal jury’s rendering of a $2.5 million judgment after it found whistleblower, former San Bernardino County employee Eric Bahra, had warned the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department as well as San Bernardino Children and Family Services, of a “systemic failure” that resulted in more than 54 foster children being placed in the home of a known sexual abuser. Recently, Black Voice News reporter Gail Fry, who originally reported this story, sat down with Bahra’s attorney, Charles Bonner, to discuss the case and the extreme attempts by county officials to cover it up at the expense of children they are paid to protect.
Note: During the interview Bonner refers to L and M children. For clarity, M-children is a reference to the 54 foster children placed in the home of a known sexual abuser. L-children refers to the biological children in a separate case assigned to Bahra where the youngest child, a baby, died in the parents’ care. The county allegedly used this case in a desperate and failed attempt to discredit Bahra. The children in both cases are identified in this manner due to privacy laws. In a related case, former San Bernardino Social Worker Mary Anna Whitehall alleges she was terminated after she disclosed to the juvenile dependency court that the Department of Family and Children Services had “intentionally perpetrated a fraud upon the court in the dead baby case in an apparent effort to discredit social worker Bahra. The next hearing in the Whiehall case is scheduled for October 31, 2022. The interview also includes a reference to form San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos who was in office at the time the whistleblower came forward.