I meant to blog about this before: the mother of seven-year-old Patrick Alford, who’s been missing since January, has filed a federal lawsuit against New York City, the NYS Administration for Children’s Services, Patrick’s foster mother and the owners of the apartment complex where they were living. The mother, Jennifer Rodriguez, explained that the lawsuit is to draw attention to her son’s case and hopefully find some answers as to what happened. In a civil suit, people can be forced to answer questions under oath, which often can’t happen in a criminal investigation.
I have no idea what happened to Patrick, but something very weird is going on with his disappearance. He supposedly “ran away” from his foster home and was never seen or heard from again. Rodriguez was initially considered a strong suspect in Patrick’s disappearance and was actually jailed to force her to reveal his whereabouts, but she was released after she passed a polygraph. I’m not sure if she’s a suspect anymore.
I’ve read that Patrick and his sister were taken from Rodriguez after she was arrested for shoplifting (pretty flimsy reason if you ask me), and I’ve also heard that she asked the ACS for help with the kids’ care because she was trying to kick a drug addiction. Perhaps both those things are true. Anyway, Rodriguez said the ACS should have placed Patrick with relatives instead of with a stranger. Patrick’s foster mother apparently doesn’t even speak much English.
The Charley Project Blog 
There was no need for the foster mother to speak English. Patrick is of “Puerto Rican descent”, because he has a Puerto Rican mother, who undoubtedly speaks Spanish. Children are like sponges and you cannot convince me that Patrick does not understand a great deal of Spanish and is unable to carry on a conversation in Spanish. Sounds to me like ACS was attempting to meet Patrick’s “cultural needs” by placing him in a hispanic household.
My boyfriend is of Mexican descent via his father. They always spoke English at home and his Spanish is shaky.