SAN DIEGO (CNS) - The city and county of San Diego, along with other entities accused of failing to prevent or intervene amid allegedly abusive conditions that led to the death of an 11-year-old Spring Valley girl, have agreed to legal settlements totaling more than $31 million.
The settlements resolve a lawsuit brought on behalf of Arabella McCormack's two younger sisters, who were also allegedly abused by their adoptive parents and grandparents.
The recently approved settlement amounts include $10 million each from the city and county, along with $8.5 million from Pacific Coast Academy -- a homeschool program whose teachers taught the girls -- and $3 million from Rock Church, where the girls' adoptive mother volunteered.
Law enforcement responded to the McCormack home on Aug. 30, 2022 to find Arabella unresponsive. She died at a hospital later that day.
The lawsuit alleges that at the time of Arabella's death, she was severely malnutritioned -- weighing only 40 pounds -- and had sustained fractured bones and other injuries.
Her sisters, who were 6 and 7 years old at the time, were also "severely malnourished, neglected and abused," according to the lawsuit, but have since "received treatment that saved their lives."
The girls' adoptive mother, Leticia Diane McCormack and McCormack's parents -- Adella Tom and Stanley Tom -- face criminal charges that include murder and torture. They remain jailed without bail and face multiple life terms if convicted. Prosecutors also allege McCormack's husband, Brian McCormack, who killed himself as sheriff's deputies sought to speak with him, was involved with the abuse.
The girls came into the McCormacks' care in 2017 and were later adopted.
According to prosecutors and the lawsuit, the girls' caretakers physically abused the children by beating them with paddles and sticks, withheld food from them, and kept them isolated to their bedrooms. They were also not allowed to have friends and were not allowed to use the bathroom when they needed, prosecutors alleged.
According to the lawsuit, Leticia McCormack and her parents volunteered with the San Diego Police Department and one of its officers was aware the girls were neglected and abused. The lawsuit states that the officer, Lawanda Fisher, gave Leticia McCormack a pair of wooden paddles that she knew would be used to strike the girls.
The lawsuit faults the officer for allegedly failing to report the abuse, and makes similar claims against county child welfare services employees, teachers with Pacific Coast Academy, and members of Rock Church.
While child welfare services employees received child abuse complaints from Arabella's elementary school, a child welfare services agent interviewed Arabella twice in front of the McCormacks, then closed the case, the lawsuit states.
Pacific Coast Academy teachers and mandated reporters associated with Rock Church also witnessed the malnourished conditions of the children, but made no reports of suspected abuse, according to the lawsuit.
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