Woman sues DCFS claiming it illegally removed child she was going to adopt

An East Alton woman has filed a series of lawsuits demanding the immediate return of a child she claims was illegally removed from her home despite a pending adoption.

Jodi Isringhausen filed the petitions June 1 in Madison County Circuit Court against the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). Eight employees working within the department are also named as defendants. Irisinghausen filed seperate but similar lawsuits against Jerrell Dylan, Lutheran and Child Family Services and several of its employees.

According to the allegations listed in the half-page petitions, the DCFS "failed to provide reasonable efforts to preserve or reunify families and achieve permanency for child." Isringhausen contends she was going to adopt a minor child and had consent from the boy's mother. For reasons not included in the complaint, Isringhausen says that adoption didn't happen.

Isringhausen accuses the state agency of illegally removing the child from the home, failing to make any attempts to locate the child's family for placement and failing to comply with policies and deadlines. She contends the DCFS also failed to provide family visits and placed the child in foster care that constituted "inappropriate religious placement."

Isringhausen lists Jerrell Dylan as an assistant public defender and guardian ad litem assigned to the child's case. She is suing Jerrell for a "lack of representation of the minor child through illegal removal of the child" from Irisinghausen's home on June 1, 2011.

Isringhausen says the situation has caused "unnecessary pain, suffering and losses" for her and the boy she was allegedly set to adopt.

She is asking for more than $50,000 in damages from all defendants along with the immediate reutrn of the child to her care. Isringhausen is representing herself.

Madison County Circuit Court Case No. 12-L-768, 12-L-769, 12-L-770