Filed 8/24/23 In re K.L. CA2/8

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

In re K.L., a Person Coming 

Under the Juvenile Court Law.

______________________________

LOS ANGELES COUNTY 

DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN 

AND FAMILY SERVICES,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

D.L.,

Defendant and Appellant.

B315137

Los Angeles County Superior 

Court No. 21CCJP01727A

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of 

Los Angeles County, Kristen Byrdsong, Commissioner. Affirmed.

Law Offices of Arthur J. LaCilento and Arthur J. LaCilento 

for Defendant and Appellant.
2

Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy, 

Assistant County Counsel, and Veronica Randazzo, Deputy 

County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

____________________

A father challenges jurisdictional findings and a 

dispositional order stemming from allegations he sexually abused 

his young daughter. We affirm. Substantial evidence supports 

the findings and order. Undesignated statutory references are to 

the Welfare and Institutions Code.

In April 2021, the Los Angeles County Department of 

Children and Family Services filed a section 300 petition on 

behalf of the child, then five years old. The petition detailed 

incidents of the father’s abuse and claimed the child was at risk 

of serious physical harm and sexual abuse. The petition also 

asserted the child’s mother knew or should have known of the 

father’s abuse but failed to protect the child. 

The juvenile court sustained the petition and removed the 

child from the father’s custody in September 2021. The court 

found credible the child’s consistent statements about the father’s 

abusive conduct. 

Recently, the court terminated jurisdiction and entered a

custody order awarding the mother sole legal and physical 

custody of the child and granting the father visitation. We take 

judicial notice of these orders. 

We reach the father’s jurisdictional challenge because the 

court’s findings paved the way for the removal order and could 

affect future family law proceedings. (See In re D.P. (2023) 14 

Cal.5th 266, 276–278 [order remains subject to challenge where it 

affects parental custody rights or results in dispositional orders 

that adversely affect a parent].)
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We do not reach the jurisdictional findings against the 

mother because the father does not attack them separately and 

because the mother abandoned her appeal. 

We review jurisdictional findings and dispositional orders 

for substantial evidence. Substantial evidence is credible 

evidence that is reasonable in nature and of solid value. (In re 

V.L. (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th 147, 154 (V.L.).) We indulge 

reasonable inferences and resolve conflicts in favor of the 

findings, examine the record in the light favorable to the juvenile 

court’s determinations, and refrain from credibility 

determinations. (Ibid.; In re R.T. (2017) 3 Cal.5th 622, 633 

(R.T.).) 

A higher standard governs review for orders removing a 

child, which require clear and convincing evidence at the juvenile 

court. (See § 361, subd. (c).) We ask whether the record contains 

substantial evidence from which a reasonable fact finder could 

have found it highly probable that the fact was true. (V.L., supra, 

54 Cal.App.5th at pp. 149, 154–155.)

For the father, the relevant jurisdictional provision is 

section 300, subdivision (d). This subdivision authorizes 

jurisdiction if a child has been sexually abused by a parent or 

there is a substantial risk of this abuse. Sexual abuse includes

molesting a child, committing lewd or lascivious acts upon a 

child, and intentionally touching a child’s intimate parts (or the 

clothing over them) for purposes of sexual arousal or 

gratification. (§ 300, subd. (d); Pen. Code, §§ 11165.1, subds. (a) 

& (b)(4).) Sexual abuse does not include acts that “may 

reasonably be construed to be normal caretaker responsibilities; 

interactions with, or demonstrations of affection for, the child; or 
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acts performed for a valid medical purpose.” (Pen. Code, 

§ 11165.1, subd. (b)(4).)

The record satisfies section 300, subdivision (d). The child 

consistently disclosed that her father rubbed her vagina over her 

clothes, it felt good, she wanted to rub a classmate’s private part 

because of what the father had done to her, and she was not to 

tell the mother about the touching. 

We detail this evidence.

The child’s teacher reported the abuse to the Department 

on April 9th, 2021. According to the teacher, the child kicked a 

male classmate in his private area. The teacher spoke with the 

child, who said she kicked the boy there “ ‘to make him feel good 

like daddy.’ ” The child demonstrated how the father touched her 

by holding up three fingers and moving them in circles on her 

vagina. This was their “ ‘little secret.’ ” The child also reported 

the father had her touch his “peeker,” it felt yucky and funny, 

and it made him feel good. Afterward, the father would tell her 

he loves her and she is cute. 

The teacher followed up with the child later in the day. 

The child confirmed the father rubbed her private area. She said 

she liked “to play that game because it feels like she is flying in 

the sky.” The child “demonstrated how she opens her legs wide to 

show how she opens her legs when her father[ ] rubs her private 

area with three fingers.” The teacher believed the child. The 

teacher also believed the incident was recent, as she recently 

noticed the child hugged boys more and wanted to kiss them, and 

the child started touching herself while she slept. A while back 

the child said her vagina hurt, and she “was really red and itchy.” 

Later in the day of the referral, the child told police her 

father touches her private parts while she has underwear on; 
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then he tells her he loves her. The child showed how the father 

touched her by placing her palm against her vagina. She said her 

father sometimes used a spoon or a spatula to touch her. 

According to the child, the father told her not to tell her mother 

because the mother would get mad. 

The child confirmed to a social worker that she wanted to 

rub her classmate’s private parts and that her father touched her 

private parts. She said, “ ‘He rubs me round and round because 

it’s fun for me.’ ” The child demonstrated how the father touched 

her by rubbing a stuffed animal between its legs in a circular 

motion. She said she wore clothes when her father touched her. 

The father did it because she liked it, the child reported, and he 

told her it was okay if someone touches her private part. He 

asked her to keep “the rubbing” a secret. 

The child had a forensic interview later in April 2021. She 

confirmed she “was just trying to rub” her classmate’s private 

part and she thought about it because of her father “rubbing me 

in my private. . . . Daddy rubs me in my private and feels like I’m 

on the beach.” He used his hands and a spatula to do this, she 

said. The child reported her father’s hand tickles her privates 

over her clothes and it feels great. She demonstrated how the 

father moved his fingers in an up and down/back and forth 

motion. The father would say: “ ‘I love you . . .and I like tickling 

you.’ ” 

During a forensic examination near the end of April, the 

child told a nurse she tried to rub her friend’s private part. She 

reported her father “ ‘touched me here (patient grabs genital 

area) with his hand and spatula in the kitchen.’ ” 

In May 2021, the child told another social worker she 

wanted to rub her friend’s “private.” 
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The investigating detective who took the case after the 

initial police report believed the child, and he believed her 

statements were consistent. He planned to submit the case to the 

District Attorney’s office. 

Finally, in July 2021, the child testified she wanted to rub 

her classmate’s private part because “it feels like the beach every 

time when daddy does it to me.” 

This is substantial evidence the father sexually abused the 

child. (See § 300, subd. (d).) And from this evidence, a

reasonable trier of fact could have found it highly probable the

child would remain at risk of harm if returned to her father’s care 

and no reasonable means short of removal could protect her. (See 

§ 361, subd. (c)(1); V.L., supra, 54 Cal.App.5th at pp. 156–157.)

At the juvenile court, the father denied any wrongdoing—

until he refused to answer questions on the advice of counsel. He 

painted his child as imaginative and unbelievable. He did not 

enroll in “any services or programs to address the issues of this 

case.” These actions signal the father lacked the willingness or 

ability to change his behavior such that alternatives to removal 

(like in home services) would be ineffective. And while the father 

maintains on appeal that there was a “strong support system” in 

the family home, the supporters he identified—the mother and 

her father—apparently were unwilling or unable to view the 

father as an offender. 

The father says the juvenile court erred in believing the 

child. He essentially argues the child’s statements against him 

are entitled to no weight because she included fantastical details 

and contradicted herself, and because an interviewer was 

suggestive. For example, the child told police she had a snoring 

tiger in her attic, and she told the forensic interviewer the 
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father’s spatula looked like a black cat. The father notes various 

people said the child had a vivid or active imagination. 

The juvenile court reasonably concluded the child’s April 

2021 statements were credible and imagination did not explain 

them. The child provided a consistent outline of her father’s 

actions at each telling that month, and she described realistic 

acts using words consistent with her age. 

It is true, during her testimony, the child ultimately denied 

anyone touched her private areas. But this happened after she 

spontaneously acknowledged the father’s touching, as we 

recounted above. And it happened after the child acknowledged 

the judge would decide whether her father could return home. 

The child thus underscored a reason this testimony was less 

credible than her previous reports. The juvenile court rationally 

determined the consistent nature of the child’s initial reports—

which were made close in time to the referral, to at least five 

different people, before the child learned of any effect of her 

statements—made them more credible. 

Later in the investigation, the child refused to answer 

questions about any touching and shut down when asked about 

the abuse, so her therapist stopped discussing the allegations for 

a period. Then by August 2021, the child told her therapist 

“ ‘nobody unsafe touches me, nobody means nobody!’ ” These 

actions and comments similarly did not render the child’s initial, 

consistent statements unreliable. It made sense that the child 

grew guarded and even hostile weeks and months after her 

father had to leave the family home. The child missed her father, 

wanted him home, and was “very upset that no one listens to her 

and brings her Daddy back home from work.” The child’s retreat 

from her initial reporting was understandable, as she seemed to 
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connect this reporting to her father’s absence. The juvenile court 

reasonably could conclude this retreat signaled the child would be 

unlikely to report future abuse. The court also reasonably could 

give little weight to the therapist’s remarks in August 2021 that 

she did not observe “any behaviors that indicate abuse” or 

“troubling warning signs of sexual abuse.” 

The father complains a social worker was biased against 

him and omitted exculpatory evidence from Department reports. 

This witness’s failure to recall details of various reports and 

interviews at trial, and her failure to do the follow-up the father 

desired in hindsight, did not show bias. 

As for the Department’s reports, the detention report noted 

the initial police investigation was inconclusive and would be 

referred for further investigation; it included the father’s denials; 

it noted the mother’s, grandfather’s, and a neighbor’s shock or 

disbelief regarding the allegations; and it attached the police 

report. The jurisdiction report followed up with the new detective 

who took on the case; it attached service logs showing the initial 

police investigation was inconclusive; it incorporated the text of 

the police report and attached this report; it attached the forensic 

examination report; it twice noted the child did not disclose the 

father’s touching until one hour and 22 minutes into the forensic 

interview, and it referred the court to the disk of this interview; it 

documented the child’s and the father’s later refusals to answer 

questions about the allegations; it recorded when the child was 

untruthful (she made up a cousin); and it noted several times the 

child generally was happy and healthy. One Last Minute 

Information stated the father’s monitored visits were going well 

with no reported concerns; another highlighted recent 

information from the child’s therapist that helped the father, and 
9

it attached the therapist’s letter. The juvenile court 

appropriately consulted these reports and appropriately 

considered the social worker’s testimony. 

The father attacks the juvenile court’s reliance on the 

forensic interview. But the father did not object when the court 

admitted the interview transcript into evidence. And there is no 

transcript in our record to check the father’s claims. Even if 

there were, these claims boil down to an improper request that 

we reweigh the evidence.

The father maintains the Department’s case was 

insufficient because the Department did not identify dates, times, 

and other circumstances of the abusive acts. The information, 

however, came from a five-year-old. 

The father implies the mother’s testimony was more 

credible than his daughter’s statements. We may not reevaluate 

witness credibility or reweigh the evidence. (See R.T., supra, 

3 Cal.5th at p. 633; see also V.L., supra, 54 Cal.App.5th at pp. 

154, 156, 157 [appellate court views the evidence favorably to the 

respondent and disregards conflicting evidence].) 

Moreover, any discounting or skepticism of the mother was 

reasonable. The mother told a social worker she believed the 

daughter and feared the father could be grooming her for 

intercourse; then at trial, she tried to clarify her comments to the 

social worker and testified in support of the father. The mother 

attributed the child’s issues to potty training problems and

testified she applied ointment to address the child’s irritated 

private parts using a tongue depressor or a disposable applicator. 

But as far as we can tell, the child never discussed touching by 

the mother. Instead, the child repeatedly mentioned rubbing of 

her private part by the father, while she was clothed. 
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DISPOSITION

We affirm the jurisdictional findings and dispositional 

order. 

WILEY, J.

We concur: 

STRATTON, P. J. 

VIRAMONTES, J.