{"id":311300,"date":"2026-08-01T01:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T01:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/311300\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T01:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T01:36:07","slug":"hochul-lets-bill-forcing-embattled-acs-to-turn-over-records-languish-as-another-child-dies-in-bronx-hellhole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/311300\/","title":{"rendered":"Hochul lets bill forcing embattled ACS to turn over records languish as another child dies in Bronx hellhole"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. Kathy Hochul is letting an oversight bill targeting the city\u2019s Administration of Children\u2019s Services languish on her desk \u2014 as the starvation death of an autistic Bronx teen <\/a>resurrected outrage over the troubled child-welfare agency.<\/p>\n

The legislation requiring ACS officials to cough up records to the city\u2019s Department of Investigation still awaits Hochul\u2019s signature <\/a>or veto even after state lawmakers approved it in June.<\/p>\n

Aghast DOI officials \u2014 including current Commissioner Nadia Shihat \u2014 have raised alarms over roughly 20 deaths of children under ACS\u2019 purview that unfolded during the past decade.<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul still hasn\u2019t signed a bill giving a watchdog agency more oversight over the city\u2019s Administration for Children\u2019s Services. Matthew McDermott for NY Post<\/p>\n

The officials contend ACS bureaucrats have stonewalled forking over records on the deaths \u2014 and maintain the legislation is the best way to get the agency to open up, a DOI spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe legislation that is awaiting the Governor\u2019s signature would provide DOI access to records essential to conducting rigorous and independent investigations, including in critical matters where a child or juvenile involved with ACS has died,\u201d the spokesperson said. <\/p>\n

\u201cDue to existing state law, DOI cannot view the full picture of ACS\u2019s actions in certain cases, including those where ACS does not substantiate allegations of abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actions \u2014 or potential inaction \u2014 by ACS caseworkers in the case of 16-year-old Adonis Jarvis remains murky.<\/p>\n

Jarvis, who was autistic, allegedly starved to death in a squalid Bronx apartment \u2014 weighing just 59 pounds when he died in March, prosecutors said. His severely malnourished twin brother miraculously survived.<\/p>\n

The twins\u2019 mother, Geneva Jarvis, 36, and grandmother Denise Jarvis, 62, were charged with murder this week.<\/p>\n

Sources revealed that the family was on ACS officials\u2019 radar for more than a decade until they closed the case in 2024. <\/p>\n

Building superintendent Denis Rivera said around that time he saw city workers remove bag after bag of trash from the apartment.<\/p>\n

DOI Commissioner Nadia Shihat previously said the bill will increase oversight of ACS. Gabriella Bass for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the sanitation department had to send a special truck for that,\u201d he said. \u201cAfter that, they didn\u2019t show up.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when The Post toured the apartment Thursday, it looked like a hoarder hellhole<\/a> \u2014 with stacks of putrid garbage, an unusable bathroom and a kitchen filled with trash.<\/p>\n

Geneva Jarvis removed the kids from a Bronx public school in January because it didn\u2019t have a paraprofessional and she struggled carrying her sons down the stairs, sources said.<\/p>\n

Department of Education officials said they made extensive efforts to engage and support the family over an extended period of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe loss of this young person is heartbreaking, and we grieve this tremendous loss along with their community,\u201d a DOE spokesperson said. <\/p>\n

ACS has seen roughly 20 children under its purview die in the past decade. William Farrington<\/p>\n

The mom and grandmother both pleaded not guilty and are being held in Rikers Island without bail.<\/p>\n

The governor has until the end of the year to take action on the ACS oversight bill.<\/p>\n

Beyond DOI watchdogs, the members of the Reinvent Albany good government group support the bill.<\/p>\n

They argued that \u201ctotally inconsistent and illogical\u201d current state law keeps the DOI from identifying problems with ACS investigations. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe sooner the governor looks at legislation to ensure the safety of New Yorkers the better,\u201d said Rachel Fauss, senior policy adviser at Reinvent Albany.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe should sign as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other officials who\u2019ve dealt with ACS called for more drastic action.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course the feds should take over ACS,\u201d said a law-enforcement source who worked on several cases in which children died after they were given back to parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing they should do is arrest the people in charge who allow these children to suffer and then die.\u201d<\/p>\n

ACS officials didn\u2019t return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

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Hochul\u2019s representatives said the state\u2019s Office of Children and Family Services is investigating the death of Adonis Jarvis. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a terrible tragedy and the Governor believes these perpetrators must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law,\u201d a spokesperson for the governor said. \u201cThe Governor will review the legislation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Larry Celona and Matthew Fischetti<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Kathy Hochul is letting an oversight bill targeting the city\u2019s Administration of Children\u2019s Services languish on her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[3775,128,8301,426,57,9,24,63,129,131,130,58],"class_list":["post-311300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-administration-for-childrens-services","tag-bronx","tag-child-abuse","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}