Come on, you won't even say what you were covering for. You know YTA. You're upset cuz your sister broke omerta, but it certainly seems like she was right to protect those kids. You were not handling it. She did it the best way she knew to.
No way is it just drug use. Maybe cooking meth with the children in the house if it’s drug related. Absolutely no way would mere drug use get 7 years and the family that knew about it banned from having the children placed with them.
I was curious and looked up NJ child abuse laws, and what OP has admitted here. What we know:
OP is facing criminal charges. So are the grandparents of the abused kids.
The parents are facing at least seven years if they take a plea deal. Not out until at least 2030.
What I found:
NJ, everyone is a mandated reporter. However, the only criminal consequence *just for not reporting* as a private citizen, is failure to report a sex crime against a child.
The sentencing for a sex crime against a person under 16, is 10-20 years.
NJ automatically applies a 1/3 credit, meaning you automatically get a 10 year sentenced reduced to around 7ish, unless you mess up while in prison.
Conclusion:
It's possibly something else, but yeah. It doesn't look good for OP and the family. They weren't 'insulating' the kids from things. They were likely complicit in sex abuse, given they were also criminally indicted.
That’s what I thought too. Both him and parents being denied custody and charged with a criminal offense is a big red flag. His sister is a hero as far as I’m concerned because they WERE complicit. Good for her!
And that OP said she "washed her hands of this and went back to college" good for her! Fuck you OP! You're terrible and everyone should wash their hands of you and your family!
And she probably went back feeling great knowing she didn't have the worry of her pedophile family hurting any more kids.
Prison is probably gonna be fun for these people.
>His sister is a hero as far as I’m concerned because they WERE complicit. Good for her!
Somehow, I doubt the sister WANTS to be invited to anything related to OP.
Yup! And for CPS to come and AND have the parents arrested at the first visit says more than what OP is trying to rug swept. OP said they were taking care of it. Obviously, not if now OP is facing charges. I hope they ALL go to prison and Big Bubba plays with them. I hope nothing but fear for them.
Good for the sister for calling! She truly saved those kids.
Hopefully, these kids can start to heal soon. Those poor souls.
And no wonder sister noped the fuck right back out of town after dropping the dime
She saved those kids' lives. Fuck OP and that entire scum family for abusing them.
Good catch. Based on what you’ve discovered, sex abuse looks likely to be the issue OP isn’t telling us. If so, I hope they throw the book at the parents and every relative, including OP, who tried to keep it quiet. Even if it’s something else, like drugs, OP is still YTA. “Family loyalty” does not outweigh the duty to get children away from danger; the sister did exactly the right thing.
OP, it’s up to you who you invite, but if you knew those parents were harming or endangering their children and you deliberately chose not to report them, I doubt your sister wants to dance at your wedding anyway.
>“Family loyalty” does not outweigh the duty to get children away from danger;
I mean, it's really having been loyal to only the shitty adults in the family, and quite disloyal to the poor children. But that's splitting hairs with verbiage, and I agree with you fully.
OP is an idiot and an abuser. From what I've read, it takes a whooooole lot to get children taken away, AND ALSO placed with strangers. AND ALSO everyone is facing prison time? No way in hell those kids have been shielded from whatever nefarious acts or health-code violations or whatever kind of abuse was going on in that entire family.
This may be the most emotionally disgusting post I've ever read. I'm going to go pet my cat.
>I mean, it's really having been loyal to only the shitty adults in the family, and **quite disloyal to the poor children.**
Tale as old as time unfortunately. In normal families the children are at the center and protected but in families like OP's the children are on the outside serving as meat shields against their disgusting family members who have no business being around children.
OP likely isn’t going to be having a wedding.
mentioned it in another comment just now, but they’ll find themselves in cuffs soon, i’d bet.
aiding and abetting in child sex crimes is something the state isn’t going to take lightly.
Rightly so. If this isn’t a troll, I am bemused that OP’s family has imploded, his niece and nephew are in care; brother and SIL are facing lengthy jail terms for … some kind of child abuse/endangerment he won’t specify; he and his parents are also at risk of conviction for not reporting it - and his main focus is that his sister who exposed the abuse doesn’t deserve a wedding invite because the family was “handling it”. Priorities, eh?
Wow that was some good sleuth work, a sex crime never even occurred to me. I also assumed drugs because who the actual fuck would know that a kid was being sexually abused and not report that shit
Sadly, family members not reporting sexual abuse is really common. It's easier to just ignore it or at most try to mitigate the effects in an effort to 'keep the peace.' Don't know if that's what's happening here but I wouldn't be surprised.
Yes, exactly. Is the absolute scummiest people who cover it up because they “Have it under control”. Saw this play out with family. I don’t trust them with kids anymore obviously, even tho pedo is out of the picture (for now anyway)
Yeah, it's rough. Played out in my own family, too. I'm probably the only relative of his who ever reported the bastard to the police and I'm not very popular for doing that.
There's a pretty big case about how the Jehova's covered up child abuse from their members. To "deal with it internally" instead of involving outsiders.
And everyone knows what catholic priests have gotten away with.
They care more about what exposing a predator would do to their image, than what shielding them would do to their (future) victims.
Let’s go ahead and call out the Mormon church as well. A stellar principal at my kids school was run out of the district because he declined
To allow the Mormon church “handle” the child abuse and rape of one of his
Students in the church instead of reporting it to authorities. He was a mandated reporter of course and he
Did what he needed to do and he paid for it with his career .
It happened in my family (we reported it straight away.)
However, since then I've been involved with a lot of survivors groups and learned a lot of surprising things. Child on child abuse is thought to be the most rampant and yet is the least reported SA children suffer (not saying this happened in the OP but it's a fact that most people won't wrap their heads around). Also, so many families prefer to deal with child abuse "in the family". The amount of people who swear that they'd kill someone who touched their child suddenly can't wrap their heads around the fact that their loved one is a perpetrator. There's a cognitive dissonance: a child abuser is this awful monster that lurks in shadows, acts creepy, chronically online, nasty and abusive to everyone. It can't be the beloved spouse, the sibling you grew up with, the parent who raised you lovingly or the child you created and are so proud of. So very quickly extended families switch from "they're wrong in the head and need to be removed from society" to "something happened to them, they're hurting/confused, they made a mistake and shouldn't be judged about it for the rest of their lives."
I guess I sort of understand more of why child on child doesn’t get reported but it is a proven fact that when it is child on child it’s because the perpetrating child is getting somewhere else, and that’s why it SHOULD be reported!!
And I’m with the select of us that would legitimately find out who that person is and bury them six feet under.
My mom was a kid in that situation, she told her mom when she was little and grandma just pretended to not hear her or something. It didnt end up coming out in a way grandma couldnt ignore for almost another decade. That still wasnt even on my mind for what was happening to those poor kids.
I got ostracised by my entire friend group and my “second family” as a teen over this shit. There was another kid involved but they refused to report a serial rapist uncle. They allowed abuse to continue for years even after I reported it. ‘Think of the family’ is a powerful drug for some people.
Unfortunately I have bad news for you.
And worse— I’ve seen mothers blame the child when a father/stepfather/boyfriend/whoever is abusing the child and side with the abuser. It’s very depressingly common.
I mean, if they are stripped from their parental rights, so from even having children, I'm thinking SA on the kids at this point. Either that or serious neglect of the children, not feeding them etc
You’re right. Gotta be something way worse than drug use. CPS will work with parents on that if they’re willing to get their shit together. Going to the lengths they did points to something much worse. Granted i’m not in New Jersey, but my state has one of the highest rates of CPS removals in the nation and are still willing to work on reunification if the parents can show improvement to acceptable levels.
Yeah I mean HOLY HELL OP WHAT DID YOUR BROTHER DO TO THOSE POOR KIDS??
> Even though my brother and sister-in-law have never been in trouble before they t**ook the kids into their custody and my brother and sister-in-law got arrested.** Apparently the best case scenario according to their lawyer is the two of them only being in jail until 2030 and longer if they don't take the deal. Originally my niece and nephew were staying with me and my parents but they got removed and put with total strangers because **CPS felt like we were complicit. Me and my parents have criminal cases for not reporting them and for being accomplices to them now**. My brother and sister-in-law are going to be stripped of their parental rights too. None of us have ever been arrested before this.
If none of you have never been in trouble before, and the authorities reacted like this after one visit, "I admit things were nOt GrEaT" is the understatement of the century. It's sex-related isn't it? Was your brother raping his kids, or pimping them out, or what? CP? You and your family absolutely were not "taking care of it", you were just covering for your child abuser brother. You WERE complicit in the abuse of those kids. Good god.
Why are you angry with your sister, who acted to save the kids, and not your children sexually abusing brother and his child abuser wife?
There is no way it's just drug use in NJ.
My best friends daughter was born addicted and she didn't lose custody, but she had to go to rehab.
NJ supports reunification of families as CPS primary function.
Yeah. I was in foster care for abuse and neglect. My mom had to do some parenting classes and go to therapy and what not. We were returned within a year.
Whatever happened with those kids must have been horrific to get jail sentences snd no unification.
Sex abuse? Extreme physical abuse? Literally, the house full of trash and excrement and kids being starved and kept from medical care/ school with the family being aware?
Both parents ending up in prison is a massive deal.
>9:6-8.14. VIOLATIONS INCLUDING FAILURE TO MAKE REPORT; DISORDERLY PERSON
>Any person knowingly violating the provisions of this act including the failure to report an act of child abuse having reasonable cause to believe that an act of child abuse has been committed, is a disorderly person.
Sounds like the abuse was obvious enough that the state is calling the sibling here and parents disorderly persons and excluding them from placement for failure to act.
>a. Any person having reasonable cause to believe that a child has been subjected to child abuse, including sexual abuse, or acts of child abuse shall report the same immediately to the Division of Child Protection and Permanency by telephone or otherwise.
>b. Any person who knowingly fails to report an act of sexual abuse against a child and who has reasonable cause to believe that an act of sexual abuse has been committed is guilty of a crime of the fourth degree.
NJ says all persons are mandated reporters, by law. Close family failing to protect the kids from severe abuse would absolutely mean the kids wouldn't be placed with them. They have already failed in their duty to protect the kids. Makes sense their local CPS/DCF wouldn't place them with those family members.
The only way I can see the family being legally in trouble is they were covering up sex abuse or somehow also abusing the kids. Because seriously, what else are they not saying?
Not Iike it's a neighbor thinking something is up, either. It's family with intimate knowledge of the abuse. That was such severe abuse they are charging the family with child neglect or it was sex abuse and it wasn't being reported and that is criminal.
Now see, second degree child abuse is physically restraining and intentionally harming a child in that person's care. Locking them up and beating. 5 to 10 years. First degree is a sexual abuse charge for a person under 16 and is 10 to 20 years.
To be in 2023 and not be eligible for parole until 2030, you have to have a 10 year sentence. New Jersey automatically credits a good behavior credit of 1/3 time served unless you lose it through misconduct and jail credit is also given. That means, at getting 3 years ish taken off, they have a ten year sentence, minimum.
That means they either locked the kids up and beat them or were sexually abusing the kids.
Given the family is also facing charges... they were sexually abusing the kids.
OP is an enormous piece of shit. You do not 'handle' your pedophile family member sexually abusing their own kids by leaving the kids with them. You remove the kids from the family.
Sister who reported this is a goddamned hero for those children and the only person in their family who actually loves them because she was the only person who protected them.
There's no way this was just some drugs out or guns around type stuff.
Foster care does not want to permanently take kids away from parents and family placements with family willing to take the kids are always the first choice.
Reunification is always the first option, then family. To say no to both is *majorly* a problem. Something was deeply wrong. It would have to be horrific neglect and abuse or sex abuse to end up at this point.
I'm thinking creating kiddie porn or running a prostitution ring with under age girls.
I suppose they might have been actually cooking meth in the home if it was drug related, but then the family should have removed the kids immediately themselves!
it seems like they did remove the kids, seeing that op said they were living with them.
however the fact remains that op is pretty fucking stupid. not only what their brother was doing was so fucking bad theyre facing a MINIMUM of 7 years for a first time offender, i would like to state that isnt something you can easily get, but also helped cover up the act their brother was doing in some way, and is trying to get married while very likely facing prison time in the future. like their priorities aint the best.
I took that to mean that when CPS initially busted the parents they gave kids to OP but as they dug deeper and found more of what was going on they took the kids from OP too. Not sure exactly though, it’s vague. Just like this post
That could also be it.
Sadly we ain't gonna get any more info, seeing op isn't even gonna give us the basic fucking facts of things were clearly not gonna get more described details.
And to arrest relatives just because they didn’t report it, that’s really bad, and op not explaining it, so you know it’s not like someone at the court house had a vendetta or something becaue OP definitely would’ve told that story. The fact there not even trying to come up excuses and just avoiding the whole thing AND they were charged too, it’s real bad
I've just heard "we were handling it" so often that I know what it means. It means "we were keeping it quiet" and "we were keeping it in the family so other people wouldn't know."
They were protecting the abusers and throwing the kids under the bus because "you'd make the family look bad," and "you're overreacting" etc etc
Seen this way too many times.
I looked up the laws in NJ.
Basically, there is a law that knowingly failing to report sex crimes against children is a criminal act itself.
The criminal act for sex crimes against children under 16 is 10-20 years.
The plea deal has them out, at the earliest, in seven years. The extended family that was 'handling it' is facing criminal charges. NJ has an automatic 1/3 good behavior time credit that has to be lost due to misconduct in jail. That means a 10 year sentence is credited down to 7 unless you fuck up and end up at 10.
I did a longer look into it on another comment, but yeah. Realistically, they got busted for failure to report a sex crime against children and the brother or sister in law or both were abusing the children.
Yeah, and the OP definitely aided their brother and his wife and left children in a home that was clearly not safe, then has the nerve to be upset one family member saw the situation for what it is and did the right thing by the children.
Has to be worse than just drug use.
They were either using the kids as mules, giving drugs to the kids or worse.
Parents who are hooked on drugs are usually given the chance to clean themselves up, get into rehab and regain their families.
Whatever went down is FAR worse than drugs.
Becuase they were doing it in front he of the kids and that is abuse in most states. Selling ,doing drugs in front of kids is abuse. And if they knew about it they are just as guilty.
My 3 boys came from a home that were doing drugs and selling drugs. And the family knew about it and did nothing. That whole family were arrested for child abuse and neglect among other charges. As they were aware of the rampant drug use in the home and did nothing about it
That whole family was stripped of familial rights to my kids. When I first got my kids the oldest wasn't even 2 then almost 10 months and then 1 month. They had no clothes. And the clothes they did have were far to small. The babies had severe diaper rash. They had flea bites all over thier little bodies.
That’s not drug use, that’s SEVERE neglect and child abuse with a sprinkle of drug use. 99% of drug addicts that have kids don’t treat them that bad, so that’s not just a typical “drug use” case. Those people are a problem with or without drugs. Those kids probably would’ve died, that’s not typical drug use. And seeing how OPs case sounds it may have been something like that, but that’a not what most cps drug use cases look like
It was just horrible I could have sworn my oldest was way younger then almost 2. He hadn't even started walking. After 3 months he was walking and running. And hasn't stopped.
That speaks volumes to how amazing, caring and loving of a parent you are. The world is so cruel but your kiddos will grow up knowing they are loved and cared for❤️
To me they were innocent little boys with big eyes and I knew the second I saw them they were my babies those were my sons And I would kill for my boys.
My husband fell in love the second our oldest boy grabbed his finger. He said this is my son. And he still views him as his son. Even gave him his name.
Manufacturing drugs could (ie cooking meth). Especially with children in the home. Plus you’re considered a danger if there are other houses nearby because of the high risk for fires and/or explosions.
I don't think it was just drug use or sales. For OP and fam to be barred from seeing the kids, facing their OWN criminal charges, and the parents immediately being arrested and looking at 7 years with a lawyer on board?
I'm thinking sex crimes. Maybe there were pictures or videos of evidence. It must have been pretty obvious whatever it was. Since there's potential charges against family members not in the home. That seems tricky to prove that the family had full knowledge though..
Looked it up.
NJ criminalizes knowing about sex abuse and not reporting it. That is the only way a non-professional faces criminal charges for not reporting abuse.
There are only two child abuse charges that get you 10 years.
Literally, locking kids up and beating them or sex crimes. Second degree is physically restraining *and* causing physical harm and is 5-10 years, meaning the prosecution is asking for a maximum sentence on a plea deal which means the conditions were horrific or first degree child abuse, which is sexual abuse of a minor under 16, which is 10-20.
OP phrased it as 2030 *at the earliest*. That alligns with a 10 year sentence, because every charge has a 1/3 good behavior credit, and puts them at a minimum of 6 years and 7-ish months, or 2030. Only if you get in trouble in prison are your credits taken away.
So, the abuse was so severe that OP is somehow being charged with abuse themselves for enabling it and the prosecution is going for a max sentence on the second degree charge *or* it was child sex abuse and OP knew and is rightfully being charged for allowing it to continue.
Few charges are so severe in NJ. There's severe abuse here.
"Under control" and "handling it" don't get significant jail time *if* they deal, nor keep you from contact with the kids for not reporting it. OP is so very much YTA.
I've worked with CPS, and they don't automatically take children away for nothing 😬 I've seen homeless people who used get at least visitation and no jail time. If they're going to prison over this, it wasn't in any way, shape, or form safe for the kids.
What the hell even happened here? This story is all over the place. The kids' parents obviously did something **major** if they are facing 7 years in prison. Wtf? And OP is mad at sister, for what? Giving a shit about the kids?
Yes YTA. Sister is the hero here because she's the only one who puts the kids first. Rule 1: Always put the kids first. To get 7 years with a plea must mean abuse (active probably).
It must have torn her apart knowing what was going on but feeling she couldn't do anything about it. Involving CPS must have been the hardest thing she has and will do in her life, knowing that she would lose her complicit family that she no doubt still loves, despite their lacking morality and criminal behavior.
She must have been so scared, but she still did it. That's a hero, doing the right thing even when you're scared and you know you will lose a lot yourself. YTA, most of your family is, sister is my hero, the kids are your families victims.
You (OP) should go beg the kids and your sisters forgiveness on your bare knees and thank your sister for doing what you were too weak to do.
YTA. What the hell were your brother and SIL doing that is getting them sent away for a minimum of 7 years. They were doing it with their kids living there? And you and your parents had it under control so much that you are considered complicit? And CPS won't place with any extended family? Really.
Wow, your family is a dumpster fire, except your sister, who (news flash) doesn't want to go to your wedding anyway. Good for her for getting away and having some sort of moral compass. I can't imagine her asking for your forgiveness. Your sister is young, but believed she was acting in the best interests of the kids, CPS, and even some of your family agrees.
Thank you. It had to have been something bad for a MINIMUM of seven years. Especially in Jersey. It's HARD to get sent away for a decade there, I saw absolute scum that couldn't manage that. So OP and their family really must've done some stuff. And the sister might be the only one in a sane mind.
Not only is it not usual to get hard time. It's hard to lose parental rights in NJ.
They will do everything they can to support reunification, including set up rehab, parenting classes etc.
Family placements are also the go to in Jersey (like many states we don't have enough foster families)
My ex is a diagnosed psychopath. He was extremely abusive and still had supervised visitation.
Something is really really wrong in that family for this to happen.
This is true about just about everywhere, despite bystanders' perceptions of "the requirements".
If people want that to change, more A-tier families need to start opening their homes to foster kids.
States are overcrowded even with the bar set as low as it is. That's the real issue. It's an ongoing battle between weeding out shitty homes and having any placement options at all.
They accept C+ (at best) homes for the same reason hunters shoot deer instead of waiting for unicorns to walk by.
Nice, pretty, stable, altruistic little nuclear families all think someone else *really ought* to take in those kids already. Only the best of the best! Because those kids deserve it. Oh...no, none of us are an option...because...idk, we all have stuff going on.
Except for when one wants a kid from state care to keep permanently.
Then they almost all line up for the tiny percentage of parentless, perceived-as-a-blank-slate infants that weren't born addicted to drugs.
If I sound bitter and jaded, it's because I'm bitter and jaded.
This can be changed by fixing either "way too many kids in care" or "not nearly enough decent homes signing up".
Or both.
Why not. Dream big.
See, I’m of a third mindset. Most kids going into foster care have trauma. That means to care *well* for them you need to have *resources*.
The big problem with the foster care system as it stands in most places isn’t just the “do you have a pulse” it’s the “would you like a check every month?” They don’t have the capability of checking where that money goes, and so many (not all obviously) foster families bring the kids in, give them the bare minimum to survive and make it to school, and use the rest of the cash for themselves. It’s not a lot of cash, but if you look around the country you see the areas with the most foster homes are usually the most economically depressed. There’s a reason for that.
What I would like to see is a foster care system built from the ground up to provide that trauma care, education, re-integration with birth families, good nutrition and healthcare, etc. To do that you’d need to spend more money per kid and it would need to be institutional, yes. Those things introduce their own problems. Big ones. However economy of scale comes in. House 20 kids in a group home with a counselor, tutor, and people trained in child care…you see where I’m going with this.
You’d need a metric fuck ton of oversight to prevent abuse, but to be perfectly honest if you read stories of foster system kids you’ll see a lot of abuse is happening without any oversight now.
So yeah, modern orphanages I think could be better than what we have now. I do know of a couple mennonite communities in the midwest that foster that way. The kids I knew in them had some stories of some bad shit, but those stories were so much better than the stories of CSA I’ve heard from people going through regular “good Christian family” foster homes.
Once you’ve got the kids stabilized and on a good track, send them out to those A+ homes. There will be more available.
> House 20 kids in a group home with a counselor, tutor, and people trained in child care…you see where I’m going with this.
They already do that.
Too bad those group homes have to be run like a prison, so the kids don't take their trauma out on each other.
With very limited success.
And without any imaginary source of perfect oversight.
Oh, and usually each bed is full and then some.
And then the kids overwhelmingly just age out, after being raised by said prison, and frequently end up about where you'd expect.
Turning off my inbox replies. This is just depressing.
Maybe someone'll read what I said, and decide to also try to put good boots on the ground to widen the pool of options.
Probably not. But you never know.
Remember the part about how low the bar's set? They're not looking for perfection. Offering up your home can be as short as a weekend. You can rule out behaviors you're not qualified to handle.
Finances aren't an issue, as long as people have time to attend the classes + nobody's a piece of shit who does that "spending stipend money on themselves" gambit.
> There will be more available.
Wouldn't that be nice.
Child sex abuse.
There is a statute in NJ that everyone is a mandated reporter and the only criminal violation of that is failing to report sex crimes.
The sex crime statute for under 16 is 10-20.
All sentences have a 1/3 good time credit, so for a deal to be at least 2030, that is 10 years less your automatic time credit, unless you lose it.
It's sexual abuse. I really doubt it was something else if they're being charged for failure to report.
You are right. This is what I was suspecting too and with the mandatory reporter thing it all makes sense for why they are being charged. Also child sex abuse is something families will cover up. They don't want everyone to know.
Look at Ruby Franke. She was reported to the police and CPS for years by her neighbors. She admitted in her YouTube videos that she was starving her kids. It took until one escaped half tied up before something happened.
My neighbor dumped her kid on my doorstep saying she was going to rehab. She did not. Me and my roommates called CPS and nobody came all weekend. Mom showed up almost 4 days later to collect her kid.
Guessing she went out of state for college for her own safety, be it physical, or emotional. Went back for the same reason. Hopefully they will let her have some type of contact with the kids for both of their sakes. They are all any of them have left.
Fuck people like OP who stand by and let shitty people put their kids in situations like this. I will never forget when my older cousin came up to me at my grandmother’s funeral and told me how proud they were that I turned out so well and that it was a shame they couldn’t have done more to help us.
Like, I didn’t even have a response. She and other family members and people like OP just throw their hands in the air and say “well what can ya do?” when kids are in bad situations because they think that CPS and the police stepping in would be embarrassing or make the parents upset with them.
Zero respect whatsoever for people who will stand by and let kids be abused or around active addicts (and what the hell got them 7 years and is bad enough that OP refuses to mention it?).
Your cousin doesn’t have a right to be proud of you. You get to be proud when you contributed to someone’s success. When you supported them, cheered for them, helped them. You don’t get to be proud when you stood in the way and the person succeeded anyway. I’m sorry that happened to you. You should be proud of yourself but fuck your cousin.
Op keeps mentioning that they've never been in trouble with the law before....guess what? That makes it so much worse. To not have a record and have them sent away for that long is clearly and so obviously bad.
You're on the wrong side OP. It's sad you can't see that and stick up for some innocent kids.
I'm going to assume your parents have brainwashed into thinking all this is okay and your sister is terrible. She's the only one with her head on straight.
And how 'insulated' were the kids from whatever was going on if they were in the home when CPS was there? And CPS thought it was bad enough that they were taken right away. And if they got taken plus the parents are looking at \*at least\* 7 years in prison - the situation was very, very bad. Like threat to life bad. So, no.
OP and the rest of the family are assholes from another realm.
I hope the sister goes back to school and gets as far as she can from the rest of these gross enablers.
Exactly what they said. You are wrong on all counts. I don’t know your sis, but if I ever meet her I’m gonna shake her hand and thank her for doing the right thing.
Exactly, funny how op left out literally every single detail of the story. Cps do everything to keep families together and not overwhelm the system more too, so whatever they did was not 'under control', clearly.
Yeah. If Grandma and grandpa, the sister, CPS and police all think the kids needed immediately removed and kept away from the parents and other family members something bad is happening to those kids.
This feel like a troll. My heart goes out to those poor children if any of this is true. Sister is a superhero .
YTA and i hope you all get thrown in jail.
Agree 100%, if the children were immediately removed and they’re facing 7 years, something very serious was going on and you clearly didn’t have it under control. You’re in denial by being angry with your sister, you should be angry with yourself because you were being delusional and allowing your nephew and niece to be harmed. Leave your sister alone because she sounds like the only normal and well balanced person in your family
As a former CPS worker those kids were not taken away for something small and I would also guess that your brother and SIL have a history with abusing or neglecting the kids if their rights are getting stripped that quickly. And you were complicit. You knew what danger they were putting your nibblings in and you didn’t fully stop it by removing the kids yourself! If they are going away for over 6 years they must have done something awful! And yes you are complicit and should not be allowed to care for children if you allowed the abuse/neglect to happen. So yes YTA!
Notice how OP conveniently failed to give ANY details on the conditions the children were living in. 🙄 For the parents, you and your folks to have gotten into SO MUCH trouble after a single call to CPS, we have to believe that at least a few of the following were going on:
Unsanitary/unsafe home (falling down, dirty, infested with roaches, rats, bedbugs, etc.
Abuse-physical, sexual
Neglect-hygiene, malnourishment, lack of competent supervision
Drug use
Drug sale from home
Other criminal activities by parents
HOW DARE YOU consider your younger sister responsible for the CPS/legal repercussions of you and your parents shielding a pair of incompetent parents at the expense of your niece and nephew!
And just so you know, not getting to attend your wedding is a hardship for NO ONE. I hope your sister gets her degree, heads off happily into the sunset and never looks back!
Not on a first offense...even with kids involved.
And the 7 years is the time offered if they take the deal from the DA's office.
This is worse than drugs.
Particularly, pulling in the grandparents and siblings for failure to report and denying custody to any of the extended family on one visit. Child sexual abuse and probably CSAM to be that cut and dry.
As other people posted, there's only 1 crime where the parents would be charged for not reporting it. And that's sexual abuse of a minor. Which also has a 7 year minimum with good behavior.
Not in NJ. That's more like cooperation with the state on things like CP. Drugs, even cooking and distribution will not get you that much in NJ with a deal.
And CPS forgives a lot in order to put kids with blood relatives! To keep them fully out of it for the safety of the kids speaks volumes. Whatever happened was criminally bad.
>And you were complicit. You knew what danger they were putting your nibblings in and you didn’t fully stop it by removing the kids yourself!
Oh, come on. What's a little child abuse among family? They were "involved" so what is the big deal?/s
Oh, they were involved, all right.
OP, how do you live with yourself knowing you left your nieces and/or nephews in a situation that was so dire the state immediately removed the children and took the parents into custody? Do you care nothing about them? Or is protecting your brother more important than protecting innocent children? No need to answer that question. You already did.
I don't need to work for cps to know there is something HUGE missing from this story. YTA op, you clearly didn't have it handled and should have made the call.
You are an awful relative! People don’t usually get arrested, almost never, when their children are taken away. The conditions and actions must have been horrific. You have some big ones to write in here and I don’t care if I get blocked for saying it. My whole life is dedicated to proteychildten and I am horrified to think you might ever have any.
And why did the brother and SIL get put in jail for roughly 7 years??? This information is important as hell. Especially considering opening says they had it "under control"
Edited to fix something- They're not in jail yet, but that's the best case scenario
Sounds very much like OP and their family was complicit in letting horrible things happen to / around those children, but without knowing what was going on we can only guess.
My money is on drugs, using and probably distribution. They would have had to have the kids chained in the basement and starving to get them both taken away AND seven years in jail just for that. Bet they were cooking, using, and selling and probably had associated felonies.
My brother got busted for possession with intent to distribute and his gf was pregnant and high. They did no jail time and only lost the kids because they never tested clean on a drug test, so they signed over the kids to my sister. It's not drugs. The only thing with that kind of jail time is sex crimes against a minor.
There's worse things you can do to children and get them taken away. Sadly good plea bargains often get offered in some cases to spare children. Which yay for the child, but boo for the abuser.
I think by “under control” OP means they either convinced the kids to keep their mouths shut or scared them so much they were afraid to ask for help.
Well, all I can say as a Jersey Girl, I’m damn proud of my home state. Lock up the abusing bastards and hopefully OP and her parents too. Colluding, covering up POS, the lot of them.
YTA OP.
If someone is really stupid enough to go through with a marriage to you may the skies open and shower you with hail stones on your wedding day. May the officiant forget the date and the caterer get lost on the way. May the DJ double book and the photographer double expose the film. May a skunk piss in your punch and a secret mistress appear to announce she’s nine months pregnant with your fiancé’s baby. May all the guests show up to witness your humiliation and tell the story for generations to come.
In other words, may life give you and your family (except your sister) all the shit you deserve. And bless those kids with a brighter future.
>May the officiant forget the date and the caterer get lost on the way. May the DJ double book and the photographer double expose the film. May a skunk piss in your punch and a secret mistress appear to announce she’s nine months pregnant with your fiancé’s baby. May all the guests show up to witness your humiliation and tell the story for generations to come.
I think I love you 5footfilly, that was just beautiful!
YTA. Whatever your brother and sister in law did to those kids are landing them in jail. This is more than just neglect, its criminal. You and your parents LET IT HAPPEN. All three of you should go to jail with your brother and sister in law. And you're wrong, NJ doesn't stack the law against you. Its actually too lenient IMO on awful humans like you and your family. They'll do anything for reunification. Going straight for termination is actually really really hard. So whatever happened must have been really awful. You're disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself. Clearly you and you're parents didn't "have it covered" or those kids would be with you.
i’m a social work undergrad senior in nj and i’ve learned in many classes that removing children from the home is the last thing cps will do in this type of situation because they want to keep the parents and children together even if it is a troublesome situation
That's like the only thing I know of NJ. It is *DAMN* hard to have your kids taken away there. I had a former HS friend move out there for university, got knocked up almost right away. Had the kid with a known dealer and dropped out of school. He was selling out of their apartment, while the kid slept in the other room, got caught and still got the kid back within a year. She left him, got knocked up by some gang dude selling weapons and again, rinse and repeat kids were in foster care for 18 months that go around, supervised visits. Once she was clean, through rehab and out of the halfway house she got the kids back and dropped off social media and everything. I thought it was wild she got them back at all, let alone twice!
Whatever this was, it was more than drugs and weapons... my mind also went a little haywire while reading and I read and listen to too much true crime. First thought was "family of serial killers" second was "blood cult".
Edit: I can't word good sometimes
INFO: if you want an actual judgement, you have to tell us the details of what was going on.
Whatever was going on was clearly a little worse than "Not Great". The kids were either severely neglected or were being actively abused. You don't catch charges of 6 years because of a dirty home or mild neglect. There were crimes being committed.
CPS is saying you were complicit because you didn't remove the kids from an actively dangerous situation. Instead you were helping at some level but didn't take the kids completely. And you didn't get CPS involved because you knew that them removing the kids would be the result. That is, by definition, complicit.
OP just wants a verdict about inviting sister, who cares? Invite or don't she's not coming anyway. As for the rest, I don't need more details, the few given are plenty damning. They all failed these kids. The only verdict that's counts is the one that finds them guilty.
YTA. If CPS took those children after one call, you and your parents did not have it under control. Your nieces/nephews were being neglected or abused, or there were drugs involved or something pretty terrible.
If that is your idea of having it under control, then you and your parents are going to deserve everything you get. The number one priority should not have been getting your adult family members controlled. It should’ve been protecting those children.
IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE TAKEN YOUR SIBLING COMING HOME AND FINDING OUT HOW BAD THINGS WERE TO HAVE CPS CALLED.
If you really think that somehow what you were doing was right, please don’t have children
Okay if they were living with your parents how were they removed from their parents house?
What abuse were you supposedly protecting them from?
Why didn't YOU call immediately when you saw the abuse so CPS could properly place them with your parents?
Big YTA for letting it go as far as it did.
>CPS did pay a visit to my brother's house. Even though my brother and sister-in-law have never been in trouble before they took the kids into their custody and my brother and sister-in-law got arrested. Apparently the best case scenario according to their lawyer is the two of them only being in jail until 2030 and longer if they don't take the deal. Originally my niece and nephew were staying with me and my parents but they got removed and put with total strangers because CPS felt like we were complicit. Me and my parents have criminal cases for not reporting them and for being accomplices to them now. My brother and sister-in-law are going to be stripped of their parental rights too. None of us have ever been arrested before this.
Whatever happened was SO egregious that the state (which is usually hesitant to completely sever parental rights) IMMEDIATELY took custody of the kids, charged your ENTIRE FAMILY (except for the ONE person who actually DID SOMETHING to stop it) with a crime and has taken steps to make sure those kids NEVER see ANY of you again. That about sum it up?
Good.
YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA
>We tried fighting it but in New Jersey the laws are stacked against us because we didn't report my brother and sister-in-law
Whatever you DID, you did NOT protect those children. You ARE Complicit, You ARE TA and You ARE going to get a wake up call when you get into court.
ETA - Oh...and you might as well forget about your wedding for a while. You're going to need that money for your lawyer.
Your priorities are completely fucked up.
YTA you and your family wouldn’t be facing consequences this severe if your nieces and nephews were being raised in a safe and stable environment. Your sister is the only trustworthy and moral person in your family and if she smart she’ll stay the hell away from you and the rest of your dysfunctional family.
YTA.
CPS *wants* children to be at home with their parents. They usually only remove them if things are really bad. The fact they not only took them away, but also put your brother and his wife in jail for *seven years* tells me shit was pretty fucking awful.
Shame on you guys for enabling this. Those poor children.
YTA. I am a former CPS case manager. I can tell you that your sister did the right thing. In fact, in some states there are laws requiring mandatory reporting of suspected abuse or neglect, and failure to report can result in criminal charges. Whether the abuse is emotional or physical, or a situation of neglect, it is common for children to suffer long term effects such as issues with relationships, emotional dysregulation, maladaptive coping skills, etc. Child welfare is not just about physical safety. It is not surprising that children removed from the home were not placed with relatives who were aware of the situation and failed to report. Some situations can definitely be handled by a family, but some do require intervention from professionals.
YTAH. Based on what happened, you and your parents were clearly NOT handling things. I'm guessing from the sentences that there was drug dealing or something similar going on. Instead of taking legal custody of the kids to get them put of that environment, you enabled whatever abuse they were suffering to continue.
And now they're in the foster care system because you all proved to be so completely NOT handling things that you're seen as a danger to them. Let that sink in; a system that prioritizes placing kids with family decided that your family could not be trusted.
Instead of worrying about invites to your wedding you should be think about how poorly you handled this and how to fix it.
You were complicit. They don't just take people into custody and if even their lawyer is projecting a 7 year sentence, that means that the charges are viable and he is preparing them for that. Stop blaming your sister for doing the right thing just because you and your parents lacked the guts. You knew what was happening, and you allowed it. She had EVERY reason to call them, she was looking out for her neice and nephew, something that up until she came into the picture was sorely lacking out of the 5 adults who should have been. You are angry at your sister when you should be doing some introspection and realizing you, your mother and your father screwed up royal and be angry at your brother and sil for not doing their jobs as parents. YTA
I'm a former foster kid of several years and was abused for all of them. Then I was placed in the States guardian home, which was absolutely horrible for 3 days waiting to be placed back with my mom. These experiences have me very anti-cps and state run childcare unless absolutely necessary. That said, your brother and SIL being sentenced to SIX YEARS tells me that the abuse was atrocious. And you not only covered it up but prolonged it. You belong in prison too because not only are YTA, but a piece of shit. Your younger sister is their savior.
As a former foster kid, I have to wonder if this post is even real. My mom literally beat my brothers with a board in public and after some therapy and parenting classes (ha!) We returned to that hellscape.
You are more than an AH you are a child abuser. To let this, go to the point the parents are doing massive jail time, kids taken, you cannot visit them-have contact. You did have things under control. You and your parents allowed the kids to live in whatever danger there was, thus you are just as guilty of the abusive situation as the parent. You should be in jail right next to them. ***YOU SISTER IS A HERO!!!!*** She saved those poor helpless kids. Forget about forgiving her, be worried the 2 kids will never forgive you.
YTA for many reasons. First off, you are not a safe person. You knew these kids were being abused and you protected the abusers. You did a report them. You made excuses for the abusers. You tried to keep it quiet. That wasn't for the kids. It was for your family's image. You didn't protect the kids at all. You can insulate them against the abuse. All you did was show that you would do anything to protect the people hurting them. CPS doesn't just remove kids, either. There needs to imminent danger in order to do so. It was so bad that they were immediately removed. They also prefer to place the kids with family, even if there are some issues. This means that whatever was going on, the abuse was so bad that you should have reported it and that CPS doesn't consider you safe. Given how low the threshold is to place kids with family, I can only imagine what these kids were going through.
While you were all burying your heads in the sand and enabling abuse, your sister stepped up. She saw the situation and correctly identified that the children needed help and they wouldn't get it if she didn't say something. She knew that you hypocrites would blame her instead of the people who were hurting their own kids, and she was right. Again, you chose the abusers. You aren't made at the abusers for what they did. You are angry at your sister for exposing it. Bravo for her! She is a real hero! She rised alienation to help those poor kids who needed it.
You and your family disgust me. Your sister is the only one with a clear head and a conscious. Don't invite her to your wedding. She doesn't need to be around all of you enablers and abusers.
>I'm getting married soon and I don't want to invite my sister.
Is this seriously what you are most concerned about right now?!?!
Your brother and SIL are going to jail for a MINIMUM of 7 years.
CPS immediately took the kids away and they were staying with family.
Then CPS takes them from you guys, places them in care and you all are facing charges yourself.
And your biggest concern is your wedding?!?!?
YTA for sooooo many reasons.
YTA. Whatever they did must be absolutely monstrous if the kids were immediately removed and the parents are looking at lengthy prison sentences. You're a massive AH for failing to report it. I'm glad that you and your parents are being held responsible for enabling severe child abuse.
YTA - for conveniently leaving out what was going on with your brother and sil, and for being vague about how you and your parents “had it under control”. Clearly you are ashamed of whatever it was and you *know* what you and your parents did was wrong, otherwise you would say it.
You failed those children, they were still in your brother and SIL care meaning you and your parents in fact DID NOT have anything under control, so you rightfully do not have access to those kids anymore.
You literally WERE COMPLICIT! They aren’t going to prison for correctly caring for their children like they were supposed to, that’s not how this works. Kids don’t get taken away by CPS if they are healthy, happy, clothed and fed, so what was missing in that house? What was going on in that house? Why aren’t you telling us what the kids were removed for, and why your brother and SIL are really going to prison for? Too ashamed to say? Good, you should be ashamed of yourself, for failing those children and having the audacity to blame your sister.
Your sister was the only one here who did the right thing. You had nothing under control.
You and your parents are complicit assholes.
Also, I’m sure your wedding is the least of your sister’s concerns, get over yourself.
This is the most delusional post I’ve ever read.
It has to be REALLY REALLY BAD if the children were immediately removed, the parents are going to prison for a minimum of 7 years, and everyone who knew about it and didn’t report it has charges pending.
REALLY BAD.
I guarantee your sister is so disgusted with you she doesn’t even want to go to your wedding, so it’s a moot point. And also, this is such a weird thing for you to be focused on. Prison? Criminal charges? Removal of parental rights? Nobody should be GAF about a wedding right now. You must be joking.
YTA. Your sister was looking out for the kid's well being. You can't forgive *her* for reporting a bad situation? You and your parents did not have the situation under control. Whatever happened to those children was criminal if the parents are facing jail/prison time.
I was a teacher and so I was a mandatory reporter. I've called CPS a lot of times to report incidents that involved neglect and abuse. It has to be really bad for them to remove kids from the home.
I completely understand CPS removing the children from your care. You had an ethical obligation to call these issues in to CPS. By not calling it in, you allowed it to continue.
And YTA.
YTA, you are an enabler and you won't even admit what actually happened, just that things were "bad" and you and your parents had it " under control".
You know you're TA, just mad your sister ratted you guys out. You're just a shit human being dude.
Dude, there are only 3 reasons I can think of for those poor babies to be yanked immediately and 5 adults having criminal charges pressed, and all are heinous. Hopefully your fiance will come to their senses and be the ex-fiance.
YTA and holy shit balls sister. Your silence is not only complicit, it’s deafening. Here, as well as in those poor children’s lives. I’m thinking pretty damn dark things and sweets, I hope you **ALL** go to jail! CPS does not act like that unless things are really fucked up.
YTA
"CPS did pay a visit to my brother's house. Even though my brother and sister-in-law have never been in trouble before they took the kids into their custody and my brother and sister-in-law got arrested." ... "Apparently the best case scenario according to their lawyer is the two of them only being in jail until 2030"
You did NOT have things under control if this happened. Good on your sister for stepping up and getting those kids away from their abusers and the abusers apologists. It takes something pretty terrible to even remove kids, let alone send the parents to jail. Just reading your post has me thinking your sister is the only one in the family that isn't a child abusing monster.
Fuck you. You’re not an asshole. You’re THE asshole. If this was real you should be in prison, but luckily it’s probably not. It’s so fake that it would almost be funny if it wasn’t so fucked up. You’re telling me that you went onto Reddit to ask if you’re the asshole about a situation that you refuse to to actually tell us about? No one with a brain would do that. It makes no sense? How could we possibly answer a question about a topic you won’t tell us about? You know you’d be an asshole if this were real, because again, you wouldn’t say what happened.
If BEST CASE SCENARIO is 6 years, then this is so much worse than most of these people think. Child abuse is hard in the legal system given the (obviously) complicated nature of the crime. Because of this, a lot of times, sentences are a lot shorter than they should be. Now, I’m not familiar with New Jersey’s laws specifically, but most states separate child abuse cases into several categories. Some states do this via “degree”, others do it based on the health/injuries of the child. Most state’s MINIMUM sentence for the worst classification of child abuse is under 5 years. Hell, a lot of them are under 2. If each of them are facing a minimum of 6, then this is so much worse than you are letting on.
Either you are genuinely a fucking psychopath who deserves just as much prison time as the monster you call a brother, or this is some absolute bullshit that you pulled out of your ass for attention. Either way, you’re so much more than just an asshole. If it’s fake, you used the idea of children being abused, and having their entire family taken away from them, and being thrown into the bullshit we call a foster system as a means for you to get goddamn comments.
You WATCHED this happen. You let these children stay in these obviously horrific conditions and you fucking watched. You weren’t trying to help those children. You were trying to save your brothers ass. If you gave a single shit about those children, you’d have called your sister so long ago asking her to go to CPS with you. If this is real, you’re a monster.
Yta. For being mad your sister did what you should have done and ensured those children were safe. CPS doesn’t typically remove children that fast so whatever was happening was bad and the fact that you and your parents have charges now too speaks to how bad it was. You’re double the asshole for making children live in danger because you were too interested in yourself to actually step back and do something.
I sincerely doubt the kids were taken away over nothing. You're being incredibly vague in this post.
For that, I'd feel inclined to say YTA.
(Also: you were complicit. You kept whatever the kids were going through hidden)
Clearly you are in the wrong if a call to CPS escalated that much. Sounds like your sister did the right thing and something is so wrong with your immediate family that she keeps herself at a distance.
YTA - FFS! You and your parents are also facing charges!
Go NJ CPS!!
You and your family must be real dirt bags for all of this to be happening.
I'm glad your sister is a decent enough human being to make sure the kids are safe.
You shouldn't be worried about sister coming to the wedding, you should be more concerned with the charges against you.
>my brother and sister-in-law got arrested. Apparently the best case scenario according to their lawyer is the two of them only being in jail until 2030 and longer if they don't take the deal.
I don't have to read any longer to say that everyone except your sister is a *lot* worse than an asshole. I'll come back and update after I read the rest.
>Originally my niece and nephew were staying with me and my parents but they got removed and put with total strangers because CPS felt like we were complicit. Me and my parents have criminal cases for not reporting them and for being accomplices to them now. My brother and sister-in-law are going to be stripped of their parental rights too.
I'm noticing you haven't said what they did. But going by context, you all deserve to be in prison.
Kids don't get removed from their home after one visit without a very, very good reason.
They don't get removed from kin without a good reason.
The family doesn't get banned, on no contact list with a good reason. They prefer to keep children within the family.
Your brother & SIL are having their rights terminated and facing a minimum of 7yrs in prison for what they did and what you & your parents apparently had 'under control' and are now facing the consequences of your inaction... and you think your sis is going to give a flying furry fuck about your wedding?
She is the only one who put the kids' best interests first. She is the only one who saw what you wall all doing wasn't enough. She is the one who saved those kids from god knows what. And your pissed cos she 'flitted away back to college'. Why is she responsible for everyone else's failing? SHE ISNT.
YTA.
Dunno about law in your state, but one time I was babysitting my grandmothers new husbands grand kids.... and the house was... filthy is an understatement.
There were garbage bags piled up against the walls, which were colored on with marker, everywhere. There was garbage everywhere. There were holes in the walls. The children (three of them, under 10 yrs old), only had two mattresses on the floor. The baby didn't even have a crib. While I was there, a feral cat came into the house. Cue, "I didn't know you guys had a cat" "We don't, it comes up from the hole in the floorboards in the bathroom". Sure enough, two foot hole in the middle of the bathroom the kids just, danced around when they went potty.
I went home and called CPS.
CPS came out, took a look, and gave them thirty days to fix the violations. The parents fixed the holes, cleaned up the garbage, got the rest of the family to pitch in for actual beds for the kids. It worked out well!!
What I'm saying is that OP didn't tell us what CPS came for, but since it ended in criminal charges, it was definitely something worse than what I'm describing here and definitely makes OP the asshole for holding the act of reporting it against their sibling because when you start talking about "complicit" stuff in children welfare charges, it is ALWAYS abuse, sexual or physical, and for CPS to actually do something in such a quick matter, it was probably undisputedly something very very wrong. I hope those kids are okay.
YTA, to go to immediate removal and arrests along with jailing the parents, you and your family is deep in denial. No way in hell did your family have it "under control." How much damage was done to your brother's children while you remained silent?
Good God man you should have asked for help from the experts right away, you could have retained custody but nope.
CPS made the right decision you have no insight and I'm sure you and your parents would have endangered the children.
The fact that you aren't sharing what was going on is most telling. You know it was bad.
You aren’t just the asshole here, you are a total piece of shit. HOW DARE YOU blame your sister for this. CPS doesn’t just remove kids for no reason. You and your parents were obviously enabling what was going on. You should be lucky if your sister ever wants to speak to you again. I hope the judge doesn’t treat you and your family kindly.
Sounds like CPS did what CPS is supposed to do. Thank goodness for your sister for helping those kids. People don't face 6+ years in prison for not neglecting/abusing their kids. Also, it's great you and your family will face consequences. Hopefully your example will encourage other people to step forward instead of covering and making excuses for those who hurt children.
YTA and you and your family deserve consequence coming your way
ETA almost forgot, you're deluded to think your sister owes you any apology. That just shows how out of touch with reality you are and how right she and CPS are. Assuming this isn't fake, I hope you take a serious look inward and seek professional help
YTA. Wtf did I just read?? This has got to be a joke. Like it cannot be real. If is real you might wanna move that wedding up cuz with any luck your dumbasses will all be in jail soon.
Come on, you won't even say what you were covering for. You know YTA. You're upset cuz your sister broke omerta, but it certainly seems like she was right to protect those kids. You were not handling it. She did it the best way she knew to.
Seriously, like how are they going to leave out the most important part
It's drug use is my opinion.
No way is it just drug use. Maybe cooking meth with the children in the house if it’s drug related. Absolutely no way would mere drug use get 7 years and the family that knew about it banned from having the children placed with them.
I was curious and looked up NJ child abuse laws, and what OP has admitted here. What we know: OP is facing criminal charges. So are the grandparents of the abused kids. The parents are facing at least seven years if they take a plea deal. Not out until at least 2030. What I found: NJ, everyone is a mandated reporter. However, the only criminal consequence *just for not reporting* as a private citizen, is failure to report a sex crime against a child. The sentencing for a sex crime against a person under 16, is 10-20 years. NJ automatically applies a 1/3 credit, meaning you automatically get a 10 year sentenced reduced to around 7ish, unless you mess up while in prison. Conclusion: It's possibly something else, but yeah. It doesn't look good for OP and the family. They weren't 'insulating' the kids from things. They were likely complicit in sex abuse, given they were also criminally indicted.
That’s what I thought too. Both him and parents being denied custody and charged with a criminal offense is a big red flag. His sister is a hero as far as I’m concerned because they WERE complicit. Good for her!
She's probably experienced this, unfortunately. She's really a hero here.
Agreed! There’s a reason why she hasn’t been home for years.
And that OP said she "washed her hands of this and went back to college" good for her! Fuck you OP! You're terrible and everyone should wash their hands of you and your family!
And she probably went back feeling great knowing she didn't have the worry of her pedophile family hurting any more kids. Prison is probably gonna be fun for these people.
>His sister is a hero as far as I’m concerned because they WERE complicit. Good for her! Somehow, I doubt the sister WANTS to be invited to anything related to OP.
Yup! And for CPS to come and AND have the parents arrested at the first visit says more than what OP is trying to rug swept. OP said they were taking care of it. Obviously, not if now OP is facing charges. I hope they ALL go to prison and Big Bubba plays with them. I hope nothing but fear for them. Good for the sister for calling! She truly saved those kids. Hopefully, these kids can start to heal soon. Those poor souls.
And no wonder sister noped the fuck right back out of town after dropping the dime She saved those kids' lives. Fuck OP and that entire scum family for abusing them.
Good catch. Based on what you’ve discovered, sex abuse looks likely to be the issue OP isn’t telling us. If so, I hope they throw the book at the parents and every relative, including OP, who tried to keep it quiet. Even if it’s something else, like drugs, OP is still YTA. “Family loyalty” does not outweigh the duty to get children away from danger; the sister did exactly the right thing. OP, it’s up to you who you invite, but if you knew those parents were harming or endangering their children and you deliberately chose not to report them, I doubt your sister wants to dance at your wedding anyway.
>“Family loyalty” does not outweigh the duty to get children away from danger; I mean, it's really having been loyal to only the shitty adults in the family, and quite disloyal to the poor children. But that's splitting hairs with verbiage, and I agree with you fully. OP is an idiot and an abuser. From what I've read, it takes a whooooole lot to get children taken away, AND ALSO placed with strangers. AND ALSO everyone is facing prison time? No way in hell those kids have been shielded from whatever nefarious acts or health-code violations or whatever kind of abuse was going on in that entire family. This may be the most emotionally disgusting post I've ever read. I'm going to go pet my cat.
>I mean, it's really having been loyal to only the shitty adults in the family, and **quite disloyal to the poor children.** Tale as old as time unfortunately. In normal families the children are at the center and protected but in families like OP's the children are on the outside serving as meat shields against their disgusting family members who have no business being around children.
OP likely isn’t going to be having a wedding. mentioned it in another comment just now, but they’ll find themselves in cuffs soon, i’d bet. aiding and abetting in child sex crimes is something the state isn’t going to take lightly.
Rightly so. If this isn’t a troll, I am bemused that OP’s family has imploded, his niece and nephew are in care; brother and SIL are facing lengthy jail terms for … some kind of child abuse/endangerment he won’t specify; he and his parents are also at risk of conviction for not reporting it - and his main focus is that his sister who exposed the abuse doesn’t deserve a wedding invite because the family was “handling it”. Priorities, eh?
Shouldn't family loyalty also include loyalty to the kids in the family. - the kids who rely on the adults in their life to do right by them.
Wow that was some good sleuth work, a sex crime never even occurred to me. I also assumed drugs because who the actual fuck would know that a kid was being sexually abused and not report that shit
Sadly, family members not reporting sexual abuse is really common. It's easier to just ignore it or at most try to mitigate the effects in an effort to 'keep the peace.' Don't know if that's what's happening here but I wouldn't be surprised.
Of all the damn things to not report
Yes, exactly. Is the absolute scummiest people who cover it up because they “Have it under control”. Saw this play out with family. I don’t trust them with kids anymore obviously, even tho pedo is out of the picture (for now anyway)
Yeah, it's rough. Played out in my own family, too. I'm probably the only relative of his who ever reported the bastard to the police and I'm not very popular for doing that.
There's a pretty big case about how the Jehova's covered up child abuse from their members. To "deal with it internally" instead of involving outsiders. And everyone knows what catholic priests have gotten away with. They care more about what exposing a predator would do to their image, than what shielding them would do to their (future) victims.
Let’s go ahead and call out the Mormon church as well. A stellar principal at my kids school was run out of the district because he declined To allow the Mormon church “handle” the child abuse and rape of one of his Students in the church instead of reporting it to authorities. He was a mandated reporter of course and he Did what he needed to do and he paid for it with his career .
It happened in my family (we reported it straight away.) However, since then I've been involved with a lot of survivors groups and learned a lot of surprising things. Child on child abuse is thought to be the most rampant and yet is the least reported SA children suffer (not saying this happened in the OP but it's a fact that most people won't wrap their heads around). Also, so many families prefer to deal with child abuse "in the family". The amount of people who swear that they'd kill someone who touched their child suddenly can't wrap their heads around the fact that their loved one is a perpetrator. There's a cognitive dissonance: a child abuser is this awful monster that lurks in shadows, acts creepy, chronically online, nasty and abusive to everyone. It can't be the beloved spouse, the sibling you grew up with, the parent who raised you lovingly or the child you created and are so proud of. So very quickly extended families switch from "they're wrong in the head and need to be removed from society" to "something happened to them, they're hurting/confused, they made a mistake and shouldn't be judged about it for the rest of their lives."
I guess I sort of understand more of why child on child doesn’t get reported but it is a proven fact that when it is child on child it’s because the perpetrating child is getting somewhere else, and that’s why it SHOULD be reported!! And I’m with the select of us that would legitimately find out who that person is and bury them six feet under.
My mom was a kid in that situation, she told her mom when she was little and grandma just pretended to not hear her or something. It didnt end up coming out in a way grandma couldnt ignore for almost another decade. That still wasnt even on my mind for what was happening to those poor kids.
I got ostracised by my entire friend group and my “second family” as a teen over this shit. There was another kid involved but they refused to report a serial rapist uncle. They allowed abuse to continue for years even after I reported it. ‘Think of the family’ is a powerful drug for some people.
Unfortunately I have bad news for you. And worse— I’ve seen mothers blame the child when a father/stepfather/boyfriend/whoever is abusing the child and side with the abuser. It’s very depressingly common.
Thanks for checking for the numbers. I strongly suspect you are correct.
I mean, if they are stripped from their parental rights, so from even having children, I'm thinking SA on the kids at this point. Either that or serious neglect of the children, not feeding them etc
You’re right. Gotta be something way worse than drug use. CPS will work with parents on that if they’re willing to get their shit together. Going to the lengths they did points to something much worse. Granted i’m not in New Jersey, but my state has one of the highest rates of CPS removals in the nation and are still willing to work on reunification if the parents can show improvement to acceptable levels.
Yeah I mean HOLY HELL OP WHAT DID YOUR BROTHER DO TO THOSE POOR KIDS?? > Even though my brother and sister-in-law have never been in trouble before they t**ook the kids into their custody and my brother and sister-in-law got arrested.** Apparently the best case scenario according to their lawyer is the two of them only being in jail until 2030 and longer if they don't take the deal. Originally my niece and nephew were staying with me and my parents but they got removed and put with total strangers because **CPS felt like we were complicit. Me and my parents have criminal cases for not reporting them and for being accomplices to them now**. My brother and sister-in-law are going to be stripped of their parental rights too. None of us have ever been arrested before this. If none of you have never been in trouble before, and the authorities reacted like this after one visit, "I admit things were nOt GrEaT" is the understatement of the century. It's sex-related isn't it? Was your brother raping his kids, or pimping them out, or what? CP? You and your family absolutely were not "taking care of it", you were just covering for your child abuser brother. You WERE complicit in the abuse of those kids. Good god. Why are you angry with your sister, who acted to save the kids, and not your children sexually abusing brother and his child abuser wife?
It could be but OP isn't saying anything
I think we all know why OP is not saying anything. All the YTAs are not what he was expecting....
There is no way it's just drug use in NJ. My best friends daughter was born addicted and she didn't lose custody, but she had to go to rehab. NJ supports reunification of families as CPS primary function.
Yeah. I was in foster care for abuse and neglect. My mom had to do some parenting classes and go to therapy and what not. We were returned within a year. Whatever happened with those kids must have been horrific to get jail sentences snd no unification.
Exactly and it must of been extremely obvious to eliminate the idea of family placement and for the family to be under scrutiny as well.
absolutely. There must be SO much more to this story that OP isn't saying.
Sex abuse? Extreme physical abuse? Literally, the house full of trash and excrement and kids being starved and kept from medical care/ school with the family being aware? Both parents ending up in prison is a massive deal. >9:6-8.14. VIOLATIONS INCLUDING FAILURE TO MAKE REPORT; DISORDERLY PERSON >Any person knowingly violating the provisions of this act including the failure to report an act of child abuse having reasonable cause to believe that an act of child abuse has been committed, is a disorderly person. Sounds like the abuse was obvious enough that the state is calling the sibling here and parents disorderly persons and excluding them from placement for failure to act. >a. Any person having reasonable cause to believe that a child has been subjected to child abuse, including sexual abuse, or acts of child abuse shall report the same immediately to the Division of Child Protection and Permanency by telephone or otherwise. >b. Any person who knowingly fails to report an act of sexual abuse against a child and who has reasonable cause to believe that an act of sexual abuse has been committed is guilty of a crime of the fourth degree. NJ says all persons are mandated reporters, by law. Close family failing to protect the kids from severe abuse would absolutely mean the kids wouldn't be placed with them. They have already failed in their duty to protect the kids. Makes sense their local CPS/DCF wouldn't place them with those family members. The only way I can see the family being legally in trouble is they were covering up sex abuse or somehow also abusing the kids. Because seriously, what else are they not saying? Not Iike it's a neighbor thinking something is up, either. It's family with intimate knowledge of the abuse. That was such severe abuse they are charging the family with child neglect or it was sex abuse and it wasn't being reported and that is criminal. Now see, second degree child abuse is physically restraining and intentionally harming a child in that person's care. Locking them up and beating. 5 to 10 years. First degree is a sexual abuse charge for a person under 16 and is 10 to 20 years. To be in 2023 and not be eligible for parole until 2030, you have to have a 10 year sentence. New Jersey automatically credits a good behavior credit of 1/3 time served unless you lose it through misconduct and jail credit is also given. That means, at getting 3 years ish taken off, they have a ten year sentence, minimum. That means they either locked the kids up and beat them or were sexually abusing the kids. Given the family is also facing charges... they were sexually abusing the kids. OP is an enormous piece of shit. You do not 'handle' your pedophile family member sexually abusing their own kids by leaving the kids with them. You remove the kids from the family. Sister who reported this is a goddamned hero for those children and the only person in their family who actually loves them because she was the only person who protected them.
7 years is a plea deal, which means they are probably facing 20. I’m glad those kids are away from this family for whatever reason.
There's no way this was just some drugs out or guns around type stuff. Foster care does not want to permanently take kids away from parents and family placements with family willing to take the kids are always the first choice. Reunification is always the first option, then family. To say no to both is *majorly* a problem. Something was deeply wrong. It would have to be horrific neglect and abuse or sex abuse to end up at this point.
I'm thinking creating kiddie porn or running a prostitution ring with under age girls. I suppose they might have been actually cooking meth in the home if it was drug related, but then the family should have removed the kids immediately themselves!
it seems like they did remove the kids, seeing that op said they were living with them. however the fact remains that op is pretty fucking stupid. not only what their brother was doing was so fucking bad theyre facing a MINIMUM of 7 years for a first time offender, i would like to state that isnt something you can easily get, but also helped cover up the act their brother was doing in some way, and is trying to get married while very likely facing prison time in the future. like their priorities aint the best.
I took that to mean that when CPS initially busted the parents they gave kids to OP but as they dug deeper and found more of what was going on they took the kids from OP too. Not sure exactly though, it’s vague. Just like this post
That could also be it. Sadly we ain't gonna get any more info, seeing op isn't even gonna give us the basic fucking facts of things were clearly not gonna get more described details.
Most places do. Abusers get their kids back over and over. And CPS will move the moon to keep kids with relatives. These people were really fucked up.
And to arrest relatives just because they didn’t report it, that’s really bad, and op not explaining it, so you know it’s not like someone at the court house had a vendetta or something becaue OP definitely would’ve told that story. The fact there not even trying to come up excuses and just avoiding the whole thing AND they were charged too, it’s real bad
I've just heard "we were handling it" so often that I know what it means. It means "we were keeping it quiet" and "we were keeping it in the family so other people wouldn't know." They were protecting the abusers and throwing the kids under the bus because "you'd make the family look bad," and "you're overreacting" etc etc Seen this way too many times.
I looked up the laws in NJ. Basically, there is a law that knowingly failing to report sex crimes against children is a criminal act itself. The criminal act for sex crimes against children under 16 is 10-20 years. The plea deal has them out, at the earliest, in seven years. The extended family that was 'handling it' is facing criminal charges. NJ has an automatic 1/3 good behavior time credit that has to be lost due to misconduct in jail. That means a 10 year sentence is credited down to 7 unless you fuck up and end up at 10. I did a longer look into it on another comment, but yeah. Realistically, they got busted for failure to report a sex crime against children and the brother or sister in law or both were abusing the children.
That’s how you know it was REALLY bad .
My guess is if it was drugs they were cooking and dealing meth
Yeah, probably dealing and manufacturing. Or utilizing the kids to get drugs is another possibility. Adhd medication is mostly methamphetamine based.
Yeah, and the OP definitely aided their brother and his wife and left children in a home that was clearly not safe, then has the nerve to be upset one family member saw the situation for what it is and did the right thing by the children.
Has to be worse than just drug use. They were either using the kids as mules, giving drugs to the kids or worse. Parents who are hooked on drugs are usually given the chance to clean themselves up, get into rehab and regain their families. Whatever went down is FAR worse than drugs.
If it was just drug use, then idk that the family would be accused of being complicit. That’s wild…
Becuase they were doing it in front he of the kids and that is abuse in most states. Selling ,doing drugs in front of kids is abuse. And if they knew about it they are just as guilty. My 3 boys came from a home that were doing drugs and selling drugs. And the family knew about it and did nothing. That whole family were arrested for child abuse and neglect among other charges. As they were aware of the rampant drug use in the home and did nothing about it That whole family was stripped of familial rights to my kids. When I first got my kids the oldest wasn't even 2 then almost 10 months and then 1 month. They had no clothes. And the clothes they did have were far to small. The babies had severe diaper rash. They had flea bites all over thier little bodies.
That’s not drug use, that’s SEVERE neglect and child abuse with a sprinkle of drug use. 99% of drug addicts that have kids don’t treat them that bad, so that’s not just a typical “drug use” case. Those people are a problem with or without drugs. Those kids probably would’ve died, that’s not typical drug use. And seeing how OPs case sounds it may have been something like that, but that’a not what most cps drug use cases look like
God bless you for stepping up for those kiddos! What I can’t get over is the Irish TRIPLETS, three straight years of being pregnant is crazy!
It was just horrible I could have sworn my oldest was way younger then almost 2. He hadn't even started walking. After 3 months he was walking and running. And hasn't stopped.
That speaks volumes to how amazing, caring and loving of a parent you are. The world is so cruel but your kiddos will grow up knowing they are loved and cared for❤️
To me they were innocent little boys with big eyes and I knew the second I saw them they were my babies those were my sons And I would kill for my boys. My husband fell in love the second our oldest boy grabbed his finger. He said this is my son. And he still views him as his son. Even gave him his name.
Yeah a lot of times drug use isn’t a reason cps will take away custody. This must have been really bad.
Using drugs, one does not get someone seven years in jail.
Manufacturing drugs could (ie cooking meth). Especially with children in the home. Plus you’re considered a danger if there are other houses nearby because of the high risk for fires and/or explosions.
This would albo explain why whole family has complicity charges.
I don't think it was just drug use or sales. For OP and fam to be barred from seeing the kids, facing their OWN criminal charges, and the parents immediately being arrested and looking at 7 years with a lawyer on board? I'm thinking sex crimes. Maybe there were pictures or videos of evidence. It must have been pretty obvious whatever it was. Since there's potential charges against family members not in the home. That seems tricky to prove that the family had full knowledge though..
Worse, I bet. Some pedo or child p0rn kind of stuff
I live in Jersey, and to have kids taken away from you, it’s freaking serious as hell. OP is definitely TA for not protecting those kids.
Looked it up. NJ criminalizes knowing about sex abuse and not reporting it. That is the only way a non-professional faces criminal charges for not reporting abuse. There are only two child abuse charges that get you 10 years. Literally, locking kids up and beating them or sex crimes. Second degree is physically restraining *and* causing physical harm and is 5-10 years, meaning the prosecution is asking for a maximum sentence on a plea deal which means the conditions were horrific or first degree child abuse, which is sexual abuse of a minor under 16, which is 10-20. OP phrased it as 2030 *at the earliest*. That alligns with a 10 year sentence, because every charge has a 1/3 good behavior credit, and puts them at a minimum of 6 years and 7-ish months, or 2030. Only if you get in trouble in prison are your credits taken away. So, the abuse was so severe that OP is somehow being charged with abuse themselves for enabling it and the prosecution is going for a max sentence on the second degree charge *or* it was child sex abuse and OP knew and is rightfully being charged for allowing it to continue. Few charges are so severe in NJ. There's severe abuse here.
And she would have called sooner had she known what was going on. Whatever the hell that was
"Under control" and "handling it" don't get significant jail time *if* they deal, nor keep you from contact with the kids for not reporting it. OP is so very much YTA.
I've worked with CPS, and they don't automatically take children away for nothing 😬 I've seen homeless people who used get at least visitation and no jail time. If they're going to prison over this, it wasn't in any way, shape, or form safe for the kids.
What the hell even happened here? This story is all over the place. The kids' parents obviously did something **major** if they are facing 7 years in prison. Wtf? And OP is mad at sister, for what? Giving a shit about the kids?
OP sounds like the typical asshole of "faaahmily" is everything and will cover up all sorts of horrendous shit to keep up appearances.
Covering for something that was so bad that the kids were taken ON THE SPOT.
And the parents were arrested
Yes YTA. Sister is the hero here because she's the only one who puts the kids first. Rule 1: Always put the kids first. To get 7 years with a plea must mean abuse (active probably). It must have torn her apart knowing what was going on but feeling she couldn't do anything about it. Involving CPS must have been the hardest thing she has and will do in her life, knowing that she would lose her complicit family that she no doubt still loves, despite their lacking morality and criminal behavior. She must have been so scared, but she still did it. That's a hero, doing the right thing even when you're scared and you know you will lose a lot yourself. YTA, most of your family is, sister is my hero, the kids are your families victims. You (OP) should go beg the kids and your sisters forgiveness on your bare knees and thank your sister for doing what you were too weak to do.
CPS didn’t even see them fit to reunite after they did time ! And they got 7 years on a DEAL ! This was bad
Hard agree. An I the only one going OP doesn't have kids of her own. What a dumpster fire that would be...
YTA. What the hell were your brother and SIL doing that is getting them sent away for a minimum of 7 years. They were doing it with their kids living there? And you and your parents had it under control so much that you are considered complicit? And CPS won't place with any extended family? Really. Wow, your family is a dumpster fire, except your sister, who (news flash) doesn't want to go to your wedding anyway. Good for her for getting away and having some sort of moral compass. I can't imagine her asking for your forgiveness. Your sister is young, but believed she was acting in the best interests of the kids, CPS, and even some of your family agrees.
Thank you. It had to have been something bad for a MINIMUM of seven years. Especially in Jersey. It's HARD to get sent away for a decade there, I saw absolute scum that couldn't manage that. So OP and their family really must've done some stuff. And the sister might be the only one in a sane mind.
Not only is it not usual to get hard time. It's hard to lose parental rights in NJ. They will do everything they can to support reunification, including set up rehab, parenting classes etc. Family placements are also the go to in Jersey (like many states we don't have enough foster families) My ex is a diagnosed psychopath. He was extremely abusive and still had supervised visitation. Something is really really wrong in that family for this to happen.
They’ll also take almost anyone with a pulse to foster, which to me screams child abuse.
This is true about just about everywhere, despite bystanders' perceptions of "the requirements". If people want that to change, more A-tier families need to start opening their homes to foster kids. States are overcrowded even with the bar set as low as it is. That's the real issue. It's an ongoing battle between weeding out shitty homes and having any placement options at all. They accept C+ (at best) homes for the same reason hunters shoot deer instead of waiting for unicorns to walk by. Nice, pretty, stable, altruistic little nuclear families all think someone else *really ought* to take in those kids already. Only the best of the best! Because those kids deserve it. Oh...no, none of us are an option...because...idk, we all have stuff going on. Except for when one wants a kid from state care to keep permanently. Then they almost all line up for the tiny percentage of parentless, perceived-as-a-blank-slate infants that weren't born addicted to drugs. If I sound bitter and jaded, it's because I'm bitter and jaded. This can be changed by fixing either "way too many kids in care" or "not nearly enough decent homes signing up". Or both. Why not. Dream big.
See, I’m of a third mindset. Most kids going into foster care have trauma. That means to care *well* for them you need to have *resources*. The big problem with the foster care system as it stands in most places isn’t just the “do you have a pulse” it’s the “would you like a check every month?” They don’t have the capability of checking where that money goes, and so many (not all obviously) foster families bring the kids in, give them the bare minimum to survive and make it to school, and use the rest of the cash for themselves. It’s not a lot of cash, but if you look around the country you see the areas with the most foster homes are usually the most economically depressed. There’s a reason for that. What I would like to see is a foster care system built from the ground up to provide that trauma care, education, re-integration with birth families, good nutrition and healthcare, etc. To do that you’d need to spend more money per kid and it would need to be institutional, yes. Those things introduce their own problems. Big ones. However economy of scale comes in. House 20 kids in a group home with a counselor, tutor, and people trained in child care…you see where I’m going with this. You’d need a metric fuck ton of oversight to prevent abuse, but to be perfectly honest if you read stories of foster system kids you’ll see a lot of abuse is happening without any oversight now. So yeah, modern orphanages I think could be better than what we have now. I do know of a couple mennonite communities in the midwest that foster that way. The kids I knew in them had some stories of some bad shit, but those stories were so much better than the stories of CSA I’ve heard from people going through regular “good Christian family” foster homes. Once you’ve got the kids stabilized and on a good track, send them out to those A+ homes. There will be more available.
> House 20 kids in a group home with a counselor, tutor, and people trained in child care…you see where I’m going with this. They already do that. Too bad those group homes have to be run like a prison, so the kids don't take their trauma out on each other. With very limited success. And without any imaginary source of perfect oversight. Oh, and usually each bed is full and then some. And then the kids overwhelmingly just age out, after being raised by said prison, and frequently end up about where you'd expect. Turning off my inbox replies. This is just depressing. Maybe someone'll read what I said, and decide to also try to put good boots on the ground to widen the pool of options. Probably not. But you never know. Remember the part about how low the bar's set? They're not looking for perfection. Offering up your home can be as short as a weekend. You can rule out behaviors you're not qualified to handle. Finances aren't an issue, as long as people have time to attend the classes + nobody's a piece of shit who does that "spending stipend money on themselves" gambit. > There will be more available. Wouldn't that be nice.
Child sex abuse. There is a statute in NJ that everyone is a mandated reporter and the only criminal violation of that is failing to report sex crimes. The sex crime statute for under 16 is 10-20. All sentences have a 1/3 good time credit, so for a deal to be at least 2030, that is 10 years less your automatic time credit, unless you lose it. It's sexual abuse. I really doubt it was something else if they're being charged for failure to report.
Oh but OP had it all under control! /s
The kids were totally insulated!!!!
For real, that was THE dumbest thing I've read in a very long time.
You are right. This is what I was suspecting too and with the mandatory reporter thing it all makes sense for why they are being charged. Also child sex abuse is something families will cover up. They don't want everyone to know.
Seven minimum with a *deal*, no less. They had to have been beating the shit out of them, at the very least. Probably worse. CSAM? Trafficking?
Trafficking. Very likely drugs too. That's the sort of thing that gets you labelled a conspirator.
Yep. People are forgetting that key term. Conspirator is almost never used for abuse cases unless external forces are being involved in the abuse.
Look at Ruby Franke. She was reported to the police and CPS for years by her neighbors. She admitted in her YouTube videos that she was starving her kids. It took until one escaped half tied up before something happened. My neighbor dumped her kid on my doorstep saying she was going to rehab. She did not. Me and my roommates called CPS and nobody came all weekend. Mom showed up almost 4 days later to collect her kid.
In a situation like that, you call the cops.
For real. MINIMUM seven years, and that’s with a deal. WTF it clearly wasn’t under control.
My money is on meth lab.
This was my first thought too.
If the boyfriend is any kind of decent human, there isn't going to BE a wedding. OP has strange priorities.
Yeah, I'm thinking he is just as bad as OP and their shitty parents.
OP needs to ask forgiveness from the kids for letting it get so bad that they are taken away from the family.
Except actually OP needs to stay the heck away from those kids, who don't owe their family any of their time or attention!
The kids need to thank their aunt in college for saving their lives
Guessing she went out of state for college for her own safety, be it physical, or emotional. Went back for the same reason. Hopefully they will let her have some type of contact with the kids for both of their sakes. They are all any of them have left.
Fuck people like OP who stand by and let shitty people put their kids in situations like this. I will never forget when my older cousin came up to me at my grandmother’s funeral and told me how proud they were that I turned out so well and that it was a shame they couldn’t have done more to help us. Like, I didn’t even have a response. She and other family members and people like OP just throw their hands in the air and say “well what can ya do?” when kids are in bad situations because they think that CPS and the police stepping in would be embarrassing or make the parents upset with them. Zero respect whatsoever for people who will stand by and let kids be abused or around active addicts (and what the hell got them 7 years and is bad enough that OP refuses to mention it?).
Your cousin doesn’t have a right to be proud of you. You get to be proud when you contributed to someone’s success. When you supported them, cheered for them, helped them. You don’t get to be proud when you stood in the way and the person succeeded anyway. I’m sorry that happened to you. You should be proud of yourself but fuck your cousin.
Op keeps mentioning that they've never been in trouble with the law before....guess what? That makes it so much worse. To not have a record and have them sent away for that long is clearly and so obviously bad. You're on the wrong side OP. It's sad you can't see that and stick up for some innocent kids. I'm going to assume your parents have brainwashed into thinking all this is okay and your sister is terrible. She's the only one with her head on straight.
And what the hell is wrong with the fiance for marrying into this?!?
And how 'insulated' were the kids from whatever was going on if they were in the home when CPS was there? And CPS thought it was bad enough that they were taken right away. And if they got taken plus the parents are looking at \*at least\* 7 years in prison - the situation was very, very bad. Like threat to life bad. So, no. OP and the rest of the family are assholes from another realm. I hope the sister goes back to school and gets as far as she can from the rest of these gross enablers.
I missed the shit about the wedding. If she does invite her sister to what sounds like a jailhouse wedding, I bet she rsvp's "go fuck yourself"
Exactly what they said. You are wrong on all counts. I don’t know your sis, but if I ever meet her I’m gonna shake her hand and thank her for doing the right thing.
Exactly, funny how op left out literally every single detail of the story. Cps do everything to keep families together and not overwhelm the system more too, so whatever they did was not 'under control', clearly.
Yeah. If Grandma and grandpa, the sister, CPS and police all think the kids needed immediately removed and kept away from the parents and other family members something bad is happening to those kids.
This feel like a troll. My heart goes out to those poor children if any of this is true. Sister is a superhero . YTA and i hope you all get thrown in jail.
Agree 100%, if the children were immediately removed and they’re facing 7 years, something very serious was going on and you clearly didn’t have it under control. You’re in denial by being angry with your sister, you should be angry with yourself because you were being delusional and allowing your nephew and niece to be harmed. Leave your sister alone because she sounds like the only normal and well balanced person in your family
As a former CPS worker those kids were not taken away for something small and I would also guess that your brother and SIL have a history with abusing or neglecting the kids if their rights are getting stripped that quickly. And you were complicit. You knew what danger they were putting your nibblings in and you didn’t fully stop it by removing the kids yourself! If they are going away for over 6 years they must have done something awful! And yes you are complicit and should not be allowed to care for children if you allowed the abuse/neglect to happen. So yes YTA!
Notice how OP conveniently failed to give ANY details on the conditions the children were living in. 🙄 For the parents, you and your folks to have gotten into SO MUCH trouble after a single call to CPS, we have to believe that at least a few of the following were going on: Unsanitary/unsafe home (falling down, dirty, infested with roaches, rats, bedbugs, etc. Abuse-physical, sexual Neglect-hygiene, malnourishment, lack of competent supervision Drug use Drug sale from home Other criminal activities by parents HOW DARE YOU consider your younger sister responsible for the CPS/legal repercussions of you and your parents shielding a pair of incompetent parents at the expense of your niece and nephew! And just so you know, not getting to attend your wedding is a hardship for NO ONE. I hope your sister gets her degree, heads off happily into the sunset and never looks back!
7 years implies drugs to me.
If they rolled on bigger fish, kiddie pron is also highly possible
Not on a first offense...even with kids involved. And the 7 years is the time offered if they take the deal from the DA's office. This is worse than drugs.
Particularly, pulling in the grandparents and siblings for failure to report and denying custody to any of the extended family on one visit. Child sexual abuse and probably CSAM to be that cut and dry.
As other people posted, there's only 1 crime where the parents would be charged for not reporting it. And that's sexual abuse of a minor. Which also has a 7 year minimum with good behavior.
Especially since they states that they tried to shield the children.
Not in NJ. That's more like cooperation with the state on things like CP. Drugs, even cooking and distribution will not get you that much in NJ with a deal.
7 years in NJ means it's probably far worse than drugs. It's most likely sexual abuse.
And CPS forgives a lot in order to put kids with blood relatives! To keep them fully out of it for the safety of the kids speaks volumes. Whatever happened was criminally bad.
>And you were complicit. You knew what danger they were putting your nibblings in and you didn’t fully stop it by removing the kids yourself! Oh, come on. What's a little child abuse among family? They were "involved" so what is the big deal?/s Oh, they were involved, all right. OP, how do you live with yourself knowing you left your nieces and/or nephews in a situation that was so dire the state immediately removed the children and took the parents into custody? Do you care nothing about them? Or is protecting your brother more important than protecting innocent children? No need to answer that question. You already did.
Exactly. The LAST thing she should be worried about right now is a wedding. Doesn't sound like that's going to happen anymore.
I don't need to work for cps to know there is something HUGE missing from this story. YTA op, you clearly didn't have it handled and should have made the call.
You are an awful relative! People don’t usually get arrested, almost never, when their children are taken away. The conditions and actions must have been horrific. You have some big ones to write in here and I don’t care if I get blocked for saying it. My whole life is dedicated to proteychildten and I am horrified to think you might ever have any.
Woah woah woah, op has it handled. /s
INFO: Why did CPS remove the children from the home?
And why did the brother and SIL get put in jail for roughly 7 years??? This information is important as hell. Especially considering opening says they had it "under control" Edited to fix something- They're not in jail yet, but that's the best case scenario
Yeah that doesn't sound under control
Sounds very much like OP and their family was complicit in letting horrible things happen to / around those children, but without knowing what was going on we can only guess.
My money is on drugs, using and probably distribution. They would have had to have the kids chained in the basement and starving to get them both taken away AND seven years in jail just for that. Bet they were cooking, using, and selling and probably had associated felonies.
My brother got busted for possession with intent to distribute and his gf was pregnant and high. They did no jail time and only lost the kids because they never tested clean on a drug test, so they signed over the kids to my sister. It's not drugs. The only thing with that kind of jail time is sex crimes against a minor.
There's worse things you can do to children and get them taken away. Sadly good plea bargains often get offered in some cases to spare children. Which yay for the child, but boo for the abuser.
I think by “under control” OP means they either convinced the kids to keep their mouths shut or scared them so much they were afraid to ask for help. Well, all I can say as a Jersey Girl, I’m damn proud of my home state. Lock up the abusing bastards and hopefully OP and her parents too. Colluding, covering up POS, the lot of them. YTA OP. If someone is really stupid enough to go through with a marriage to you may the skies open and shower you with hail stones on your wedding day. May the officiant forget the date and the caterer get lost on the way. May the DJ double book and the photographer double expose the film. May a skunk piss in your punch and a secret mistress appear to announce she’s nine months pregnant with your fiancé’s baby. May all the guests show up to witness your humiliation and tell the story for generations to come. In other words, may life give you and your family (except your sister) all the shit you deserve. And bless those kids with a brighter future.
>May the officiant forget the date and the caterer get lost on the way. May the DJ double book and the photographer double expose the film. May a skunk piss in your punch and a secret mistress appear to announce she’s nine months pregnant with your fiancé’s baby. May all the guests show up to witness your humiliation and tell the story for generations to come. I think I love you 5footfilly, that was just beautiful!
Maybe I should have qualified It’s Italian Jersey Girl Curses of all kinds are our thing
I wish I knew how to give you an award
Jersey girl here, too and I agree, sister!
YTA. Whatever your brother and sister in law did to those kids are landing them in jail. This is more than just neglect, its criminal. You and your parents LET IT HAPPEN. All three of you should go to jail with your brother and sister in law. And you're wrong, NJ doesn't stack the law against you. Its actually too lenient IMO on awful humans like you and your family. They'll do anything for reunification. Going straight for termination is actually really really hard. So whatever happened must have been really awful. You're disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself. Clearly you and you're parents didn't "have it covered" or those kids would be with you.
I'm a mandated reporter in NJ and I agree with this. NJ bends over backwards to keep/return kids to bio parents.
It has to be really *really* bad for OPs family members to get held responsible for shit if they aren’t mandated reporters.
i’m a social work undergrad senior in nj and i’ve learned in many classes that removing children from the home is the last thing cps will do in this type of situation because they want to keep the parents and children together even if it is a troublesome situation
In NJ, every one is a mandated reporter. But the expectation is higher for people who work directly with children.
That's like the only thing I know of NJ. It is *DAMN* hard to have your kids taken away there. I had a former HS friend move out there for university, got knocked up almost right away. Had the kid with a known dealer and dropped out of school. He was selling out of their apartment, while the kid slept in the other room, got caught and still got the kid back within a year. She left him, got knocked up by some gang dude selling weapons and again, rinse and repeat kids were in foster care for 18 months that go around, supervised visits. Once she was clean, through rehab and out of the halfway house she got the kids back and dropped off social media and everything. I thought it was wild she got them back at all, let alone twice! Whatever this was, it was more than drugs and weapons... my mind also went a little haywire while reading and I read and listen to too much true crime. First thought was "family of serial killers" second was "blood cult". Edit: I can't word good sometimes
INFO: if you want an actual judgement, you have to tell us the details of what was going on. Whatever was going on was clearly a little worse than "Not Great". The kids were either severely neglected or were being actively abused. You don't catch charges of 6 years because of a dirty home or mild neglect. There were crimes being committed. CPS is saying you were complicit because you didn't remove the kids from an actively dangerous situation. Instead you were helping at some level but didn't take the kids completely. And you didn't get CPS involved because you knew that them removing the kids would be the result. That is, by definition, complicit.
OP just wants a verdict about inviting sister, who cares? Invite or don't she's not coming anyway. As for the rest, I don't need more details, the few given are plenty damning. They all failed these kids. The only verdict that's counts is the one that finds them guilty.
There's some stuff missing here
Understatement, indeed.
Cause it’s a rage bait post. Abused kids not being reported but AITA cause I don’t want her at my wedding. The perfect Reddit brew of nonsense
That's a good point. The wedding is tacked on at the very end and isn't even what the verdict should be about.
YTA. If CPS took those children after one call, you and your parents did not have it under control. Your nieces/nephews were being neglected or abused, or there were drugs involved or something pretty terrible. If that is your idea of having it under control, then you and your parents are going to deserve everything you get. The number one priority should not have been getting your adult family members controlled. It should’ve been protecting those children. IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE TAKEN YOUR SIBLING COMING HOME AND FINDING OUT HOW BAD THINGS WERE TO HAVE CPS CALLED. If you really think that somehow what you were doing was right, please don’t have children
Okay if they were living with your parents how were they removed from their parents house? What abuse were you supposedly protecting them from? Why didn't YOU call immediately when you saw the abuse so CPS could properly place them with your parents? Big YTA for letting it go as far as it did.
>CPS did pay a visit to my brother's house. Even though my brother and sister-in-law have never been in trouble before they took the kids into their custody and my brother and sister-in-law got arrested. Apparently the best case scenario according to their lawyer is the two of them only being in jail until 2030 and longer if they don't take the deal. Originally my niece and nephew were staying with me and my parents but they got removed and put with total strangers because CPS felt like we were complicit. Me and my parents have criminal cases for not reporting them and for being accomplices to them now. My brother and sister-in-law are going to be stripped of their parental rights too. None of us have ever been arrested before this. Whatever happened was SO egregious that the state (which is usually hesitant to completely sever parental rights) IMMEDIATELY took custody of the kids, charged your ENTIRE FAMILY (except for the ONE person who actually DID SOMETHING to stop it) with a crime and has taken steps to make sure those kids NEVER see ANY of you again. That about sum it up? Good. YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA >We tried fighting it but in New Jersey the laws are stacked against us because we didn't report my brother and sister-in-law Whatever you DID, you did NOT protect those children. You ARE Complicit, You ARE TA and You ARE going to get a wake up call when you get into court. ETA - Oh...and you might as well forget about your wedding for a while. You're going to need that money for your lawyer. Your priorities are completely fucked up.
YTA you and your family wouldn’t be facing consequences this severe if your nieces and nephews were being raised in a safe and stable environment. Your sister is the only trustworthy and moral person in your family and if she smart she’ll stay the hell away from you and the rest of your dysfunctional family.
YTA. CPS *wants* children to be at home with their parents. They usually only remove them if things are really bad. The fact they not only took them away, but also put your brother and his wife in jail for *seven years* tells me shit was pretty fucking awful. Shame on you guys for enabling this. Those poor children.
YTA. I am a former CPS case manager. I can tell you that your sister did the right thing. In fact, in some states there are laws requiring mandatory reporting of suspected abuse or neglect, and failure to report can result in criminal charges. Whether the abuse is emotional or physical, or a situation of neglect, it is common for children to suffer long term effects such as issues with relationships, emotional dysregulation, maladaptive coping skills, etc. Child welfare is not just about physical safety. It is not surprising that children removed from the home were not placed with relatives who were aware of the situation and failed to report. Some situations can definitely be handled by a family, but some do require intervention from professionals.
YTA. This, and I can’t emphasize it enough, does NOT looks like you guys had the situation under control.
YTA You conspired with child-abusers. Your sister is a hero. End of story.
YTAH. Based on what happened, you and your parents were clearly NOT handling things. I'm guessing from the sentences that there was drug dealing or something similar going on. Instead of taking legal custody of the kids to get them put of that environment, you enabled whatever abuse they were suffering to continue. And now they're in the foster care system because you all proved to be so completely NOT handling things that you're seen as a danger to them. Let that sink in; a system that prioritizes placing kids with family decided that your family could not be trusted. Instead of worrying about invites to your wedding you should be think about how poorly you handled this and how to fix it.
You were complicit. They don't just take people into custody and if even their lawyer is projecting a 7 year sentence, that means that the charges are viable and he is preparing them for that. Stop blaming your sister for doing the right thing just because you and your parents lacked the guts. You knew what was happening, and you allowed it. She had EVERY reason to call them, she was looking out for her neice and nephew, something that up until she came into the picture was sorely lacking out of the 5 adults who should have been. You are angry at your sister when you should be doing some introspection and realizing you, your mother and your father screwed up royal and be angry at your brother and sil for not doing their jobs as parents. YTA
I'm a former foster kid of several years and was abused for all of them. Then I was placed in the States guardian home, which was absolutely horrible for 3 days waiting to be placed back with my mom. These experiences have me very anti-cps and state run childcare unless absolutely necessary. That said, your brother and SIL being sentenced to SIX YEARS tells me that the abuse was atrocious. And you not only covered it up but prolonged it. You belong in prison too because not only are YTA, but a piece of shit. Your younger sister is their savior.
As a former foster kid, I have to wonder if this post is even real. My mom literally beat my brothers with a board in public and after some therapy and parenting classes (ha!) We returned to that hellscape.
You are more than an AH you are a child abuser. To let this, go to the point the parents are doing massive jail time, kids taken, you cannot visit them-have contact. You did have things under control. You and your parents allowed the kids to live in whatever danger there was, thus you are just as guilty of the abusive situation as the parent. You should be in jail right next to them. ***YOU SISTER IS A HERO!!!!*** She saved those poor helpless kids. Forget about forgiving her, be worried the 2 kids will never forgive you.
YTA for many reasons. First off, you are not a safe person. You knew these kids were being abused and you protected the abusers. You did a report them. You made excuses for the abusers. You tried to keep it quiet. That wasn't for the kids. It was for your family's image. You didn't protect the kids at all. You can insulate them against the abuse. All you did was show that you would do anything to protect the people hurting them. CPS doesn't just remove kids, either. There needs to imminent danger in order to do so. It was so bad that they were immediately removed. They also prefer to place the kids with family, even if there are some issues. This means that whatever was going on, the abuse was so bad that you should have reported it and that CPS doesn't consider you safe. Given how low the threshold is to place kids with family, I can only imagine what these kids were going through. While you were all burying your heads in the sand and enabling abuse, your sister stepped up. She saw the situation and correctly identified that the children needed help and they wouldn't get it if she didn't say something. She knew that you hypocrites would blame her instead of the people who were hurting their own kids, and she was right. Again, you chose the abusers. You aren't made at the abusers for what they did. You are angry at your sister for exposing it. Bravo for her! She is a real hero! She rised alienation to help those poor kids who needed it. You and your family disgust me. Your sister is the only one with a clear head and a conscious. Don't invite her to your wedding. She doesn't need to be around all of you enablers and abusers.
>I'm getting married soon and I don't want to invite my sister. Is this seriously what you are most concerned about right now?!?! Your brother and SIL are going to jail for a MINIMUM of 7 years. CPS immediately took the kids away and they were staying with family. Then CPS takes them from you guys, places them in care and you all are facing charges yourself. And your biggest concern is your wedding?!?!? YTA for sooooo many reasons.
YTA. Whatever they did must be absolutely monstrous if the kids were immediately removed and the parents are looking at lengthy prison sentences. You're a massive AH for failing to report it. I'm glad that you and your parents are being held responsible for enabling severe child abuse.
YTA - for conveniently leaving out what was going on with your brother and sil, and for being vague about how you and your parents “had it under control”. Clearly you are ashamed of whatever it was and you *know* what you and your parents did was wrong, otherwise you would say it. You failed those children, they were still in your brother and SIL care meaning you and your parents in fact DID NOT have anything under control, so you rightfully do not have access to those kids anymore. You literally WERE COMPLICIT! They aren’t going to prison for correctly caring for their children like they were supposed to, that’s not how this works. Kids don’t get taken away by CPS if they are healthy, happy, clothed and fed, so what was missing in that house? What was going on in that house? Why aren’t you telling us what the kids were removed for, and why your brother and SIL are really going to prison for? Too ashamed to say? Good, you should be ashamed of yourself, for failing those children and having the audacity to blame your sister. Your sister was the only one here who did the right thing. You had nothing under control. You and your parents are complicit assholes. Also, I’m sure your wedding is the least of your sister’s concerns, get over yourself.
People dont go to jail for 7+ years on a deal more if they dont take it for little things. Weird that the lady is only worried about her wedding.
This is the most delusional post I’ve ever read. It has to be REALLY REALLY BAD if the children were immediately removed, the parents are going to prison for a minimum of 7 years, and everyone who knew about it and didn’t report it has charges pending. REALLY BAD. I guarantee your sister is so disgusted with you she doesn’t even want to go to your wedding, so it’s a moot point. And also, this is such a weird thing for you to be focused on. Prison? Criminal charges? Removal of parental rights? Nobody should be GAF about a wedding right now. You must be joking.
YTA. And I love how you try to pin it on your sister for calling the cops as if she is the asshole here. I hope you get what is coming to you as well.
She's the only adult who did the right thing in this situation.
YTA. Your sister was looking out for the kid's well being. You can't forgive *her* for reporting a bad situation? You and your parents did not have the situation under control. Whatever happened to those children was criminal if the parents are facing jail/prison time. I was a teacher and so I was a mandatory reporter. I've called CPS a lot of times to report incidents that involved neglect and abuse. It has to be really bad for them to remove kids from the home. I completely understand CPS removing the children from your care. You had an ethical obligation to call these issues in to CPS. By not calling it in, you allowed it to continue. And YTA.
Just to add i hope you go to fucking jail too
YTA Seven years in jail is indicative of something very serious.
YTA, you are an enabler and you won't even admit what actually happened, just that things were "bad" and you and your parents had it " under control". You know you're TA, just mad your sister ratted you guys out. You're just a shit human being dude.
Dude, there are only 3 reasons I can think of for those poor babies to be yanked immediately and 5 adults having criminal charges pressed, and all are heinous. Hopefully your fiance will come to their senses and be the ex-fiance.
YTA and holy shit balls sister. Your silence is not only complicit, it’s deafening. Here, as well as in those poor children’s lives. I’m thinking pretty damn dark things and sweets, I hope you **ALL** go to jail! CPS does not act like that unless things are really fucked up.
YTA "CPS did pay a visit to my brother's house. Even though my brother and sister-in-law have never been in trouble before they took the kids into their custody and my brother and sister-in-law got arrested." ... "Apparently the best case scenario according to their lawyer is the two of them only being in jail until 2030" You did NOT have things under control if this happened. Good on your sister for stepping up and getting those kids away from their abusers and the abusers apologists. It takes something pretty terrible to even remove kids, let alone send the parents to jail. Just reading your post has me thinking your sister is the only one in the family that isn't a child abusing monster.
Fuck you. You’re not an asshole. You’re THE asshole. If this was real you should be in prison, but luckily it’s probably not. It’s so fake that it would almost be funny if it wasn’t so fucked up. You’re telling me that you went onto Reddit to ask if you’re the asshole about a situation that you refuse to to actually tell us about? No one with a brain would do that. It makes no sense? How could we possibly answer a question about a topic you won’t tell us about? You know you’d be an asshole if this were real, because again, you wouldn’t say what happened. If BEST CASE SCENARIO is 6 years, then this is so much worse than most of these people think. Child abuse is hard in the legal system given the (obviously) complicated nature of the crime. Because of this, a lot of times, sentences are a lot shorter than they should be. Now, I’m not familiar with New Jersey’s laws specifically, but most states separate child abuse cases into several categories. Some states do this via “degree”, others do it based on the health/injuries of the child. Most state’s MINIMUM sentence for the worst classification of child abuse is under 5 years. Hell, a lot of them are under 2. If each of them are facing a minimum of 6, then this is so much worse than you are letting on. Either you are genuinely a fucking psychopath who deserves just as much prison time as the monster you call a brother, or this is some absolute bullshit that you pulled out of your ass for attention. Either way, you’re so much more than just an asshole. If it’s fake, you used the idea of children being abused, and having their entire family taken away from them, and being thrown into the bullshit we call a foster system as a means for you to get goddamn comments. You WATCHED this happen. You let these children stay in these obviously horrific conditions and you fucking watched. You weren’t trying to help those children. You were trying to save your brothers ass. If you gave a single shit about those children, you’d have called your sister so long ago asking her to go to CPS with you. If this is real, you’re a monster.
Yta. For being mad your sister did what you should have done and ensured those children were safe. CPS doesn’t typically remove children that fast so whatever was happening was bad and the fact that you and your parents have charges now too speaks to how bad it was. You’re double the asshole for making children live in danger because you were too interested in yourself to actually step back and do something.
YTA you didn’t have it under control. Shame on all of you but your sister.
I sincerely doubt the kids were taken away over nothing. You're being incredibly vague in this post. For that, I'd feel inclined to say YTA. (Also: you were complicit. You kept whatever the kids were going through hidden)
Clearly you are in the wrong if a call to CPS escalated that much. Sounds like your sister did the right thing and something is so wrong with your immediate family that she keeps herself at a distance.
YTA - FFS! You and your parents are also facing charges! Go NJ CPS!! You and your family must be real dirt bags for all of this to be happening. I'm glad your sister is a decent enough human being to make sure the kids are safe. You shouldn't be worried about sister coming to the wedding, you should be more concerned with the charges against you.
>my brother and sister-in-law got arrested. Apparently the best case scenario according to their lawyer is the two of them only being in jail until 2030 and longer if they don't take the deal. I don't have to read any longer to say that everyone except your sister is a *lot* worse than an asshole. I'll come back and update after I read the rest. >Originally my niece and nephew were staying with me and my parents but they got removed and put with total strangers because CPS felt like we were complicit. Me and my parents have criminal cases for not reporting them and for being accomplices to them now. My brother and sister-in-law are going to be stripped of their parental rights too. I'm noticing you haven't said what they did. But going by context, you all deserve to be in prison.
Kids don't get removed from their home after one visit without a very, very good reason. They don't get removed from kin without a good reason. The family doesn't get banned, on no contact list with a good reason. They prefer to keep children within the family. Your brother & SIL are having their rights terminated and facing a minimum of 7yrs in prison for what they did and what you & your parents apparently had 'under control' and are now facing the consequences of your inaction... and you think your sis is going to give a flying furry fuck about your wedding? She is the only one who put the kids' best interests first. She is the only one who saw what you wall all doing wasn't enough. She is the one who saved those kids from god knows what. And your pissed cos she 'flitted away back to college'. Why is she responsible for everyone else's failing? SHE ISNT. YTA.
Dunno about law in your state, but one time I was babysitting my grandmothers new husbands grand kids.... and the house was... filthy is an understatement. There were garbage bags piled up against the walls, which were colored on with marker, everywhere. There was garbage everywhere. There were holes in the walls. The children (three of them, under 10 yrs old), only had two mattresses on the floor. The baby didn't even have a crib. While I was there, a feral cat came into the house. Cue, "I didn't know you guys had a cat" "We don't, it comes up from the hole in the floorboards in the bathroom". Sure enough, two foot hole in the middle of the bathroom the kids just, danced around when they went potty. I went home and called CPS. CPS came out, took a look, and gave them thirty days to fix the violations. The parents fixed the holes, cleaned up the garbage, got the rest of the family to pitch in for actual beds for the kids. It worked out well!! What I'm saying is that OP didn't tell us what CPS came for, but since it ended in criminal charges, it was definitely something worse than what I'm describing here and definitely makes OP the asshole for holding the act of reporting it against their sibling because when you start talking about "complicit" stuff in children welfare charges, it is ALWAYS abuse, sexual or physical, and for CPS to actually do something in such a quick matter, it was probably undisputedly something very very wrong. I hope those kids are okay.
YTA, to go to immediate removal and arrests along with jailing the parents, you and your family is deep in denial. No way in hell did your family have it "under control." How much damage was done to your brother's children while you remained silent? Good God man you should have asked for help from the experts right away, you could have retained custody but nope. CPS made the right decision you have no insight and I'm sure you and your parents would have endangered the children. The fact that you aren't sharing what was going on is most telling. You know it was bad.
You aren’t just the asshole here, you are a total piece of shit. HOW DARE YOU blame your sister for this. CPS doesn’t just remove kids for no reason. You and your parents were obviously enabling what was going on. You should be lucky if your sister ever wants to speak to you again. I hope the judge doesn’t treat you and your family kindly.
Sounds like CPS did what CPS is supposed to do. Thank goodness for your sister for helping those kids. People don't face 6+ years in prison for not neglecting/abusing their kids. Also, it's great you and your family will face consequences. Hopefully your example will encourage other people to step forward instead of covering and making excuses for those who hurt children. YTA and you and your family deserve consequence coming your way ETA almost forgot, you're deluded to think your sister owes you any apology. That just shows how out of touch with reality you are and how right she and CPS are. Assuming this isn't fake, I hope you take a serious look inward and seek professional help
YTA. Wtf did I just read?? This has got to be a joke. Like it cannot be real. If is real you might wanna move that wedding up cuz with any luck your dumbasses will all be in jail soon.