OLYMPIA — The state Department of Social and Health Services will pay $2.1 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed in the case of a 3-year-old boy killed by his mother’s boyfriend.
In Thursday’s settlement in Pierce County Superior Court, the department admits no wrongdoing in the 2008 beating death of Michael Kekoa Ravenell and severe abuse of his younger sister by Noah Thomas.
The boy’s father says the state ignored numerous warnings.
Michael Ravenell says he reported suspected abuse to DSHS, alerting social workers to suspicious marks and bruising on his son’s body.
Thomas pleaded guilty in 2009 to beating and strangling the boy, and throwing him against a wall and furniture, including a metal bed railing. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
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