Metro

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Blair County is paying $97,500 to resolve a lawsuit filed by three former foster children removed from an Altoona residence in 2008 and housed in Clearfield County where they were abused by foster parents.

Commissioners Dave Kessling, Amy Webster and Laura Burke voted Thursday to approve the out-of-court settlement with no admission of wrongdoing.

Burke also said Thursday that the county will need to cover $97,500 — as well as legal fees in defense of the lawsuit — because the county’s prior insurance carrier denied coverage and its current carrier won’t cover a 2008 incident.

Commissioners said Thursday that they didn’t know how much the county has paid so far in legal fees or if the county has received its last bill for this legal dispute. But the settlement, commissioners acknowledged, was a way to resolve the case without incurring additional legal expenses for trial defense.

The federal civil rights lawsuit was filed in 2023 in U.S. District Court, Johnstown, by three former foster children identified as Matthew, Rebecca and Issac Krause. As adults, they alleged that child welfare workers permanently removed them and three siblings from an Altoona residence as a tactic for pressuring their parents into cooperating with police in a drug investigation.

The former foster children, now adults, were assigned to live with Timothy and Barbara Krause of Houtzdale, Clearfield County, and never returned to Altoona because the Krauses adopted them.

But in 2020, the Krauses were convicted in Clearfield County court of 22 criminal counts, including endangering the welfare of a child, reckless endangerment and terroristic threats, from a seven-year period when the parents were accused of beating the children, depriving them of food, forcing them to stand against a wall with knees bent and using racial slurs when referring to them.

In light of the convictions, both Krauses were sentenced to seven to 40 years’ incarceration in a state prison. While Timothy Krause has died, Barbara Krause, 58, remains incarcerated.

In the lawsuit filed against Blair County and initially Clearfield County which was later dismissed, the former foster children represented by attorneys Roy Huntsman of Cedar Hills, Utah, and Mart Harris of Pittsburgh raised constitutional issues and claimed they had the right to be free from governmental interference with their familial associations. They also charged that governmental agencies failed to protect them while in foster care.

In answering the allegations, attorneys Devin Chwastyk and Sarah Hyser-Staub of Harrisburg denied Blair County’s participation in a scheme to keep the former foster children from being reunited with their parents. Documents filed in the case indicated that drug task force officers were at the Altoona house investigating drug activity on Oct. 20, 2008, when child welfare workers removed the children.

Lawyers for Blair County also denied a claim that the foster care case was transferred to Clearfield County to make it more difficult for the children’s biological family members. And Blair County, according to its lawyers, reported no knowledge to admit or deny the abuse of the children by the foster parents.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.