Girl raped, impregnated at age 11 sues Montana child protection agency

A girl who was raped by her mother’s live-in boyfriend and gave birth at age 12 as result was returned to his home anyway by Montana’s child protection agency and had to live there for months and share his bed, a lawsuit alleges.

The man, William Thomas Spencer of Butte, was convicted of the rape and sentenced in 2016 to 30 years in the Montana State Prison. Prosecutors in Butte, where the girl had lived at times, handled that case and Spencer remains in state prison.

The victim, now 21, is suing the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS), accusing its Child and Family Services division of negligence. She says she still suffers from emotional distress, anxiety and fear, among other things, in its aftermath.

The lawsuit, filed by attorney Lawrence Henke late this week in state District Court in Butte, seeks unspecified damages. The agency told The Montana Standard it does not comment on pending litigation.

The Standard does not name victims or alleged victims of rape in order to protect their identity, but it was the same girl Spencer was convicted of raping when she was 11. He was sentenced to 100 years in prison with 70 of them suspended.

According to the lawsuit, the girl was 7 when she and a younger brother were introduced to care of DPHSS because of their mother’s drug abuse. At times over the next several years, they lived with their mother, their biological father, their paternal grandparents and maternal grandmother.

“During this time, DPHHS was involved in home investigations, transfers of temporary custody and custody court battles,” the lawsuit says.

In 2011, it says, the agency placed the girl with her mother and the home she was sharing with Spencer, her live-in boyfriend. He had been reported to the agency for suspected molestation, the suit says, and it also knew of past child abuse allegations.

They were living in Billings in early 2014 when a physician saw the girl as a patient and said she was pregnant, at age 12. He concluded she had been raped in August 2013 in the home DPHHS had placed her and became pregnant.

The agency was negligent for placing the girl in the home in the first place, the lawsuit claims. But even after learning of the rape and impregnation, DPHHS left her “in the home of the rapist, as a 12-year-old who was pregnant.”

Family members reported to DPHHS that Spencer was having sex with the girl and she was being forced to share a bed with him, the lawsuit claims. She gave birth in May 2014 and a grandmother told the agency Spencer was the father.

Even so, the suit says, the agency returned the girl “and now her infant child to the home of the rapist.” On June 2 that year, a home health care worker informed the agency she had not been allowed to see the girl for two months.

On July 18, a Head Start worker told the agency that she had learned the girl was sharing a bed with her mother and Spencer, the lawsuit says. The girl was 12 years old and her baby was 2 months old.

On Aug. 2, the girl’s maternal grandmother provided DPHHS with her own private DNA test showing that Spencer was the father. The agency finally removed her from the home four days later.

“DPHHS left the 12-year-old rape victim in the home, with the rapist, for 203 days from the initial rape report,” the lawsuit says.

The grandmother contacted Butte-Silver Bow authorities in August 2014 and charges were later filed. The agency was notified of the pending lawsuit on July 15, it says, and it did not respond.