S04E03: THE MURDER OF DAVID ROMAN

AJ: Coming up on this episode of Crime Family.

It's the sad story of David Roman, who was only 15 years old when he was sent away to a foster care home in Barrie Ontario after he became too much for his parents to handle. Little did they know that this decision would set off a series of events that placed David in great danger and ultimately his death.

What they didn't know at the time of the incident was that inside Jordan's bedroom, he kept a series of knives locked away from the children, and two of these knives had been stolen.

Katie: How did he even get paired up with Jordan? It seems like they needed a place for him to go, found the first place that they could and stuck him in there. Also, why would all these people go through all this, have all these fake titles, have people on their website that don't even work for them.

AJ: I'm hoping that whatever the result is, there can be some accountability and some form of justice.

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So onto today's episode. It's just Katie and myself here for this episode today. Steph's not with us right now, but she will be back next week. For this episode, I'm going to be telling you about the sad story of David Roman, who was only 15 years old when he was sent away to a foster care home in Barrie Ontario after he became too much for his parents to handle. Little did they know that this decision would set off a series of events that placed David in great danger and ultimately his death. This is a story of how the system failed, not just one, but two children leading to disastrous and devastating consequences.

So Katie, did you know anything about the David Roman case at all?

Katie: No, this is actually a new one for me.

AJ: Yeah, it's one that I actually had heard about maybe a year or so ago, but I didn't really know too much detail about it. So it was really interesting to go in and look at all the details when I was doing my research, and it's really sad. David Roman was born to Elena Dvoskina and Antonio Roman, a pair of Russian immigrants who came to Canada before David was born. When David was just two years old, his parents divorced. Despite this, they still maintained an amicable relationship and were able to successfully co-parent. Other than his parents' divorce not much is really known about David's life as a young child living in Richmond Hill, Ontario. We know that David loved online gaming and skateboarding. By all accounts, he seemed to be a pretty normal kid. However, he began to develop a habit of skipping school often. His mother, Elena, says that he would go to school more for socializing than to learn, and by the ninth grade, it got to the point where she would drop him off in the morning at the front doors of the school and then he'd walk right out the back doors right after. His best friend Amar Bagail says to CBC's The Fifth Estate that David was a very smart person and that if he applied himself, he could be better than most students, but he just was not interested in attending school. Like many teenagers, David began experimenting with marijuana in his freshman year of high school, which to me seems very benign and very normal for a teenager of his age, but for his parents, this was something that was very troubling and unacceptable. His mother explains to The Fifth Estate that this was troubling for her and David's father, and she says that she had tried to reach out for support, but as a last ditch effort, she called Child Services for advice on what to do. She says, "I called Child Services and I asked them for help because they must know how to deal with children who have issues. But in my mind, it was my last hope." The Toronto Star reports that Elena was dealing with her own cancer treatments at the time, and she had a lot of ongoing health issues, which could explain why she felt that she could not support David the way that he needed and felt that this was the best solution. So I think under regular circumstances, you might say, "He's just smoking a little bit of pot. He's skipping school. These are very minor issues in the grand scheme of things." Something that could be easily fixed. But I think when you have that added context of, you know, she's going through cancer treatment, she's separated from his father, you know, it's just her and David in the home. It's something that even this minor issue at that time was just something that felt so big and felt like it was something that was out of her control, so she wanted to reach out for support and Child Services was her last resort. Under advisement from the Children's Aid Society, she agreed to voluntarily put David into a foster home. The first one that he was sent to was found to not be a great fit for his needs, so he was sent to a second one soon after. This is when David was sent to a foster home run by Expanding Horizon's Family Services, Inc. in Barrie, Ontario. So Barrie is about an hour's drive away from Richmond Hill, which is where David and his family were living. David's parents kept their custodial rights, but hoped that David could find some support and guidance in this new environment. Expanding Horizon's website claimed that they could work with children on behavioral management, emotional regulation, cognitive skill development, communication, coping skills, social and interpersonal relationships, daily living and transitional services and support. David's parents really had no reason to think that this place was anything but beneficial for him. A way to give him some extra support so that he could develop and get back onto the right track. On paper, it seemed like that is exactly what this place was meant to do. However, not all was as it seemed at Expanding Horizons. To start things off, David's parents were led to believe that David would be living in the home with an appropriate and experienced foster parent, but in reality, the foster parent was a 24 year old named Jordan Calver, who had absolutely no experience working with children or with any of those skills that Expanding Horizons brags about on it's website. Jordan was a young and somewhat naive man who was meant to be a father figure to not only David, but three other kids who were living in the home at the time, which is just not at all an ideal situation for anybody. Jordan was only 23 years old when he got the job as a foster parent, but was 24 when David began living in the home. So what do you think about that? Just right out the gate, because that's one of the first things that comes up in this story that is just off and doesn't seem quite right. So what do you think about this 24 year old with no experience being responsible for foster children?

Katie: Yeah. Okay. So what stood out to me, first of all would be why would he want that responsibility? I guess maybe because he's going to get money. Maybe he sees it as an easy way to get money. Also, how did he get clearance to be allowed to take that many kids, and especially being that young, a kid that's as old as David? I mean their age difference is what, like nine years. Doesn't seem like this person would have enough experience to be able to, you know, deal with something like that. He's more like an older brother than a father figure for sure.

AJ: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. You know, the age difference is very minimal. Like you said, nine years, which seems crazy and yeah, maybe he did think it was just a way to get some easy money or something like that, but it wasn't going to be easy money based on what I go into a little later. You also asked, "How did he end up getting cleared to do this job?" I just want to read out a job posting that was made by Expanding Horizons, and this is shared on an episode of The Fifth Estate on this case. The job posting ad reads, "Foster parents and support workers needed in your community. We are a human services agency that provides direct services to children and youth in care. Our agency is currently seeking foster parents and support workers to join our caring team. A background in child youth worker, developmental service worker, social service worker, personal support worker or corrections is preferred, but not a requirement. A rewarding and challenging experience awaits you in the field of human services. We would like to hear from you." You know, just from that you can tell that you didn't need to have any qualifications. They would prefer qualifications, but if you didn't, that was okay. If someone doesn't have the qualifications that you would require, then maybe you would say, okay, maybe if they go through some more rigorous training, maybe if they can prove that they can actually take on this responsibility then we would allow them to do this even if they don't have the experience.

Katie: To me, it feels like this is one of the most important jobs you can give somebody, to look after kids and help raise them. Yet it doesn't really matter what your experiences are or you know, your background. It's just like as long as you can keep them in your house, it's basically what they want.

AJ: Yeah. Yeah. I just can't get over the fact that, you know, these are vulnerable children. If you're in the foster care system, you are going to be vulnerable. You might have some special needs, you might need extra support. So the fact that they're even allowing people without the experience, without the certification, you'd think that would be the bare minimum that you would have to be certified for that job.

Katie: Yeah, and also to have multiple kids. Maybe having one kid to look after, that would be your sole focus, but having more than one, especially at his young age, with no experience, definitely seems super neglectful on their part.

AJ: Yeah, definitely. So Jordan was an aspiring chef and had no professional training in foster parenting or the like. He claims that the only training he received was a few days at the public library reading books on related topics. He also claims that he was promised by Expanding Horizons that there would be no foster kids in the home, who had violent histories. He says that when he would ask questions to the managers at Expanding Horizons, they would refer him to Google to look up behavioral solutions to the problems. So things that many people must receive professional training in and certification in, he was expected to be able to just do a quick Google search and get the same answers from that.

Katie: Well it seems like now, Jordan, I was thinking at first like he was a sketchy guy. Maybe he is, but it seems like he was at least trying to have some good intentions and be prepared for this while the company was like figure it out for yourself. Here's a bunch of kids.

AJ: From doing all the research and looking into this case, I never got the vibe or I never got the sense that Jordan was a sketchy person or that he had ill intentions. I do honestly believe that he was young, he didn't really know what he was getting into. He thought maybe if he was trying to get into that sort of industry, into social services, you might think, "okay, this is a good way, a good job to have to get into that." But he wasn't even going down that path, so it is a little weird, but I never did get the sense that he had ill intent or that he was sketchy. I think he was legitimately trying to do the right thing, but just was too naive to really know what the responsibility was going to be. That's the sense I got. So the supposed rules in the foster home were very few and far between. The rules were basically no smoking pot on property, take turns taking out the garbage and obey the curfew, which Jordan set. Basically these four children, there was four in the home, they didn't have a lot of rules and they didn't have a lot of supervision. Of course, just this 24 year old. So already David was stepping into a situation that was certainly not ideal for him. David would go home on the weekends, but then he would have to return to Barrie during the week. His mother says that David would always want to stay at home longer, and he would make excuses for why he had to stay home a little longer, why he should stay an extra day. From that, it's clear to see that he didn't really like the situation he was living in. I think, you know, his mother was probably thinking," who would like to live, no one wants to live in a foster home." So she thought, yeah, he was protesting it. He didn't want to go back, but I think she probably just chalked that up to, you know, he's just rebelling. He doesn't want to go there because it's not home. But I don't think she thought that he didn't want to go there because of the situation necessarily in that particular home. I just think she didn't think that he liked the situation in general. Around the same time that David arrived at the foster home, James also arrived at the home, and James' real identity is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, so they call him James in The Fifth Estate episode. I'm going to call him James for this episode. I don't know what his real name is, but he arrived at the home in December, 2018, and he was just 14 years old, so this was around the same time as David arrived. James had been in the foster care system for only a few months before this, and even though he was only 14, he had already been diagnosed with ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, OCD, and a learning disability. He had a history of intense drug use. James was raised in a home marred with physical and verbal violence, and his parents separated in 2015. He attended school only up until the third grade because his behavioral problems caused him to drop out at that time. He, at one time lived with each separated parent for a brief period, so he lived with his mother in her home, and then he lived with his father and his new partner for a short period of time. Both parents realized that they were just not able to care for him due to his severe behavioral problems. He was deemed an official ward of the Crown, which I guess is a Canadian term for a ward of the State. I guess that's what you would call it, probably in the States. He was deemed an official ward of the Crown since 2017, which put him into the foster care system that ultimately led him to that very foster home in December of 2018. Already, like I said, Jordan had been promised that he wouldn't be getting any children who had violent histories, but as you can tell, James did have a violent history. He had arrests in his past. He had been in juvenile hall, so he had some run-ins with the law. Already that was going against what Jordan was promised. It was very soon after James' arrival that trouble arose. James tried to rob a convenience store that was just a few streets away from the home, and Jordan says that he was afraid of James. On February 17th, 2019, the police were called to the home after James broke down Jordan's bedroom door in order to get inside. Some sources I've seen say that this incident happened on February 17th, and others say February 18th, so I'm not sure of the exact date, but it was one of those two days. For this incident, the Toronto Sun reports that James was arrested and charged with mischief, and then on February 18th he was released and returned back to the foster home. What they didn't know at the time of the incident when he broke down Jordan's door was that inside Jordan's bedroom he kept a series of knives locked away from the children, and two of these knives had been stolen by James in this incident. It's believed that once James returned to the foster home on February 18th, he was very angry and determined to find out who had ratted him out for breaking into Jordan's bedroom. No one had really witnessed it or Jordan didn't witness it at the very least, and he was adamant that somebody, one of the other kids in the home must have ratted him out to Jordan, then got the police involved. It was speculated that he blamed David for this and decided to take matters into his own hands in order to get back at him. Jordan says that the two teens were seen playing video games with each other that night, but clearly all was not as well as it might have seemed. Remember when I told you that the owners of Expanding Horizons would tell Jordan to search Google for the answers to behavioral and situational problems? Well, it was the escalating situation with James that had prompted Jordan to go to them and ask. James had robbed that convenience store just a few days in, he was having more intensive violent outbursts, and then he had this incident with breaking down the door, so he had gone to them and asked for their support saying that he needed extra staff on site. He needed more people to be there and they would just direct him to Google and say that Google would have the answers. Clearly they were dismissive and didn't take the situation seriously, or they just didn't care. One of the other children in the home, he goes by Evan in The Fifth Estate episode. Again, that's not his real name, but we're going to call him Evan for this episode as well. So Evan tells The Fifth Estate that Jordan had confided in them, in casual conversation, that he needed more staff and he needed more support, but that Expanding Horizons was not providing this. This was something that Jordan had made very clear to even the people that were living in the house and was making it clear that he was not able to deal with James and his escalating violent outbursts. According to Jordan, they had even allegedly told him to hire his own staff when he inquired about getting more experienced staff into the home to support the kids, which is just a totally ridiculous answer. Isn't that their job? Why should he have to hire more staff?

Katie: My God, it just seems like once they've put them in a house, it's like, "not our problem anymore. Don't even reach out to us." That's what it seems like is happening. I can't imagine being Jordan in this situation. It would be awful.

AJ: Yeah. From all of this, like I said, that's how I get the sense that Jordan did have good intentions. He was making it clear that he wasn't able to support the kids. He actually, I think, probably cared about them, but just knew that he was way in over his head, and it's one of those situations, he shouldn't have even applied or wanted that job, but you know, he might have had good intentions and then once he was in it he realized that he was way in over his head, but at that point you can't really get out. Right? What's he going to do? Leave the kids there by themselves. At that point he knew that he was the only person there, so he probably took it on himself to make the most of it. That's really the only option that you have. Can't just abandon them altogether. It's very clear that things are escalating in the house and this brings us to the early morning hours of February 19th, 2019. This is either just very shortly after that whole incident where he broke down Jordan's bedroom door and stole the kitchen knife from the bedroom. Jordan says that he was awoken around 5:45 AM on the morning of February 19th with David banging on his bedroom door. David said that he had been attacked in his sleep. There was a wound on his head and a puncture wound on his neck. Jordan says that he then went and sat David down on a chair that was just outside the bedroom, and then he went back into his bedroom to get his phone to call 911 and to go get a towel to clean up some of the blood. When he was on his way back with the towel, that's when he saw James coming up the stairs with a large kitchen knife, and James began stabbing David multiple times. Jordan says that James was staring directly at him while he was stabbing David, and this was just super creepy and made Jordan feel very uneasy. Jordan went back into his bedroom and closed the door and waited until James was gone before coming out and seeing David's lifeless body on the floor. One of the other children in the home that morning said that the first thing he can recall is hearing Jordan yelling, "he has a knife." He then recalls seeing James stabbing David in the neck multiple times. He says that there was blood everywhere, on the walls, on the floor and on the bedroom door. He remembers screaming out to James, "what are you doing?" Then one of the other children, that was living there, went out of his bedroom window and onto the roof. When he got up onto the roof a few minutes later, that's when he could see James leaving the house, taking off down the driveway and then began running down the street just a few minutes later. In all the chaos that took place inside that home that morning, David had been stabbed a total of 20 times by James, and he was said to be saying, "please help me" in his final moments. When paramedics arrived on the scene, David still had the knife in his neck, an agreed statement of facts that was read out in court later says that Jordan found Roman in a large pool of blood with a large blade sticking out of both sides of his neck. The handle had broken off and it was found on the floor. Roman was gasping for breath. Paramedics rushed him to Royal Victoria Regional Health Center, but he was pronounced deceased at 6:31 AM. After David's death, James was quickly apprehended by police and was charged with first-degree murder. A province-wide investigation was immediately launched into Expanding Horizons and their business practices. An incredibly sad scene, incredibly violent, incredibly unprovoked, seemingly, we don't really know or have any concrete information about what could have provoked this attack, especially at 5:45 in the morning. It seems that he went into David's room while David was sleeping and attacked him. Like I said before, it could have been that he resented or blamed David for ratting him out for the earlier incident and that's what led him, and then he used one of the knives that he stole from Jordan's bedroom to stab David. So just really, really sad all around.

Katie: Yeah, and just the amount of rage that this kid has against this other kid, it's scary. I mean, he's not even that old himself, but for him to do that to another kid is just horrific.

AJ: Yeah, it's really, really sad. Also it goes to show you how ,you know, David is put in this situation that was totally unsafe for him. Also this child, James himself, was being put in the situation. He obviously needed, you know, intense intervention. He had a lot of behavioral problems, he had a lot of substance use issues. He was in and out of, you know, getting charged and going to jail and all of this stuff, so this was even failing James. He needed intervention that wasn't just a 24 year old, somewhat looking over them. They failed him too, because if he had gotten the proper help that he needed, obviously he wouldn't have done this. That's not to say that he's not to blame for killing David. Obviously he is, but there's other factors in there as well.

Katie: Yeah. How did he even get paired up with Jordan? It seems like they needed a place for him to go. Found the first place that they could and stuck him in there. Obviously Jordan was not prepared or qualified to deal with this kind of situation at all and let alone have other kids in there with him. So yeah, sad.

AJ: Yeah, I think at the very least, if Jordan was going to be in that position and they were going to hire him, I think, you know, even if they just had David in the house and David was, you know, in comparison to James, David didn't have as severe of, he didn't need as much support as obviously James did. He had issues with marijuana and skipping school, but I think, you know, Jordan might have been able to handle if it was just David, probably not well enough, but still, but if you add on James and the other two kids that were in the home it's just a recipe for disaster. Jordan had been promised that there would be no children with violent histories that would be in the house. Obviously they just completely went against that, what they promised him and put somebody with a violent history in the home.

Katie: But I can't imagine, even if Jordan had experience with violent kids before, why would you put three other kids in this home with a violent kid, right? It just seems like maybe he should be by himself in this house. I don't know. Just everything surrounding this is just an awful situation.

AJ: Yeah, that's true. I feel James should not have been interacting with other children if he has that much rage and that much violence . It's only going to lead to disaster. If he is going to be in a place with other people, then there should be multiple trained staff on site to assist. It's just negligence on every level that you can't really defend or even understand or comprehend because it's just mind boggling that this was even allowed to happen in the first place.

So from all of this that I've told you, so it's incredibly clear that David was placed into this foster home in a very dangerous situation due to the lack of oversight for hiring and training a proper foster parent, lack of communication with parents of the children who were in that home, and the fact that most of what Expanding Horizons did claim to offer was just a flat out lie. Allegedly. On their website, Carmine Perelli is listed as the president of Expanding Horizons, and Carmine Perelli is also currently the Deputy Mayor of Richmond Hill, Ontario. Carmine is good friends with another political family, the Fords. Doug Ford is currently the Premier of Ontario and his late brother, Rob Ford, was the mayor of Toronto from 2010 to 2014. Carmine Perelli is in bed with the Fords and that crowd, and he's the Deputy Mayor of Richmond Hill. Unfortunately for him, he was listed as the president of Expanding Horizons at this time. Others who are listed on the Expanding Horizons website are a man named Frank Lo Greco. He was listed as the Program Manager and his wife Karen Lo Greco, she was listed as a Registered Behavior Consultant and there is no record to show that Karen has ever been registered or certified for such a role. An investigation done by The Fifth Estate also found out that the woman who was listed on the company website as the Executive Director never had that job or worked at Expanding Horizons. She says that she contacted them requesting that they remove her name from the website once she found out about it, but they did not comply and her name was on that website up until the website was removed. Also, the lawyer that they listed was no longer a registered lawyer at the time. He had been a lawyer in the past, but he lost his license to practice law for allegedly mishandling almost half a million dollars of client's money. Also the named Licensed Psychiatric Consultant that they put on their website did not have those credentials either. So basically it looks like one big scam allegedly, or looks like it anyway, to me being run by maybe Carmine Perelli and some other shady folks. If you think this is bad enough, to make the whole thing even worse Expanding Horizons is the company name and they own a bunch of foster homes. This one in Barrie, that David was at, was just one of the homes that they operate. To make matters worse, Expanding Horizons had to apply to renew their foster care license only eight months after David had died in their care. This request was approved by the government of Ontario and as of February, 2021, Expanding Horions remains licensed to operate with up to 18 children across the province. In February, 2021, that was two years after David had died, two years after they were still licensed and their license had even been renewed only eight months after David died. Reports do say that there were some restrictions that were put on their license and that certain conditions applied. Things such as not allowing them to take in any new children or open up any additional homes other than the ones already in operation. Apparently there was enough evidence to limit their license, but they still had a license, which is just crazy to even think that they were still allowed after. It was an ongoing investigation, you know, into the death, David's death, and clearly it's negligent, but they're still going to get a license eight months later.

Katie: It's crazy. There's obviously something wrong with the whole system if the government even approved it after all of this went down. I understand that, you know, they're probably, I don't want to say desperate, but you know, the foster system really needs all the help it can get, and so they're not going to shut down a home that is "helping" kids but I mean, wouldn't it be better to not have a place like that in the system? You know what I mean? Okay, there's 18 kids there, but wouldn't it be better just to have those 18 kids somewhere else? I don't know. It just doesn't make sense that it seems like they're so desperate to have a working foster home that they have to have a place like this. Or they're so overworked that they can't properly investigate, the whole system is just fucked.

AJ: Yeah. Like you're saying, I mean, I can't even imagine a situation if this is just one of their homes, I mean, I can't imagine what the other ones are operating like, and I can't imagine ,that situation that those children are in, as being any worse than if they were placed in another foster home or, you know, it's just crazy to me that that seems like a better option when it's obviously not a good option. It's pretty terrible.

Katie: Also why would all these people go through all this? The people running this company have all these fake titles, have people on their website that don't even work for them, all just to have a foster home that's actually a super important thing. Why have that as your scam? If you want to scam the government out of money, do something that's not going to hurt innocent people. Innocent kids. You know what I mean? Like, come on.

AJ: I know. It takes a certain kind of person to be able to do that. An article by the CBC explains a little bit about the funding model of foster care homes in Ontario, and I think that's important to go over because Expanding Horizons was a for-profit home. To me, based on all of this, it seems like the owners and operators didn't really care too much about what was going on in the home, or they were very dismissive of it, based on these lawsuits we have, and are allegedly just running this and putting money into their own pockets instead of actually helping the children. Again, this is just my opinion. Nothing has actually been proven in court yet at this time. Still ongoing, but these are the allegations. Ontario taxpayers fund the foster care system, in large part with the provincial government doling out taxpayer money to Children's Aid Societies across the province. Then once Children's Aid gets involved in a child's case, then they will pay a certain portion of that money that's given to them by the government to the foster home in order to house and support the child. That's how it works. It is taxpayer money that is funding this for profit home, but the money that is going to them is in large part going to the owners. So Expanding Horizons, it's reported was getting about 150 to $200 a day per child per day in that one home. It's probably similar to all the other homes, but wasn't really providing anything in the way of support for any of them. If there had been any amount of oversight and auditing of these foster homes, it would've been made clear that it's not a proper environment for a child, especially a child with complex needs and behavioral issues. Additionally, the private foster homes can apply for licensing, and in order to apply, they just have to fill out these application forms. They can claim all this expertise on these forms. There's very little action or oversight that's taken in order to provide proof for these claims or at least that's what happened in this case. So you know, they're filling out an application form to get licensed and all they have to say is, "yes, we have a Registered Psychologist on site. Yes, we have all these people on site," but no one actually checks in to see if these are actually true. So anyone can really put anything down on these forms to get their license. If anyone had done any amount of digging, they would've noticed that the credentials of the staff were completely bogus and that they were not at all equipped to handle the situation. Also in Ontario and probably other places across the country, it is commonplace for any adult with a clean criminal record to be a foster parent in these homes. So even if they have little or no experience or training, really the only requirement is that they have a clean criminal record. So the CBC reports that there were 16 different Children's Aid Societies in the province that had contracts with Expanding Horizons to send children to their homes. The homes had been operating since the late two thousands, so if you think about it, let's just say Expanding Horizons has 50 children in their care on any given day across the province. I don't know if that's a real number. I don't know if it's less or more. Let's just say 50 and they're making anywhere from 150 to $200 a day per child. I did the math. That's 7,500 to $10,000 a day or between 2.7 and $3.6 million a year. The CBC reports that Expanding Horizon was also given money by CAS in order to run staff run group homes as well. So the group homes have a much higher capacity rate. These group homes, along with these other smaller homes come together to bring their total revenue up to above $200 million a year. So the people who are running Expanding Horizons were making $200 million a year.

Katie: Jesus, maybe it was one of those things where it started out as legit and they did want to help, but then they saw how much money they could make if they exploited it. So that's, you know, greed took them down.

AJ: Yeah. Based on all these loopholes and all of this lack of oversight, it seems like it's a system that could be very easily exploited because there's not much in place to really prevent that sort of thing.

Katie: Yeah. They don't even check out their so-called professionals on site. You'd think you'd need proof of that before you'd be like, "yeah, here's a bunch of money."

AJ: Yeah, exactly.

Katie: Crazy.

AJ: You think it would be a very intensive auditing process and you know, checking every little thing, making sure all the credentials of all of your staff are right, because like I said, anyone can just claim anything on these applications and that's really the end of it. No questions asked apparently. Just to be clear, Expanding Horizons is not the only foster home company in Ontario or even in Canada that operates like this. There are many, many for-profit foster home companies in Canada. So this is just one example of them and I can't really speak to how those other ones operate and if it's a similar model. But this is just what Expanding Horizons, how they were doing business allegedly. So in the aftermath of David's murder, James was charged with first-degree murder and he pled guilty to the charges. He was tried as a youth and was ultimately sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison, with only six of those served behind bars and four with conditional supervision in the community. The Toronto Star reports that Jordan Calver has filed lawsuits against Expanding Horizons and its operators, as well as the Hamilton Children's Aid Society, it's workers and the accused boy for $11 million. He says he has suffered long-lasting trauma resulting from his experience and witnessing the attack. He has also launched a$ 6 million lawsuit against the Ontario government represented by the Minister of Children Community and Social Services. In that suit he charges that had the provincial government followed its own policies, directives, and guidelines, the group home's license would've been revoked prior to David's death. David's parents, Antonio Roman, and Elena Dvoskina and his sister, Marina Dominguez, have launched a $3.75 million lawsuit against the boy accused of killing their son against the homes foster parent, so Jordan, as well as the company Expanding Horizons Family Services, Inc., the Children's Aid Societies in Simcoe County, York region, and Hamilton, and the Barrie Police Services Board accusing them of being liable in the death of their son. There's a lot of lawsuits and a lot of civil suits going on. One thing I found interesting was that David's parents were filing a lawsuit against Jordan. I was surprised to see that. I can't really see, I mean, yes, he was naive and shouldn't have been in that situation, but I don't really think he should be thrown into that lawsuit. It's definitely Expanding Horizon's fault and the government and the ministry and all of that. I can't really see why they would throw Jordan in with that lawsuit. But I guess, I don't know.

Katie: I mean, I can see where they're coming from. They're definitely mourning and they feel like he was supposed to be the responsible adult looking after the kids, which he wasn't able to do. So I can see where they're coming from. But yeah, also I feel that Jordan, like you said, got in over his head. He asked for help multiple times. He wasn't given any help, any support at all. And so I feel like, yeah, it wasn't really anything that he had done wrong to encourage the situation at all. So it's unfortunate.

AJ: David's family, they're, you know, suing many of the people involved and Jordan's also suing many of the people involved. So a lot of these lawsuits are still ongoing. Like I said before, none of these have been proven. None of the allegations have been proven in court yet. Carmine Perrelli is listed in the lawsuit and he is, you know, one of the ones being sued obviously, because he's the owner and the operator of Expanding Horizons, or one of them anyway. He released a statement and his statement says, "this is nothing more than my political opponents using an unfortunate issue to start a whisper campaign filled with innuendos and misinformation. While some partisan residents who choose to engage in US styled negative campaigning are entitled to their opinion, the fact is that I have never been charged, let alone convicted of doing anything wrong and to suggest otherwise would be false and without foundation." That's what he has to say on the matter. So a lot of this is still ongoing. We don't really know what the results of these lawsuits are going to be, but I'm hoping that whatever the result is, that there can be some accountability and some form of justice. I know it won't bring David back, but for his family, I hope that the result is what they need and what they're hoping to get from it.

Katie: Yeah, I also hope it prompts a more rigorous standard for these kinds of companies and these kind of homes in Canada, foster homes, because obviously, you know, what we're dealing with now is definitely below the standard of care that is needed for a lot of these kids out there. So hopefully something good can come out of this tragedy in that sense.

AJ: Yeah and like I said at the start, this is the story of how the system really did fail two children. It failed David for sure. It also failed James because like I said, you know, not to say that he's not accountable because of course he is, and he should be, you know, held accountable for his actions, but he fell through the cracks as well. He clearly had behavioral issues, you know, violent outbursts. He needed to have an intense intervention way before that. He didn't get obviously.

Katie: Yeah, definitely. He's in jail, but is he going to be getting psychiatric help while he's there? Any kind of treatment? Or is he just going to be let out with supervision after? I feel like he needs some sort of help while he is in there before he can ever function in society.

AJ: Yeah. That's the thing. I feel like he's not going to get to the root of any of those issues while he's sitting in prison because we all know the prison system doesn't actually do that. So yes, he has the 10 years, which six is behind bars. He was tried as a youth because that's why he only got 10. Otherwise it probably would've been way longer of course. It was first degree murder, but he was tried as a youth, so that's why he only got the 10 years, which was the maximum for that age and that crime. So what's going to happen? He's going to get out of prison, but what support has he gotten in there? What support is he going to receive once he's out? These problems don't just go away, you know, you're not just going to miraculously one day just stop having your behavioral issues and it's only going to get harder as you get older I feel. It's just sad that it's going to be a continuous cycle and who knows what else he could do once he's out?

Katie: Well, yeah. I feel like he is going to get worse in there if he doesn't get any help, you know, doesn't face his problems. It's just going to all build up inside of him. Once he gets out he's going to have contacts. He knows people that were in prison and he knows actual criminals, so he is going to go on to just have, you know, even a worse criminal life and hurt more people potentially. So it, yeah, it's definitely not helping at all just being in prison for six years.

AJ: Yeah. I don't really see how, it's such a complex issue, I don't really see how, nothing is going to bring David back, of course. You know, even him being in prison, it's just going to, like you said, all this stuff is going to be perpetuated. It's going to get worse and worse and worse. Then if he's released, you know, he could be putting other people at risk or he's putting himself at risk because he is not getting that support. Then all of the people who caused this to happen, like Expanding Horizons, and all of the people who are involved in that and the ministry and the government and the Children'sAid Societies, all of those people, I feel if they're not held to account, like what is going to be the result of this? Is this going to happen again? It probably has happened again because until they really, you know, feel the pain or until they really, you know, have some sort of consequences, and that's why I'm hoping for these lawsuits, I'm really hoping that something can come out of them, but even if they do get the result they want, It's just like, what is justice really? You know? It is just money at the end of the day. Money can't bring David back. It's not going to help the situation. I mean, yes, it's just a way to hold them accountable at the end of the day, but how accountable are they really going to feel? As sad as it is to say , even if they're granted the $11 million or that $3.75 million that they're asking, that's nothing to the government. What's $3 million to them? So they're going to pay and going to what? Go off and is there going to be any revisions to the oversight of these homes? Is there going to be any sort of regulations put on these homes? Because that's the change we need to see. If that's not going to happen, then we're going to be right back at square one again.

Katie: Yeah. Hopefully, what's the name of the place?

AJ: Expanding Horizons.

Katie: Hopefully they get shut down and maybe they're, you know, and they're going to get sued. Hopefully they are gonna have to pay out a lot of money. Unfortunately that's, you know, where you have to hit a lot of people. That's where it hurts is their wallets. Right? So maybe even if they shut down, I feel like these are the kind of people that are going to start something else up. That's not going to be any good for anybody but themselves. So yeah, like you said, really where is the justice in this?

AJ: Yeah, and like I said, as of February 2021, they were still operating. I looked on Google. It doesn't seem like they're open anymore. Their website was taken down. I haven't really been able to find anything online that says that there's still in operation. I just know as of February, 2021, which is when that Fifth Estate episode came out, but it's now been almost two years since even that, so with these ongoing lawsuits and stuff, like there is a chance that they're not operating anymore. But I haven't really gotten any clear answers on that. It just doesn't seem to be operating. There's no website. There's nothing online that I could see, but definitely not a good look for them anyway.

Katie: No, definitely not. I guess what is stopping them from just starting a new company under a new name and just doing very similar things?

AJ: Yeah, because if all the people who were listed, like Carmine, if he ends up, you know, getting cleared, he doesn't have a record, so if he goes to apply for another foster care center or something in the future, is there going to be any oversight to say like, "oh no he cannot. "If he has no record, if he's cleared of any wrongdoing, then he is going to have the ability to do it again.

Katie: Yeah, that's true and even if someone that's looking at the application recognizes the name or something, it's not like they have any leg to stand on to deny him that. Right? There's no legal reason why. Its almost like they'd be forced to grant him acceptance or whatever.

AJ: Yeah. You can't just deny someone because you heard of a case and you don't like him. There's no charges, right? Like you said, there's no legal recourse. You would have to do it. So there would be nothing really to stop him or others from doing it again. So I don't know. It also doesn't seem to be like they're taking any accountability at all. I haven't seen any. There was a report that said that they hadn't even called David's family to apologize for the incident or anything since it happened. It's like they're trying to completely ignore it and pretend it didn't happen. This is all alleged, so I don't know. It's hard in some of these cases to know like what's true and what isn't. Because all of this court stuff is still ongoing, all of these are just allegations at this point in terms of their negligence and all of this stuff that they sent to Jordan and how they didn't support him. I just want to put that disclaimer out there that this, everything we've said in this is alleged. When we're talking about Expanding Horizons and Carmine Perelli, it's all our opinion. I just want to say that .

Katie: Yeah, and because the lawsuits are still ongoing, probably him apologizing or taking any blame, you know, would obviously look bad for his case. So maybe they're just going to wait until everything's over before he actually does apologize if he ever does.

AJ: You know he's friends with Doug Ford and the Ford family, which you know, he rolls with that kind of crowd, so, I mean, whatever.

Katie: Yeah, so we know where his morals are, you know,

AJ: Yeah, exactly. Take it for what it's worth. Yeah, take it for what it's worth, that he's, you know who he's says he is. I mean, that's the people that he is paling around with. I don't really know if that is a good look on your character, but yeah, so it's just really sad. I also feel really bad for, of course, David's family and David's parents and his mother. You know, she says in The Fifth Estate episode, of course, that she regrets that decision to call Children's Aid for support and getting that whole ball rolling on that. Obviously knowing what she knows now, she never would've done that, but she was also just a little bit naive as well and didn't quite know how bad it was. You're never going to do anything to intentionally harm your child. She really did think that that was going to be the best thing for him. If she knew that it was going to be not good for him, obviously she wouldn't have done it.

Katie: Yeah. It's sad. Obviously it seems like she was a really good mom and she was just trying to do the best thing for her kid to try and, you know, help out his life. Unfortunately it just really went the wrong way. So I, I definitely feel for the family.

AJ: Yeah. So it's just a really sad case.

That does it for this episode of Crime Family. If you like the show, you can follow us on all the social medias, crimefamilypodcast on Instagram, crimefamilypod1 on Twitter and Facebook @ Crime Family Podcast. You could also check out our website crimefamilypodcast.ca, and if you want you can send us case suggestions. We are always open to hearing your suggestions. You can send us an email, crimefamilypodcast@gmail.com, or you can submit a message through our website as well, or DM us on any social media. Like I said at the beginning, if you're a fan of the show and you want exclusive content that you can't get anywhere else, definitely join us on Patreon at tiers one, two, and three. There's exclusive benefits for everyone who joins and also check out our merch store on Red Bubble. We'll put the link to both the Patreon and the merch store in the show notes so that you can click those to get some crime family swag. So thank you for joining us. We hope you've enjoyed this episode and we'll be back next week with another episode. Thanks so much. Take care.

Katie: Bye.