Joshua Allen Online

What did Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas know? And When did he Know it?

It is well-known that Disgraced United Care CEO Craig Woods said many times during meetings and in public that LA Supervisor Ridley Thomas helped him and United Care get off of administrative hold just days before the death of Viola Vanclief.  This allowed the United Care to once again begin accepting placements of foster children.

We all know what happened just a few weeks later.  The hold was the counties way of putting on pressure, as Woods refused to stick to the payment schedule by DCFS officials who were trying to get their misappropriated money back.  The sum was quite substantial, almost a quarter million dollars, and they have been trying to get it back for the past 3 years!   Two hundred grand is still outstanding, who is going to pay it now?  But I digress…

If Ridley Thomas was only helping a constituent by using his influence to get United Care back into the Child Abuse Business, then how come he didn’t do a better job of learning who he was getting into bed with?

It wouldn’t have been hard to ask around and find out what fellow supervisors as well as DCFS officials thought of this guy and his organization.    The county had good reasons for doing what they did.  Maybe he should have consulted Anthony McDaniel who was in charge of monitoring United Care and asked him what he thought of Craig Woods and United Care.

If Supervisor Ridley Thomas did intervene, what possible motivation could he have had?  And if he didn’t, why hasn’t he disavowed Woods since the whole thing has blown up?  Is he hoping everything will go away?