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As part of a deal with prosecutors, a former child welfare supervisor who oversaw multiple child removals using a document later deemed unlawful has pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors related to his role.Last year, a Cherokee County grand jury indicted three current and former Department of Social Services employees, including David Hughes, a former Child Protective Unit supervisor at Cherokee County DSS, on more than three dozen felony and misdemeanor charges. Hughes and his colleagues separated families using what they called a Custody and Visitation Agreement. While it looked like a legal document, two judges ruled the CVA did not carry the force of law and said the child separations were unlawful.In exchange for truthful testimony “in any proceeding,” the state dropped 10 felony obstruction-of-justice charges against Hughes....Along with Hughes, the grand jury indicted former Cherokee County DSS Director Cindy Palmer, who is currently the DSS business officer. She faces two felony obstruction-of-justice charges ...The grand jury also indicted former DSS attorney Scott Lindsay on 20 felony obstruction-of-justice charges ......Typically, parents and children are both represented by their own counsel, and a judge must sign off on any permanent custody arrangements. But that didn’t happen in CVA cases. Instead, social workers used the documents to close child welfare cases quickly without judicial oversight. DSS workers testified in May that they used CVAs to close “stuck cases,” in which they had difficulty building up enough evidence for a judge to agree to remove a child from what the social worker thought was a dangerous situation.
