Saturday, March 14, 1998

'Unreasonable risk of harm to children'

By Bob Greene

CHILTON, Wis. -- The time has come for the Rogers children to be told by a judge whether they will be ordered to have visits with their parents -- Michael and Angeline Rogers, each charged with 10 felony counts of child abuse against those children.

One judge -- Donald A. Poppy -- has already ordered that the children, with the exception of the girl, now 8, who was found locked in a basement dog cage, should be sent on visits with Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.

But Judge Poppy stayed his order until the judge who will preside at the criminal trial -- Steven Weinke, of Fond du Lac County -- decides whether he will loosen the bond restrictions on Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. Currently out on bail, they are forbidden from having any contact with their five children. Judge Poppy's order that they be given visits conflicts with the no-contact-with-the-children provision; if Judge Weinke defers to Judge Poppy's decision to order visits, the visits will begin.

A bizarre aspect of this is that it was Judge Poppy, when he was running the criminal phase of the case, who originally set the no-contact rule. Then, after he stepped down from the criminal phase and it was handed to Judge Weinke, Judge Poppy ordered the visits. So the same judge who said Mr. and Mrs. Rogers should have no contact with the children they are accused of abusing has now ordered that the children must visit those parents. The decision has become Judge Weinke's to make.

How nonsensical -- with potentially wrenching results for the children -- has this become? In court, Donald Derozier, the psychologist who is recommending the visits, was asked about the 9-year-old Rogers boy, who has been separated from his sister and brothers, is living in a foster home, and is reportedly having a rough time of things. Should he be sent to visit the accused abusers?

Yes, Derozier said -- but "if destructive things occur within the first few minutes of the visit, the child should be saved."

This is what we're dealing with here -- that kind of plan. Why, after all that these children have been through, is there no apparent impulse to err on the side of caution -- to be careful about what the children are subjected to?

And it is not just these children whose immediate futures are in Judge Weinke's hands. As we reported, Michael and Angeline Rogers have moved into a house that has four other children living in it. Judge Weinke was unaware of this until we told him.

This week, Judge Weinke heard a motion by prosecutor Ken Kratz saying that Bud Hanson, director of the Department of Social Services in Kewaunee County, where Mr. and Mrs. Rogers now live, "indicates that due to the serious nature of the allegations against Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, it is not appropriate and does create a potential risk of maltreatment for the minor children currently living in the same home. The State concurs with the position taken by Hanson that allowing the defendants to reside with minor children creates an unreasonable risk of harm to those children."

What Kratz's motion does not address -- but what Bud Hanson freely told us -- is the confusion and concern on the part of Kewaunee County authorities about why Judge Weinke would have bent over backward to allow Michael and Angeline Rogers to live close to their 11-year-old son, the boy whose courage in asking police for help is the reason the children were saved and Mr. and Mrs. Rogers were arrested.

Judge Weinke had ruled Mr. and Mrs. Rogers could not live within five miles of any of their children. But when they said they wanted to live within four miles of the 11-year-old, Judge Weinke -- in a telephone conference call the public and press were not told about -- reduced that protective barrier to 3.2 miles, just so Mr. and Mrs. Rogers could live where they wanted.

The 11-year-old knows about this. He will be asked to testify at the criminal trial -- and he knows that Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, free on bail, have, with the blessing of a judge, moved close to him.

Bud Hanson, responsible for protecting abused children in Kewaunee County, said, "You'd think everyone would want to be as careful as they can be. (The 11-year-old boy) is going to have enough to adjust to and deal with as it is, without this. I really don't understand it."

Bob Greene's complete coverage of this child abuse case is available at www.chicago.tribune.com/go/greene.

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