The lawsuits represent one of the most sweeping cases against the state child-welfare agency for abuse by a single foster parent. Some of the children were as young as days or weeks old.
James Earl Mooney told police he couldn't remember how many of the 50 babies and toddlers who lived in his Salem foster home fell victim to his sexual abuse from 2007 to 2011.
But attorneys for 11 of those children have filed nearly $23 million in lawsuits against the Oregon Department of Human Services. Investigators may identify more children who were victims and their names could be added to the suits.
"It's hard to fathom a more dangerous perpetrator," said David Paul, a Portland attorney who filed suit on behalf of one of the children, who is now 5. "The notion that these kind of crimes can occur serially in a home where the state pays to house children is a tragedy beyond measure."
A DHS spokesman on Monday referred questions about details of the case to the Oregon Department of Justice, which declined comment.
Last year, Mooney was sentenced to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to five counts of first-degree sodomy. His wife, LaTamra Moody, wasn't charged with any wrongdoing. She divorced James Mooney later that year.
According to two suits filed Friday in Multnomah County Circuit Court and U.S. District Court by Portland attorney Steve Rizzo on behalf of 10 foster children:
Mooney and his wife were 22-year-old newlyweds and didn't have children when DHS approved them as foster parents. Their application, background checks, home study and training took less than two months. Soon, young children -- and money from DHS -- were arriving at the Mooneys' apartment.
Rizzo's suits fault DHS employees for allegedly ignoring escalating signs of abuse from the children -- including complaints of pain while using the toilet, redness on their buttocks and unusual behavior, such as smearing feces on walls.
It wasn't until April 2011 that the molestations came to light, after one of the foster children moved out of the home and told a prospective adoptive parent that Mooney had sexually abused her in the shower.
Mooney denied the abuse, but nearly two months later, he told police that as a youth he sexually abused babies at his mother's in-home day care and committed acts of bestiality against cats and dogs, according to the suits. It's unclear whether Mooney was prosecuted as a juvenile for any of these offenses because juvenile records are protected from the public.
Mooney admitted that he abused many of his foster children. He described one instance when he preyed on a child who was strapped into a car seat in a parking lot while his wife was inside a medical office with another child, Rizzo said.
Although DHS spokesman Gene Evans said he couldn't talk about the specifics of the pending suits, he addressed department policies that allowed the Mooneys to become foster parents.
People as young as 21 -- newlyweds, co-habitating couples or single people, regardless of whether they have children -- can apply to be foster parents of children who aren't relatives.
In 2007, when the Mooneys were approved, a supervisor would have been required to OK a screener's decision to approve them, but not necessarily in writing. In 2010, the department began requiring supervisors to commit their signatures to paper. The agency also gave supervisors more training emphasizing that they need to review the details of each foster parent application, not just OK it as a mere formality, Evans said.
DHS does a better job of sharing information among caseworkers who supervise children in the same home, Evans said, so now anytime a report of abuse is made against a foster parent, all caseworkers are automatically alerted.
Rizzo's suits allege DHS failed to give James Mooney a psychological evaluation that might have identified his sexual attraction toward young children. DHS doesn't require an evaluation for all applicants, but can require a specific applicant to undergo one.
Although James Mooney had an auto repair job when he first became a foster parent, both the Mooneys later became unemployed. DHS policy states that foster parents must be able to financially support themselves independently of money they receive as foster parents.
-- Aimee Green