Four former foster children were awarded a $7,000,000 settlement with the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF), NBC10 Boston reported Friday.
John and Nathan Williams and two unnamed others had sued the state, DCF and their Massachusetts-licensed former foster parents Ray and Sue Blouin, alleging physical, sexual and psychological abuse in the 1990s and 2000s, according to the outlet. DCF allegedly ignored the foster children’s complaints and kept cycling dozens of children through the Blouins’ home.
“Me and Nathan were strangled, tortured, we were put in dog cages, we were put in closets, naked, where we had to stand all night and put our noses against the wall,” John Williams said, according to footage of a video interview with NBC10. Nathan also referenced “daily sadistic torturous punishments,” the outlet reported.
Sue Blouin allegedly grabbed a foster child by the genitals and used racial epithets on some of the children, according to records shown in the video. She and her husband also allegedly performed sex acts in front of a foster child and are accused of flogging foster children in their care with “belts, dog leashes, and metal spoons while [the children] were naked.” (RELATED: ‘Unfathomable’: Childcare Worker Facing 1623 Charges Of Sex Crimes)
#BREAKING: Lawyers for four of the foster children filed the lawsuit alleging social workers & @Mass_DCF ignored reports of abuse by foster children in the Blouins’ Oxford home and kept placing children in the home. @NBC10Boston #dcf #childabuse #fostercare pic.twitter.com/5UhFjJya2M
— Kathy Curran (@KathyReports) August 11, 2023
“Children were locked in dog cages, children were forced to take freezing cold baths. They were forced to smear dog feces and their own feces on themselves,” attorney Sam Perkins of Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kesten, LLP — the law firm representing the four survivors — said in a statement in March, according to NBC10.
“There is no amount that can remedy the trauma endured by the now adults who lived in the Blouin home nearly 20 years ago,” a DCF representative said, the outlet reported. “The Department of Children and Families hopes the resolution of this case is a source of strength and comfort to all involved.”
Sue Blouin’s license as a registered nurse was suspended due to the case, NBC10 reported. Ray Blouin was allegedly a delivery driver and emergency medical technician. The couple are both facing sexual assault charges involving two of the children, with Ray previously being convicted of sexual assault on two female foster children. Ray and Sue entered not guilty pleas to the charges and declined to comment to NBC10 on the allegations.