$8.5M in Washington Foster Care Sex Abuse Case

Washington state will pay two children $8.5 million after they claimed the state Department of Social and Health Services failed to protect them from sexual abuse by their foster parent.

The children sued the agency in Snohomish County Superior Court in 2016 claiming the agency didn’t fully investigate reports that foster parent John Phillips exposed himself to a foster child before they were placed in the home in 2013.

Phillips pleaded guilty in 2015 to multiple counts of child rape and one count of child molestation in a criminal case involving the plaintiffs, and a state investigation has since found he likely also abused the girl referenced in a 2012 report when she was 3.

Phillips is incarcerated at Monroe Correctional Complex with a projected earliest release date of 2036.