I entered nursing school at the age of 17 years old. I turned 18 less than two weeks later. I was the youngest nursing student ever accepted into St. Joseph's Nursing Program. After spending four years working at the hospital on a GYN floor and then a new teen floor, I decided to go back to school. I wanted to teach health and sex education. The rest of my career has been in public health, until 1986 when I answered an interesting ad. The ad turned out to be an experimental position for an AIDS Coordinator. The job did not have description, just tasks which needed to be done anyway I saw fit. With unbelievable energy, passion and drive (and basically no budget) I became very personally successful. I conducted the first AIDS & Prostitution Study. I wrote the protocol for HIV Risk Reduction and was fortunate enough to receive assistance and education from Gay Men’s Health Crisis in NY. I helped write the Contact Tracing for HIV\AIDS program for the State of NJ. In 1989 I left NY and NJ for Florida and began working for the Health Department in Palm Beach County. I was selected as one of the health educators for the new Palm Beach County’s Health Education Risk Reduction Program. I wrote the HIV\AIDS Risk Reduction Program for first (and sometimes second) time sex offenders, which has now become a state statute. Additionally I was very fortunate in having the opportunity to be part of and appeaaring in a FOX documentary titled, “Blind Justice” which featured Pat Pepper and former Madame Attorney General Janet Reno. In 1999 I was selected by the Merit Systems Board for the Centers for Disease Control as a GS-12 Supervisory Public Heath Advisor. When I returned to Florida I took a position in a small non-profit agency in Daytona Beach. This agency turned out to be the nightmare of all nightmares, The AIDS Coalition of Volusia & Flagler Co. I discovered embezzlement in just about every contract program, but it began with the HUD (HOPWA, housing for AIDS patients. Due to my whistle blowing (because they ignored all the pleads from me to clean things up) this agency retaliated in ways that are unthinkable. I was attacked and beaten in my own office twice in one day, while the supervisor watched and prevented me from calling 911. My home was robbed while my son and I slept. My home was in a beautiful gated community, basically unable to break into. I was eventually fired, and because my whistleblower protection rights were not enforced or protected, I lost everything. But I would have never believed this agency’s attorneys would go as far as they did to convince a Volusia County judge that my allegations of embezzlement were “delusional” therefore making me unable to make parental decisions. I lost my son. There was no one from DCF, no psychiatrist, or psychologist. There wasn’t even an angry neighbor, just a former employee from The AIDS Coalition of Volusia & Flagler Co. who was out on bail for criminal activities (which were never brought up in court), their attorney’s office partner and the judge. I wasn’t there, I was having a surgical procedure. I haven’t seen my child in three years because this County will not admit they screwed up so very badly. I am on my 5th judge. They have all recused themselves at various times during one Hearing or another. Thankfully, Congressman Wexler of Boca Raton convinced OIG in 2004 to re-open my case of embezzlement allegations, because the second investigation proved the allegations valid. I just want my son home. Since when did this become a circus where I have to prove something that has already been proven? Now I have to wait for the US attorney’s office to prosecute these fiends, for my son to come home. Apparently in Volusia Family Court anyone can spew a psychiatric diagnosis, if it’s the one the judge wants to hear.
