In the Int. of: I.B., Appeal of: T.B.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania·Decided August 9, 2021·No. 136 WDA 2021·Unpublished

Opinion

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

IN THE INTEREST OF: I.B., A MINOR : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA

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APPEAL OF: T.B., FATHER :

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: No. 136 WDA 2021

Appeal from the Order Entered January 11, 2021 In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County Orphans' Court at No(s): CP-02-AP-0000199-2019

BEFORE: LAZARUS, J., MURRAY, J., and COLINS, J.* MEMORANDUM BY LAZARUS, J.: FILED: AUGUST 9, 2021 T.B. (Father) appeals from the trial court’s order involuntarily terminating his parental rights to his minor son, I.B. (Child) (born 10/2017). After careful review, we affirm.

Child was placed in Father’s care by the Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families (CYF), after being released from the hospital following his birth in October of 2017. A.C. (Mother)1 had given birth to Child

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 Mother has also filed an appeal from the court’s order terminating her parental rights to Child. Mother’s appeal is docketed at 183 WDA 2021. Because the factual circumstances underlying termination were different in each case, we have not consolidated the appeals.

while she was incarcerated2 for theft at Allegheny County Jail. In November of 2017, CYF received three reports regarding Father; for each incident, CYF reported to Father’s home and addressed each of the allegations with him. N.T. Termination Hearing, 12/18/20, at 14. The third report involved a deceased man being discovered in Father’s home, when neither Father nor Child were present. Father reported to CYF that the decedent was a friend who had fatally overdosed on drugs in his home. Id. at 15. As a result of that incident, CYF implemented crisis in-home services to offset removal of Child from Father’s care. Id.

On December 15, 2017, Child was removed from Father’s home after police executed a search warrant at the residence and found people in Father’s home under the influence of heroin with Child present and recovered several stamp bags of heroin from the home. Id. at 15-16, 80. Father was arrested and, after being read his Miranda3 rights, told the police “[he] quit selling two weeks ago.” Id. at 80-81. In January of 2018, Father was ordered to undergo a drug and alcohol evaluation and comply with random urine screens. Order, 1/16/18. On March 29, 2018, Father was arrested again after police

discovered heroin and cocaine in a vehicle in which Father was a passenger.

2 Upon her release from prison, Mother was scheduled to be discharged to a

90-day inpatient drug treatment program where she was not permitted to have custody of Child. See N.T. Termination Hearing, 10/23/20, at 12.

3 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).

N.T. Termination Hearing, 12/18/20, at 80-82.4 An additional eight bundles of heroin were recovered from a subsequent search of Father’s residence. Id. at 83-84. On July 10, 2018, Father pled guilty to one count of possession of a controlled substance,5 resulting from the 2017 raid on his home, and one count of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance,6 as a result of his 2018 arrest. In August of 2018, the court ordered Father to secure stable, safe housing and limited his visits with Child to unsupervised, community visits. Order, 8/9/18.

From the time of Child’s removal, CYF had concerns regarding Father’s association with drugs and drug users in his home. N.T. Termination Hearing, 12/18/20, at 46. Father was not permitted to have unsupervised visits with Child in his home due to ongoing concerns that he was allowing people to use drugs there. Id. at 73. Mother reported to Neil Rosenblum, Ph.D., a psychiatric expert, that she had overdosed in Father’s home in November of 2018. See Report of Neil Rosenblum, Ph.D., 2/28/19, at 3. The court’s continued concern about Father’s drug involvement was also based upon the observations by Father’s CYF visit supervisor, Kristina Scott, and his Project STAR parenting coach, Coach Kirk Thoma. During one visit, Coach Thoma

observed Father answer his phone and tell the caller, “I’ll get the money to

4 Ten bundles of heroin were recovered from the driver.

A Ziploc bag of crack

cocaine and $591.00 were found on Father’s person. Id. at 83.

5 35 P.S. § 780-113(a)(1).

6 35 P.S. § 780-113(a)(30).

you after my visit with my son.” N.T. Termination Hearing, 10/23/20, at 127- 29. During coached parenting sessions, Father would frequently talk to Coach Thoma about money. One conversation included discussing an Audi that Father had recently purchased in cash. Id. at 130 (Q: “[I]f we’re talking about just [F]ather talking about money, [F]ather recently purchased a ca[;] It’s an Audi and he told me what he had paid for it in cash. Q.

And what did [F]ather admit to you? A: For the car he paid $24,000 in cash.”). Coach Thoma also testified that Father told him “numerous times” that he “traded taking drugs and he became addicted more to the money of selling drugs[.]” Id. at 131. Father also mentioned to Dr. Rosenblum that he enjoyed the “financial gains” of selling drugs. Id. at 55.

Both Coach Thoma and Ms. Scott were concerned about the frequent visitors to Father’s home and the numerous phone calls Father would receive during visits and coaching sessions. Ms. Scott reported that Father received as many as twenty phone calls during his visits with Child and that between August of 2018 and April of 2019, there were approximately eighteen incidents of people knocking on Father’s door during a visit. Id. at 91-92. When Father did not answer the door, these individuals “would go around the back of the home and knock on the window.” Id. at 91.

Although the number of visitors to Father’s home decreased after he moved to a new neighborhood in May of 2019, Father continued to receive concerning phone calls and visitors during supervised visits with Child and his parent coaching sessions. N.T. Termination Hearing, 12/18/20, at 92.

Between May of 2019 and October of 2020, approximately one dozen visitors came to Father’s new residence during parent coaching sessions. Id., 10/23/20, at 124. According to Coach Thoma, at least two individuals appeared regularly at Father’s new home: a “younger” man, who began visiting in early July of 2019, and an “underweight and very pale” woman, who “didn’t have a very healthy overall look about her.” Id. at 124-27. In one instance, which Coach Thoma found “kind of weird,” this woman interrupted a parent coaching session, ostensibly to use Father’s phone. Id. During a home assessment on August 7, 2019, a CYF caseworker observed a “very thin” woman sitting on Father’s bed who was “significantly younger than him[,] which is the dynamic between him and [Child’s] mom.” Id., 12/18/20, at 70. When the caseworker expressed her concerns to Father, he said the woman was “just a friend.” Id.

Father also continued to receive an inordinate number of phone calls during visits after moving to his new residence. Coach Thoma testified that generally, during sessions with Father:

There were countless, countless phone calls. Father would usually say they’re robo[t] phone calls, but not always, and there were times when he did answer and would get mad at the person or persons because he would explain to them that he was in the middle of a visit and that he could talk to them afterwards, but there were many, many phone calls throughout all the visits.

Id. at 127.

On November 9, 2019, CYF filed a petition to involuntarily terminate Father’s parental rights to Child pursuant to 23 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 2511(a)(2), (5),

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In the Int. of: I.B., Appeal of: T.B., (Pa. Ct. App. 2021).

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