Source: Port Jeff Station family got state payments for dead child

An audit has found some parents - including a Port Jefferson Station family - received payments from the state Office of Children and Family Services for adopted children even after they died, state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli and a source said Thursday.

The children and family services agency made $214,593 in "inappropriate payments" over a two-year period to adoptive parents of hard-to-place and handicapped children, including $180,783 to support 25 children listed as deceased, the comptroller's office said. The audit covered January 2007 through January 2009.

One of those children had been adopted by a family in Port Jefferson Station, a source with knowledge of the investigation told Newsday on Thursday.

The comptroller's office could not identify the deceased child or the family that adopted him because of privacy laws, said Bill Reynolds, a spokesman for DiNapoli.

He said it was not immediately known how much money the family received after the child had died. He also said the child's age, when he was placed with the family or the cause of death were not immediately known.

Reynolds said the children and family services office is seeking to recover the inappropriate payments. It was not immediately clear if criminal charges were being pursued against any of the families who received the payments.

One of the 25 children identified in the audit was incorrectly listed as deceased. Of the other 24 children, 21 had been adopted in New York City, while one each was adopted in Albany, Syracuse and Long Island.