In re Lucia C

Syllabus

The respondent father appealed to this court from the judgments of the trial court terminating his parental rights with respect to his three minor children, L, C, and A. Although the children's mother lived with the father and the children, the father had been the children's primary caregiver. After his conviction of sexual assault of a five year old child, for which he was sentenced to twenty-five years of incarceration, the children remained in the care and custody of the mother, who suffers from significant mental health issues. The Department of Children and Families thereafter began to receive reports that the children were abused, neglected, inadequately supervised and had inadequate shelter in their mother's care. The petitioner, the Commissioner of Children and Families, filed petitions for the termination of the parental rights of the father and the mother as to A, L and C. The mother consented to the termination of her parental rights. Held that the trial court correctly concluded that, in accordance with the applicable statute (§ 17a-112 (j) (3) (C)), the respondent father had denied his children, by an act or acts of comission or omission, the care, guidance, or control necessary for their physical, educational, moral, or emotional well-being: as a result of the father's criminal action and prolonged incarceration, the father left his children to be abused, neglected and without adequate shelter in the custody of their mother; moreover, following the father's incarcer- ation, each child has suffered from mental health and behavioral issues, which have required them to receive therapy and support services and to be medicated, and L and C have been hospitalized and have received psychiatric treatment; accordingly, the court reasonably determined that the cumulative effect of the evidence justified its conclusion that the father's prolonged incarceration caused his children to be neglected by their mother and, in turn, deprived them of the care, guidance, o