FOSTER PARENT SEXUALLY ABUSING BOYS SINCE 1986

A longtime foster father on Long Island has been charged with sexually abusing five boys, all of them his adopted sons, in a case where the authorities suspect there are many more victims.
The father, Cesar Gonzales-Mugaburu, 60, who had 140 boys placed in his care over 22 years, was being held on $500,000 cash bail at the Suffolk County jail on Friday.
Thomas J. Spota, the county’s district attorney, said the victims were 8 to 20 years old at the time they were abused. (The 20-year-old was abused as both a child and an adult, according to an indictment.) The abuse is alleged to have occurred from August 1996 to January of this year.
Mr. Spota said he could not understand why the New York City Administration for Children’s Services and a nonprofit that the agency contracted, SCO Family of Services, continually placed children with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu despite “red flags” over nearly two decades.
“What I really want to look at at the very end of all of this: How did the system designed to help them fail them in such a spectacular way?” he said. “These kids deserve an answer to that.”
The agency and the nonprofit issued separate statements on Friday that expressed a commitment to keeping children safe, and said they were cooperating with the authorities.
In court and at a news conference, Mr. Spota described a “house of horrors” in Ridge, N.Y., where Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu deprived boys of food and made them stand in the cold.
Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu took actions that Mr. Spota said he believed were intended to isolate the children and to conceal the abuse. The foster father would not give them access to phones or allow them to invite friends to the home, and prohibited them from dating and extracurricular activities, the prosecutor said.
The case unfolded in January when two foster children who were in Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu’s care at the time told an SCO caseworker that he had made inappropriate comments, graphically describing sexual acts.
The police investigated, and Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu was charged with sexual misconduct and endangering the welfare of a child. He asked a detective to talk to one of his five adopted sons, who is now 28.
“A detective said, ‘Hey, if there’s any way you can be of help to me, let me know,’” Mr. Spota said, describing a conversation with one of the sons. “He said, ‘Let me think about it.’”
Less than a week later, the son came forward with others who said they had been abused. “The chain of events started then,” Mr. Spota said.
The police identified 10 victims, including the five sons and the two foster children. Abuses to the three others were beyond the statute of limitations, Mr. Spota said. Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu was also charged with sexual misconduct involving a dog.
Mr. Spota and Gerard Gigante, chief of detectives with the Suffolk County Police Department, urged any foster children who had been abused by Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu to come forward.
The police first investigated Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu for a complaint in 1998 but could not substantiate that claim and others that followed over the years, Chief Gigante said.
Suffolk County Child Protective Services stopped placing children with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu in 2001. Chief Gigante would not disclose the circumstances surrounding the end of the county’s relationship with the foster father, citing a continuing investigation.
But Mr. Spota said the split should have served as a warning for the New York City agency and SCO. The nonprofit had also stopped using Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu as a foster parent for a period that was not specified on Friday, but resumed placements in 2013, Mr. Spota said, adding that SCO had also placed some children from Washington State with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu.
Mr. Spota said he would investigate the agency and the nonprofit and would look at whether Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu was certified to be a foster parent at all times. Foster parents are supposed to be employed and not dependent on the money from their foster children, Mr. Spota said. But investigators have not been able to confirm that Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu worked as a wine distributor and dog groomer, as he has claimed.
He had as many as eight children in his care at one time and received $2,200 to $2,400 per child per month, Mr. Spota said.
Daniel T. Driscoll, who was identified by prosecutors as Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu’s lawyer, could not be reached on Friday.
Pat Cawley and Christine Stein, both residents in Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu’s neighborhood, said they had watched several weeks ago as Suffolk police officers raided the house and opened the windows and doors.
Mr. Cawley used to ride bicycles with some of the boys who lived in the house. He said the boys came to Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu in search of better lives.
“You get dropped into this Satan’s castle,” he said. “You regret knowing people like that.”