Note: Cross posted from [wp angelfury] A Human Rights Issue-Custodial Justice.

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Assigned to check abuse, social worker impregnates client

Kristyna Wentz-Graff

Theola Nealy of Milwaukee sits on the bed of her 5-year-old daughter, Amy, who no longer lives with her. Her daughter and son were removed from her custody. Another daughter, 1, fathered by social worker Peter Nelsen, is now in Nelsen’s custody. The Milwaukee County district attorney’s office is reviewing the case.

By Crocker Stephenson of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Aug. 27, 2009

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Kristyna Wentz-Graff

Peter J. Nelsen arrives at the Milwaukee County Courthouse Friday for a hearing on a restraining order against him by Theola Nealy.

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Fatal Care: Fostering reform in child welfare

For complete archived coverage of the story of the death of 13-month-old Christopher L. Thomas Jr. and its catalyst for change in the child welfare bureau, click here.

A state social worker who investigated a report of child abuse for the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare later had sex with the child's emotionally troubled mother and impregnated her. He then hid the woman's pregnancy and the birth of their daughter from the bureau, even as the mother sought to retain custody of two other children, the Journal Sentinel has learned.

The 56-year-old social worker, Peter J. Nelsen, was allowed to resign from the bureau April 15, according to bureau records.

Within months of his resignation, the bureau removed the 1-year-old girl from her mother and placed her in Nelsen's home. The other children - a 5-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy - also had been removed.

Nelsen is now seeking sole custody of the 1-year-old.

"Everything that I love is gone," said the 31-year-old mother, Theola Nealy.

Nealy was sit