A complaint filed by Det. Ellen Christopher, alleging a dozen criminal violations by Guardians Ad Litem June Shaw and Robin Greene, is one of hundreds of documents investigators from the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office are currently reviewing in order to determine whether state officials mishandled the Nogues case or violated the law. The Dade State Attorney's Office and HRS both say their reviews of the case have revealed no inappropriate actions.
For now, the Nogueses await the Palm Beach State Attorney's report, hoping it will be a first step toward vindication. Investigators refuse to comment on the case, but one official does concede he is troubled by a seeming determination to use the interference-with-custody charges to punish the Nogueses for their alleged child abuse.
Although Javier recently turned eighteen and was allowed to return home, life remains lonely for Lisette and Andres Nogues. Their four youngest children remain with Michelle and Rick Porras, and Jeanette and Aimee live with friends. In the absence of children or medical practices -- which they both abandoned when the case began -- the couple wanders around home, Andres tending to the yard and the pets, Lisette handling the legal work they can no longer afford, both pondering the inexplicable nightmare from which they cannot rescue themselves or their children. "We've exercised a lot of self-control," says Andres, whose laid-back manner offsets his wife's relentless energy. "There are times I've thought of taking the kids to another state and turning ourselves in, just to get the case out of this jurisdiction. But we want to do this legally." Andres even urged his wife to say she believes the allegations against him, if it would mean she could have the children. Lisette refused.
The older boys -- Javier and Andy -- continue to hope for a resolution, thankful they are old enough to have escaped the juvenile system's "protection." Jeanette and Aimee continue to plot ways to bring their story to light. Two months ago the two girls, along with Javier, staged a last-ditch public protest. Dressed in convicts' stripes and holding aloft sloppily scripted signs, they picketed outside the Juvenile Justice Center and the Dade County Courthouse, distributing flyers to the legal gentry scurrying past. "We're desperate. We didn't know what else to do," Aimee says, shrugging. "Sometimes I think, I'll run to the president. I'll make a really big scene. I'll knock on his window. I mean, here are people that have a lot of power, and they just won't admit they were wrong. At least I was big enough to admit I made a mistake."
Aimee's biggest worry is that her younger siblings, whose two-year anniversary in the custody of Rick and Michelle Porras is next Monday, may begin to believe they were abused by their parents, a concern seconded by child-abuse expert Simon Miranda. Still, Aimee clings to the hope that her family can be made whole again. "We are like a tree. Some of the branches may be broken or burned, some might just be clinging on," she explains. "But my mother's the root and she's really strong and we're just hanging on. Just hanging on."
Lisette Nogues may be strong, but two years of unrelenting frustration have sapped her resolve. Though she is a stout woman, there is a bagginess around her eyes, a drawn look matched by the fatalistic tone with which she assesses her future. "I could die tomorrow and they wouldn't let my kids see me," she says into the hollow calm of her living room. And here she is compelled to put away the photos of her children scattered around her, as she is not a woman inclined to crying in front of strangers.
This is the second part of a two-part article
