Riverside County and ChildNet have agreed to resolve a lawsuit brought by six Turpin siblings who said they were placed into an abusive home after authorities rescued them from their parents’ situation in 2018. The settlement totals $13.5 million, according to a copy of the agreement. Riverside County will pay $2.25 million for six of the children, while ChildNet will pay $11.25 million, the document said.
The allegations in the case centered on what happened after the siblings were taken from their parents. Authorities rescued the Turpin children from a Perris, California, home in 2018, after the Turpin children were living under squalid and abusive conditions, and a 17-year-old sister escaped and called 911. After the rescue, the lawsuit said the six siblings were placed with the Olguin family, which took them in and subjected them to abuse.
The lawsuit alleged that the Olguins hit the children with sandals, pulled their hair, forced them to eat their own vomit, and made them recount their trauma, according to the description of the case. The siblings’ complaint also said the abuse included cruelty intended to frighten and control them while they were children and dependents.
Prosecutors’ cases against the Olguins included criminal punishment that was described in the reporting. Marcelino Olguin pleaded guilty to lewd acts on a child, false imprisonment, and injuring a child and was sentenced in 2024 to seven years in prison. The same reporting said Olguin’s wife and adult daughter were sentenced to probation for child cruelty.
The settlement announcement came as the Turpin siblings continued to speak publicly about what they say they endured, including through a television interview. Jolinda Turpin, 20, said in an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer that aired this week that the siblings felt compelled to insist on change. “They literally told us, ‘Nobody wants you. You’re never going to find a better place than this,’” Turpin said, adding, “Something good needs to come from this. It has to, and I can’t accept it not.” She spoke alongside two of her siblings.
Attorneys for the six siblings said the settlement brings to a close a set of cases that helped push changes in Riverside County’s child welfare system. In a statement, attorneys Roger Booth and Elan Zektser said the “concrete and long-overdue steps toward improving child safety were accomplished as a direct result of the Turpins bravely coming forward and insisting that their suffering lead to meaningful change to protect other children,” and called their efforts “extraordinary.”
In the settlement agreement itself, Riverside County and ChildNet denied wrongdoing, according to the reporting. Riverside County Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen said in a statement that the county is committed to the “wellbeing and long-term healing” of all 13 siblings and pointed to changes since the case came to light, including increased coordination between child welfare and law enforcement agencies and a growing number of trained social workers.
ChildNet, in a statement from spokesperson Eric Rose, said it did not receive complaints or allegations of abuse while the children were in the agency’s foster care program, and that concerns were raised only after the children were no longer in ChildNet’s care. Rose said the agency’s “mission has always been, and remains, to help vulnerable children heal, grow, and succeed,” and that the mission guided “every decision in this case and continues to guide our work today.”
The reporting also described a broader review of what happened before the 2018 rescue. It said a report found the social service system failed the Turpin children, who ranged in age from 2 to 29 when they were rescued. The settlement resolves the civil claims described in the siblings’ lawsuit while leaving the parties’ denials of wrongdoing on record.