Dyan Neary

The mom said CYS, quote, badgered her to file for divorce in order to keep her children.

When she finally did get a genetic test at a different hospital, a diagnosis came back.

Type 1 osteogenesis imperfecta.

That same day, her now ex-husband was released from jail.

And one month later, all the criminal charges against him were dropped.

Mark had interviewed more than a dozen families by this point, and he'd reached his limit.

A reminder, Mark is a controller.

He has zero oversight of child welfare services.

He can't intervene in CYS procedures.

He can't dictate hospital policy.

But what he can do is look at the money, find out what all this was costing the county.

And he could make that public.

He could write a report that might put pressure on the people who could change policy at CYS, the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners.

Mark started tallying up the costs.

Caseworkers, attorneys, judges.

The county pays for their time.

The county pays for foster care and for mandated psychological evaluations.

When a judge orders parents and kids to do therapy, the county pays for that, too.

If the abuse allegation turned out to be wrong, that seemed like financial waste to Mark.

He was on a tear now, thinking about these families.