Family members of Malinda Hoagland, a 12-year-old Chester County girl who allegedly died after years of abuse and torture at the hands of her father and his girlfriend, have filed a federal lawsuit against Upper Dublin School District among other entities, NBC10 reported.
The suit alleges wrongful death, violations of the State-Created Danger Doctrine and “overall egregious negligence and recklessness” in connection with charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy, kidnapping and aggravated assault, among hundreds of other counts against her father, Rendell Hoagland, and her stepmother, Cindy Warren (pictured above).
The suit, which was filed on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia by Hoagland’s half-sisters Emily Lee, Jamie and Abbey Hoagland, also includes Chester County, Chester County Children, Youth & Families, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the County of Monroe, Monroe County Office of Children & Youth, the Coatesville Area School District, North Brandywine Middle School, and Horace S. Scott Middle School.
“There is no doubt the criminal prosecution will bring about justice for Rendell Hoagland and Cindy Warren’s unlawful and unconscionable acts. But that is only one avenue of justice aiming to hold the perpetrators of this horrendous torture and killing accountable,” the sisters’ attorney Tom Bosworth said in a statement. “The civil claims seek to ensure that full and complete accountability will be achieved for the heinous actions of the educators, case workers, and institutions who all failed Malinda miserably. The imposition of punitive damages is necessary to not only punish these defendants for their reckless conduct, but also as a deterrent so nothing like this ever happens again.”
According to Daily Local News, Hoagland died on May 4 at Paoli Hospital after she was “chained to a pool table in the family’s West Caln home, starved of food, and forced to do stressful calisthenics.”
She weighed 50 pounds and had numerous injuries and medical conditions that were “highly specific to physical abuse” when she was admitted to a hospital before her death.
According to a criminal complaint, hospital staff told investigators that her condition “alarmed them and that (her) physical appearance should ‘not occur in this country.’” Investigators were able to recover videos from Blink cameras that reportedly showed Hoagland and Warren abusing the girl.
They each face a preliminary hearing on Thursday, August 29, according to the article. Chester County’s District Attorney has stated that his office will seek the death penalty.
Photos: Chester County District Attorney