By Donna Westfall – February 11, 2017 –

Quick synopsis – In 2012, 62 year old Bryan Ranger was arrested and placed in jail on $1/2 million bail for allegations of sexually abusing and molesting his children who were all minors at the time.  His wife, Judy, had her family ripped apart from her.  Her children ranging in ages from 2 1/2 to 16 were all taken from her home and she was deemed incapable of raising them based on reports by Dr. Tod Roy.

After reviewing the court documents and transcripts and interviewing both Bryan, who has maintained his innocence all along, and Judy who stands by his side, the real reasons surfacing for Bryan being jailed appear to be due to his eldest daughter wanting a different lifestyle and  willing to go to great lengths to get what she wanted regardless of destroying the family.

On Oct 11, 2013, the Triplicate published an article which included “Fleshman (Detective Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office) recounted a 17 year old victim who accused Ranger of having sex with her several times since she was 4.”

Nowhere in any of the thousands of pages that make up this sad story was that disclosed that I could find.

Another inaccuracy involved pointing a gun to the head of one of his children.  That was recanted but the Triplicate still published:  “Part of that allegation included pointing a pellet gun or real gun at the head of one child, he said (Fleshman).  It was not established whether the gun was real, so a special allegation related to that charge did not stick.”

If Triplicate reporter, Anthony Skeens, had done his homework, he would have found that 1.)  the gun Bryan was accused of stealing was purchased legally because he produced the receipt, and 2.) the child did indeed recant. The alleged incident never happened. The Ranger’s have a unique philosophy about guns.  They believe in using guns for hunting and for protection from wild animal life like bears and mountain lions.  But they do not believe in using guns to shoot people. Judy complains that some of the people involved in their children’s life made it seem like Judy and Bryan didn’t love their children if they weren’t prepared to shoot people to protect them.

Now we continue with Part 3:

DW:  Judy, being Fundamentalist Christians, do you believe you are being prosecuted or persecuted for your beliefs?

JR :  Of course.  We dress in a manner that is more appropriate to the Pennsylvania Mennonite or Amish community. We practiced and instilled modesty in our children and encouraged them not to wear make-up, pierce their body, wear jewelry, swear or have sex until marriage.  But now with the children being in adoptive homes, my children swear, some smoke, the girls wear make-up and dress indecently.

DW:  Judy, four years have now passed.  Your parental rights taken away. While your husband sits in jail awaiting trial, you are having difficulty finding and keeping housing and jobs.  Do you think you have been discriminated against.

JR:  Yes.  As soon as they learn about our case, they immediately believe we are guilty and then I’m asked to move,  or I’m evicted or I’m fired from the job.

DW:  In hindsight, would you have done anything differently? Would you have allowed your eldest daughter to go live with the rich family at the age of 16?

JR:  If we had to do this over again and knew then what we know now, we would have raised our family in a more like-minded community, definitely not Crescent City. I firmly believe my eldest daughter would have then felt accepted and like she fit in which was very important to her.

DW:  You indicated that Dr. Tod Roy’s reports made a huge impact on the Courts which resulted in having your parental rights terminated.  Have you considered initiating any action against him?

JR:  I’ve recently sent in a complaint to the California Board of Psychology asking them to investigate what I believe are unethical and inappropriate behavior.  He finished filling out the MMPI report, which I call the *Many Mothers Portrayed as Insane report. I was supposed to do that, but he lost patience with me and filled it out himself without showing me what he was doing.  I hope his license is taken away and he is not able to harm any other families like ours.  Also, I hope they bring him up on ethics charges.

DW: Are there any other government officials  that you think treated you and Bryan badly including suspicions that they lied and used deceptive tactics?

JR:  Donna, I have a long list.  Some of the social workers just lied and wrote reports that were false.

DW:  Are you planning on taking any action?

JR:  Probably.  We have to see if they have immunity or not.

DW:  Are you aware of an Orange County case, Case number 15-55563, also known as Hardwick v. Vreeken or the “Right to Lie” case?

JR:  No.

DW:  After a seven-week trial beginning in 2007, a jury found social workers and Orange County liable for the “unconstitutional removal and continued detention” of Kendall and Preslie Hardwick, then 9 and 6, from their mother, Deanna Fogarty. The girls were kept in foster care for 6 1/2 years.  The jury found that the girls were removed from their home by caseworkers using a “pervasive pattern of lies and extensive cover-up.” Despite their mother’s continual attempts to comply with every request the caseworkers made of her.

DW:  Did you and Bryan have to comply with anything?

JR:  Yes we went to class after class always with the idea that our family would be reunited. But they lied to us.

DW:  In a lawsuit filed by Kendall, social workers were accused of lying in a court report, failing to disclose threats one of them made against Kendall and her sister, withholding evidence that would have cleared their mother, and filing false reports. Caseworkers were also found guilty of withholding information about the girls’ emotional states in foster care. At one point, a therapist wrote to the agency that Kendall showed signs of emotional regression and was tearful throughout the session, begging to go home.

JR:  I was told that some of my children were being abused in the foster and adoptive homes, and begging to come home to me, but there was nothing I could do about it. They took out restraining orders against me.

DW:  Do you want to know the outcome of that case?

JR:  Yeah, sure.  They probably got a slap on the wrist, right?

DW:  The court found that the child welfare workers committed “judicial deception” to facilitate the removal of the children from their mother. So far, the case has resulted in more than $10 million in judgments against Orange County.

JR:  Boy, I want to know who their lawyer was.

*MMPI Stands for Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory