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A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC. Gothamist Listen Live Donate News Mother sues NYC, saying ACS harassed her family with false abuse reports By Samantha Max Published Aug 13, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. ET
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Katie Valdez made a heart-wrenching decision in 2022. She told the father of her two youngest children to leave their Washington Heights home and secured an order of protection against him, she said.
“It just wasn't a safe environment for the kids, and I didn't feel safe anymore,” she said.
But the months that followed didn’t bring the security she had hoped for. Caseworkers from the Administration for Children’s Services visited her home repeatedly, questioned her kids and searched their bodies for signs of abuse — sometimes in the middle of the night — for more than a year, she said.
Valdez immediately suspected that the visits were the result of false reports from her ex, who she said had threatened to have their children taken away from her. In 2025, he pleaded guilty to filing false reports, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. He is now serving eight to nine years in prison for several convictions, incarceration records show.
Now, Valdez is suing the city. She says caseworkers and supervisors with the child welfare agency knew the allegations were false, but kept coming to her home anyway.
“ Why are you allowing this man to continue to victimize us through you? Why are you an extension of him?” Valdez said in a recent interview. “You're supposed to be protecting us.”
ACS said state law requires investigators to evaluate a child’s home environment when there’s a report of abuse or neglect, without any exceptions for potentially fake allegations. The agency said it refers cases to the local district attorney and the state Office of Children and Family Services when there’s a suspicion of malicious reporting, after the investigation is complete.
Agency spokesperson Marisa Kaufman did not comment on Valdez’s allegations but said in a statement that "false and malicious reporting is a blatant misuse” of the state’s child abuse and neglect hotline. She said it needlessly impacts kids and families and misdirects ACS resources.
Valdez’s lawsuit claims what ACS did is part of a larger practice that subjects families to “aggressive and intrusive” investigations when it’s not an emergency, without first getting an order from a judge to enter her home. New York’s Family Court Act allows judges to issue these types of orders, but instructs them to first assess what actions are needed to protect children’s safety and choose the option that’s “least intrusive to the family.” The law also tells judges to consider the “nature and seriousness of the allegations” and the potential harm to the kids if a full investigation is not completed.
Out of about 50,000 home visits each year, ACS requests fewer than 100 court orders on average, according to Valdez’s lawsuit. The agency said it only seeks court orders for home visits when parents refuse to let them inside and there’s probable cause to believe a child is in imminent danger.
Gothamist is not naming Valdez’s ex, because he is not a defendant in the lawsuit.
Raymond Audain, a partner at Giskan Solotaroff & Anderson LLP representing Valdez, said in a statement that the lawsuit aims to hold the city accountable “for the serious and lasting harm” caused by repeated ACS intrusions, and to ensure it doesn’t happen to another family.
“ACS knew this family was being targeted with false reports, and instead of putting a stop to the harassment, it became a part of it,” he said.
In July 2023, Valdez’s ex told her he would “say whatever I need to say to make sure my kids are taken from you,” according to the lawsuit.
Between August 2023 and September 2024, ACS caseworkers visited her home dozens of times — sometimes multiple times a day — to investigate allegations that Valdez was mistreating her children, her lawsuit states. They would look around her home, interview her kids and search their bodies, sometimes telling them to take off their clothes, Valdez said. The children were 4 and 5 years old when the investigations started.
An ACS supervisor overseeing the first investigation suspected that the report was “a malicious call,” according to agency records cited in the lawsuit. After several months, caseworkers and law enforcement officers started to acknowledge when they visited the home that they knew the allegations were false, the lawsuit states. But Valdez said ACS kept coming to her apartment after she agreed to let her kids go through a forensic interview, after her ex went to Rikers and even after a Manhattan grand jury indicted him on charges related to filing false reports.
The home visits only ended when the father stopped calling the hotline, Valdez said. ACS never substantiated any allegations against her, according to the lawsuit.
ACS told Gothamist parents have the right to refuse access to their home and that since 2023 the agency has provided information about those rights during its first encounter with a family. But Valdez said no one told her about her rights — and that often ACS employees said they needed to come inside. She said she felt compelled to go along with caseworkers’ demands, because she was terrified her young children would be taken away from her.
“I was very fearful. I was very anxious. I couldn't sleep at night,” she said in a recent interview. “I was so overwhelmed.”
Valdez said the investigations also caused her children immense stress. S...
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