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The lawsuit says South Carolina agencies supposed to protect vulnerable children placed the teen “in the hands of a monster.”
Greg Martin, an alleged predator facing more than 10 sex crime charges dating back to 2022, is accused of luring the victim, overdosing on drugs and mentally and physically abusing her over a six-week period, according to the criminal complaint.
The lawsuit targets the state Department of Social Services and individual caseworkers for ignoring “repeated requests” by the victim’s mother to remove her daughter from the home and for failing to ensure a “safe environment” in the Martin home even before the sexual abuse allegations came to light.
“The suffering that that child suffered at the hands of this monster was just unbelievable,” the family’s attorney, Debra Butcher, told Fox News Digital.
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A dedication ceremony for a new complex being built in Cherokee County by the South Carolina Department of Human Services. (South Carolina Department of Human Services/Facebook)
Fox News Digital sent a list of questions to the South Carolina Department of Human Services, but a spokesperson declined to comment.
“DSS does not comment on pending litigation or cases under litigation,” a spokesperson said in an email.
Martin, 56, was arrested in March by the Richland County, South Carolina, Sheriff’s Office on suspicion of sex crimes against a minor in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
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The criminal charges in the Peach State include use of a computer service to lure, solicit, lure or entice a child to engage in unlawful activity, electronic provision of obscene material to a minor and indecent internet contact with a child. This brings his total criminal charges in South Carolina to 14, most of which stem from the alleged abuse of a teenage boy in his custody in 2022. There are at least three charges in Georgia. Court records.
A judge revoked Martin’s bail in mid-April, and he is being held in the Richland County Jail. His attorney could not be reached for comment.
Greg Martin, 56, faces more than 10 criminal charges in South Carolina and Georgia for allegedly sexually abusing teenage girls. (Richland County Sheriff’s Office)
The girl was initially removed from the home by social services investigating allegations of abuse and neglect against her father.
She was sent to live with the Martins, the family of the victim’s best friend, despite her mother’s objections, according to a lawsuit filed in South Carolina in February by the Foster Care Abuse Law Office.
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However, the victim’s family believed they could not refuse because Protective Services had “threatened” her to be placed in foster care, effectively forcing her to sign a safety plan.
Also known as alternative living arrangements, safety plans typically involve placing a child with another relative or a close family friend while the abuse is investigated, Robert Butcher, one of the family’s lawyers, explained to Fox News Digital.
Robert and Debra Butcher, attorneys with the Foster Care Abuse Law Office, which has filed several lawsuits against the South Carolina Department of Social Services, spoke to Fox News Digital. (Zoom/Chris Everhart)
The mother of a teenage girl who was the victim of sexual abuse has petitioned the South Carolina Department of Human Services to remove her daughter from her abuser’s home. (Foster care abuse law office)
In this case, the state placed her in Mr. Martin’s hands for approximately five or six weeks.
During that time, Debra Butcher said, no one from the office checked on her, allowing Martin to take explicit photos of the victim and abuse her, according to the lawsuit.
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“DSS (Department of Social Services) has never come to the house,” Butcher said. “For the last five weeks or so, her mother has been saying, ‘Your husband can leave. We can put her with relatives. We can put her with neighbors. … We don’t want her to live there.’ [in the Martin home]”
The mother of a teenage girl who was the victim of sexual abuse has petitioned the South Carolina Department of Human Services to remove her daughter from her abuser’s home. (Foster care abuse law office)
This was before any criminal charges surfaced.
Text messages between the girl’s mother and a caseworker, obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, show how hard the girl’s mother fought to get her daughter back.
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In multiple text messages between late February and mid-March 2022, the victim’s mother told him her daughter’s father would move out if her daughter could return home. Debra Butcher said she also left a voicemail.
“I’ve been trying to contact you since Feb. 23 and have yet to hear from you,” her mother texted the caseworker. “Are you OK? I’m worried about not being able to reach you.”
The mother of a teenage girl who was the victim of sexual abuse has petitioned the South Carolina Department of Human Services to remove her daughter from her abuser’s home. (Foster care abuse law office)
The mother of a teenage girl who was the victim of sexual abuse has petitioned the South Carolina Department of Human Services to remove her daughter from her abuser’s home. (Foster care abuse law office)
The mother of a teenage girl who was the victim of sexual abuse has petitioned the South Carolina Department of Human Services to remove her daughter from her abuser’s home. (Foster care abuse law office)
Another week passed with no response, and the victim’s mother again texted the caseworker, pleading for a response.
“I don’t understand why there is such a delay and why no one is calling us and responding to our demands,” her mother said in a text message.
After about a dozen messages, most of which went unanswered, the caseworker said they couldn’t remove the victim from Martin’s home because the papers had already been signed.
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About six weeks after Protective Services placed the victim with Martin, a new caseworker took over, moved the child out of Martin’s home and the victim and her mother were finally able to speak “freely,” Debra Butcher said.
Debra said that’s when “the child revealed what had happened,” and Martin was arrested shortly thereafter.
The mother of a teenage girl who was the victim of sexual abuse has petitioned the South Carolina Department of Human Services to remove her daughter from her abuser’s home. (Foster care abuse law office)
The mother of a teenage girl who was the victim of sexual abuse has petitioned the South Carolina Department of Human Services to remove her daughter from her abuser’s home. (Foster care abuse law office)
The victim is still haunted by the trauma more than two years later.
“She spoke about it maybe two weeks ago, and when she finished she had to get up and walk away, crying and shaking,” Debra said. “It’s still very traumatic for her.”
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The Foster Care Abuse Law Office has filed three lawsuits (soon to be four) alleging that state officials subjected children to unnecessary invasive tests in the name of determining whether they were being sexually abused.
But there were no physical symptoms suggesting any allegations of abuse or sexual trauma, according to the lawsuit.
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The lawsuits against the two organizations and four doctors were all filed in South Carolina on May 15 and reviewed by Fox News Digital. Roberts said a fourth lawsuit is in the works but has not yet been filed.
The lawsuits all have similar language and allegations, and the victims are young girls and boys.
The South Carolina Department of Human Services said it does not comment on pending litigation. The department is facing multiple lawsuits filed by the Foster Care Abuse Law Office. (South Carolina Department of Human Services)
The lawsuit contains serious allegations that the lawyers describe as “essentially rape” and asks the court to stop the defendants from “performing unnecessary and intrusive pediatric urogenital examinations where there was no allegation or even suspicion of sexual abuse. As a direct result of Defendants’ long-standing and well-documented failures, children have suffered physical, mental and emotional harm and continue to be at continuing risk of such harm.”
Robert Butcher, mitigating, said it was concerning that Prisma Health, one of the defendants, was in possession of “probably hundreds of thousands of images of children’s genitalia”.
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Prisma Health said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.
The examinations the Butchers described were graphic and disturbing: Their bodies were exposed and they were searched, according to their lawyers.
“Sometimes, in the process of wanting to do good, some of these people end up harming children,” Robert Butcher said.
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“This is sexual abuse,” Debra Butcher said.
Each lawsuit asks the court to bar the Department of Human Services and Prisma Health from conducting these types of tests without a complaint.
