A teenage girl born in China filed a lawsuit against New Hampshire state agencies and her adoptive parents for enslavement, abuse, and locking her in confinement for years.
The lawsuit, filed last week in New Boston, names 19-year-old Olivia Atkocaitis as the plaintiff and her adoptive parents, Thomas and Denise Atkocaitis, as defendants.
The 70-page lawsuit also targets the New Boston Police department, a Massachusetts adoption agency, the school district, and the state child protection system.
The lawsuit alleges that the agencies ignored her situation several times, even after one of her adoptive parent’s biological children reported domestic abuse.
In 2011, when Olivia was eight years old, one of her siblings reported to a school counselor that Olivia was beaten, starved, and pushed down a flight of stairs.
The lawsuit also alleges that Olivia was not allowed to attend school even though all the other children in the household did.
The school counselor reported the abuse to the police, who visited the home and took pictures of the room where Olivia slept. They reported the incident to the state department of children, youth, and families.
One of the children who reported being abused was removed from the home, but Olivia was left there.
According to the lawsuit, the agencies did not offer the same protection to Olivia as the teenager, even though Olivia was younger, a girl, and belonged to a racial and ethnic minority group. The agencies ignored the abuse even after both parents admitted to locking the girl in a dungeon.
Authorities said the couple locked Olivia up in a small basement room with a single window covered with chicken mesh.
They only let her out to perform house chores. She was provided with a bucket to use as a toilet, which the other children revealed to school officials.
Olivia attempted to escape the home several times as a child, but authorities always hunted her down and returned her to the home. According to the suit, during her last escape attempt, local police hunted her down using K-9s.
Olivia’s attorney, Michael Lewis, said her 13th amendment rights were violated in the home. He said that even though it is illegal to enslave or force someone into servitude in the country, the state permitted slavery to continue and did nothing to stop it.
The suit also alleges that officers in the various agencies were racist towards Olivia, and that is why they did not rescue her from the torture she endured as a child.
In 2018, Denise Atkocaitis managed to avoid jail time by pleading guilty to felony criminal restraint, while Thomas Atkocaitis received a short prison sentence.