Washington woman who lost custody of adoptive daughter due to medical abuse claims sues hospital

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Washington mom sues Seattle Children’s Hospital for allegedly falsely accusing her of medically abusing her daughter

Sophie Hartman, a Washington woman and the adoptive mother of two young biological half-sisters from Zambia, was charged in 2021 with medically abusing the younger of the two girls.

Sophie Hartman, a Washington woman and the adoptive mother of two young biological half-sisters from Zambia, was charged in 2021 with medically abusing the younger of the two girls, allegedly subjecting her to about 470 medical appointments over four years.

Hartman was cleared in 2022 after her charges – including second-degree assault of a child and second-degree attempted assault of a child – were dropped from King County Superior Court to district court, where they were later dismissed entirely. 

Now, Hartman is suing the Washington Department of Children, Youth and Family Services (DCYF), Seattle Children’s Hospital (SCH), the Washington Court Appointed Special Advocate Association (CASA) and the Renton Police Department (RPD), as well as specific personnel at the aforementioned entities, for their alleged “misconduct” and false accusations that led to Hartman temporarily losing custody of her children.

The Hartman family, the lawsuit alleges, were “victims of a system of secrecy and unchecked authority without accountability, which led to the separation of the… family based on false and outrageous claims of child abuse or neglect” of their youngest adoptive daughter, identified as C.H. in the 142-page complaint filed on March 18.

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Sophie Hartman has filed a lawsuit against multiple Washington entities accusing them of making false medical abuse allegations against her. (Make A Wish Foundation )

“While preparing misleading claims of child abuse and criminal charges, numerous Defendants took their leisurely time and accessed medical records to create a contrived narrative that Sophie had manufactured a complex medical condition to gain attention for her own dysfunctional psychiatric need,” the complaint states. “The problem is the child’s condition was real, was validated by medical experts.”

Specifically, the lawsuit says C.H. has “Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood (‘ACH’)… a serious and rare condition that was diagnosed by the world’s leading expert in the field, Mohamad A. Mikati, M.D., of Duke University Health System… long before Defendants had met C.H.”

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The defendants allegedly accused Hartman of exhibiting signs of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Munchausen by proxy is a psychological disorder in which an abusive parent or caretaker makes up or causes an illness for a person under their care – often the parent’s own child – who is not actually ill, in order to receive special treatment or attention.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) says ACH is a “rare disease characterized by recurrent attacks of loss of muscular tone resulting in hypomobility of one side of the body.”

The Hartman family, the lawsuit alleges, were “victims of a system of secrecy and unchecked authority without accountability.” (FOX 13 Seattle)

While SCH, DYCF and RPD staff accused Hartman of fabricating her daughter’s illness and subjecting her to unnecessary treatment for attention, Hartman says in her lawsuit that it was the other way around – that the defendants were blaming Hartman instead of providing adequate care to her daughter. 

“Seattle Children’s takes our responsibility to protect the health and safety of our patients seriously, but we cannot comment on this specific case due to pending litigation,” an SCH spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement.

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Renton PD Chief Jon Schuldt told Fox News Digital in a statement that his department was “recently notified of the pending litigation,” and officials are “reviewing it” with their attorneys. 

“I firmly stand behind our officers, detectives, and the integrity of the investigation,” Schuldt said.

Washington DYCF told Fox News Digital it does not comment on pending litigation, and CASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit says C.H. has “Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood (‘ACH’)… a serious and rare condition that was diagnosed by the world’s leading expert in the field, Mohamad A. Mikati, M.D., of Duke University Health System… long before Defendants had met C.H.” (FOX 13 Seattle)

Hartman also alleges that the defendants’ misconduct and false allegations ruined her reputation and destabilized her financial situation. 

“[T]he media reported that Sophie ‘went on a PR tour for her sick, adopted African child’ and that she, as a ‘white, Jesus-loving former missionary’ who strapped her ‘little Black girl born in Zambia’ into a wheelchair. It was also reported that ‘[a]fter adopting two siblings from Zambia, Hartman rode a wave of self-generated publicity that started with a book she wrote about her missionary work in that African nation that led to her adoptions,’” the lawsuit states. 

“[T]he media reported that Sophie ‘went on a PR tour for her sick, adopted African child.'”

— Hartman’s lawsuit

Hartman is alleging that due to defendants’ false allegations against her, she was “painted as not only abusive but also as having made up her child’s very real medical symptoms for purposes of publicity and to sell books.” Hartman spent $2.85 million “fighting the baseless allegations” against her family “and ill-founded criminal charges brought at the urging of SCH and DCYF,” the complaint states.

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Each of the defendants’ alleged misconduct “contributed to the massive harm in various ways, from prime movers who abused patient confidentiality and medical records who devised a wild story from whole cloth, to investigators who have a duty to investigate and not become mob participants,” according to the lawsuit.

Hartman’s attorneys go on to condemn RPD and DCYF for obtaining her “private and highly-confidential prayer journals, which were in boxes in Sophie’s garage” after police raided her home.

Hartman is alleging that due to defendants’ false allegations against her, she was “painted as not only abusive but also as having made up her child’s very real medical symptoms for purposes of publicity and to sell books.” (FOX 13 Seattle)

“These prayer journals contained Sophie’s most private thoughts and were never intended to be seen by anyone else, let alone publicized openly in court and used by the media. DCYF used cherry-picked portions from the hundreds of pages of prayer journals in court to attempt to show that Sophie was an unfit mother,” the complaint says.

Court documents filed in the 2021 criminal case revealed that some of Hartman’s journal entries mentioned instances in which she lied about having different illnesses when she was younger, including meningitis and mono. King County prosecutors told FOX 13 Seattle that there was not enough evidence for a federal case, which is why it was moved to district court and ultimately dismissed.

In one entry, Hartman allegedly said “when it comes to suffering, I am a compulsive liar/exaggerator.”

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Hartman, who is originally from small-town Michigan and moved to Zambia when she was 18 years old, authored a memoir about her experience there in 2016.

“After hearing the Lord speak clearly that He wanted her to move to Zambia, she courageously defied all that her family and friends hoped for her, and began her life in Zambia. All because of love for Jesus,” a description of the book on Amazon reads.

In a similar case that made headlines earlier this year, Florida teenager Maya Kowalski and her family won $200 million after they accused a children’s hospital of falsely claiming Kowalski’s mother was exhibiting signs of Munchausen syndrome by proxy and medically abusing her daughter.

Kowalski was placed in government care while she received treatment for her rare illness, and her mother later died by suicide. A jury sided with the Kowalski family, saying the hospital wrongly accused her mother of abuse.

Audrey Conklin is a digital reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business. Email tips to audrey.conklin@fox.com or on Twitter at @audpants.