{"id":8069,"date":"2026-08-31T11:06:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T11:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8069"},"modified":"2026-08-31T11:06:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T11:06:49","slug":"alameda-county-waited-years-to-investigate-failures-before-sophia-masons-death-the-inquiry-took-45-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8069","title":{"rendered":"Alameda County waited years to investigate failures before Sophia Mason\u2019s death. The inquiry took 45 hours"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Despite initial vows for an independent investigation, Alameda County\u2019s leaders waited more than four years after Sophia Mason\u2019s death in 2022 to begin their much-publicized inquiry into her social workers\u2019 failings, newly obtained documents show.<\/p>\n

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County leaders held off until April 3 of this year to hire anyone to conduct the probe of her case, according to a contract and invoice obtained under a California Public Records Act request, even as many of the same problems that preceded her death continued at the county\u2019s Department of Children and Family Services.<\/p>\n

The inquiry that resulted has drawn criticism from child welfare advocates, partly due to the fact that the investigator billed the county for about 45 hours of work, which did not include conducting any interviews, the records show.<\/p>\n

Alameda County\u2019s Social Services Agency has refused to say whether any employees were disciplined, nor whether any of the social workers who handled Sophia\u2019s case remain employed with the county, calling such a public release an \u201cunwarranted invasion of personal privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep.-elect Aisha Wahab \u2014 who has represented Hayward in the state Senate since 2022 \u2014 criticized Alameda County supervisors\u2019 apparent lack of urgency and called their approach \u201cmindboggling.\u201d<\/p>\n

She stressed how their reluctance to push for a faster inquiry marked a significant departure from elsewhere in the Bay Area \u2014 particularly in Santa Clara County, where some county supervisors had taken on a more vocal role in pushing for reforms amid a string of child deaths in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are seeing is the (Alameda County) Board of Supervisors has lacked accountability, lacked urgency and lacked the will to do their job,\u201d Wahab said.<\/p>\n

In an interview with this news outlet, Supervisor Nate Miley said he\u2019d \u201cbe the first to acknowledge it took a long time\u201d to complete the investigation. But he defended the resulting report and said \u201cwe didn\u2019t take this lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Fellow supervisors Elisa Marquez and Lena Tam issued statements defending the county\u2019s approach to reforming its child welfare system, but neither granted interviews or directly addressed the yearslong delay in beginning the investigation. In a text, Supervisor David Haubert said \u201cwe need to discipline our staff at all levels from the top down to ensure we never experience a tragedy like this again.\u201d He did not address the delay in starting the investigation.<\/p>\n

Nikki Fortunato Bas, who joined the board in January 2025, said she could not recall the specifics of when the county counsel said it began its investigation. Still, she said the county was making improvements \u2014 particularly since the fall 2025 audit was released \u2014 and that \u201ccompliance isn\u2019t enough, we have to really transform our child welfare system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wahab suggested across-the-board \u201cculture issues\u201d were to blame for the county\u2019s failings. The yearslong delay in initiating the investigation coincided with a cascade of problems at the county\u2019s Department of Children and Family Services, the lead agency tasked with responding to reports of child abuse and neglect.<\/p>\n

In late July, state social services officials placed the county under new state oversight after a site visit earlier this year revealed myriad failures across the agency, such as hour-long wait times on its abuse hotline and shoddy work by social workers. The move followed two separately commissioned reports \u2014 one by state auditors in fall 2025, and another by a civil grand jury in summer 2023 \u2014 that also raised alarms about the county\u2019s staffing levels and its ability to respond quickly to reports of abuse.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt is a culture of failure, a culture of dismissal and a culture of a lack of accountability,\u201d added Wahab, who created a task force earlier this year aimed at reforming those agencies. She also called for the firings of Alameda County Social Services Agency Director Andrea Ford and Department of Children and Family Services Director Michelle Love<\/p>\n

Miley, however, voiced confidence in Ford\u2019s ability to lead the system, and suggested it was her job to decide whether to keep Love on board. An unsigned email from Alameda County Social Services Agency\u2019s office of public affairs declined to comment on the Wahab\u2019s remarks about Ford and Love, and instead stressed the agency is working with the state \u201cto strengthen accountability, improve practice, and enhance child safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sophia\u2019s emaciated body was found decomposing in March 2022 at a house in Merced, where she had spent the final few months of her life living in a shed.<\/p>\n

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Subsequent reporting by the Bay Area News Group found widespread failures by local social workers in the year before Sophia\u2019s death \u2014 prompting outrage from Miley, who called the girl\u2019s death \u201creally effed up,\u201d as well as Haubert, who lamented how \u201csomething obviously failed.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May 2023, the two supervisors \u2014 alongside Marquez, Tam and Keith Carson, who has since retired from the board \u2014 voted to commission an independent investigation into the county\u2019s handling of Sophia\u2019s case. At the time, Marquez called it \u201can opportunity to learn from this huge loss and do better.\u201d<\/p>\n

In approving the inquiry, the supervisors mandated that it happen \u201cin conjunction with\u201d a then-newly filed lawsuit by Sophia\u2019s grandmother, which alleged numerous failings on the part of social workers who handled Sophia\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

Miley said this week the board was \u201cadvised by county counsel\u201d to run the investigation alongside the lawsuit, and \u201cthat\u2019s the route we chose to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resulting 34-page report \u2014 released in early August as county supervisors approved a $12 million settlement of the lawsuit brought by Sophia\u2019s grandmother \u2014 listed more than 40 deficiencies in how the county handled her case. It also included 25 recommendations for reforms within the agency.<\/p>\n

A host of child welfare advocates have since criticized the investigation as not offering enough insight into why county employees acted as they did. The county-hired investigator \u2014 longtime Southern California licensed clinical worker Mayola Miranda \u2014 did not interview anyone for her inquiry, and instead based her conclusions on the transcripts of five depositions collected during the lawsuit against the county, along with police records, county case files and media reports.<\/p>\n

An invoice obtained by this news outlet shows Miranda charged the county $8,812.50 for about 45 hours of work on an \u201cexpert witness report\u201d and \u201ccorrespondence\/meetings with county counsel.\u201d The rate included a $2,500 discount as a \u201cgood will credit for services rendered,\u201d the document shows.<\/p>\n

The county\u2019s contract with Miranda called for her to complete the investigative report by May 15, 2026, six weeks after her contract for the job was signed by interim Counsel Andrea Weddle.<\/p>\n

While Miranda\u2019s report \u201csuperbly\u201d detailed county employees\u2019 actions, it was \u201cbizarrely deficient\u201d in its absence of any analysis into why county employees acted as they did, said Ed Howard, senior counsel with the University of San Diego School of Law Children\u2019s Advocacy Institute. He expressed shock that it took the county so long to even start the inquiry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe board wouldn\u2019t have allowed four years to go by \u2014 and spent about the same amount of money as a family of four going for a week to Disneyland \u2014 if it was their own kids that had been murdered,\u201d Howard said. More kids, he added, \u201cwill continue to die until the board members take this as seriously as if it were their own children.\u201d<\/p>\n

The county supervisors\u2019 approach to Sophia\u2019s case \u201cfeels so disingenuous,\u201d said Carly Sanchez, an attorney who represented the girl\u2019s grandmother in a recently settled lawsuit against the county.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no urgency to that alleged intent,\u201d said Sanchez, recalling the public vows by multiple county supervisors in 2022 and 2023 to investigate the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many other kids,\u201d she added, \u201cwere left in dangerous situations or hurt in the ensuing three or four years while the county sat on its hands and opted not to do an investigation?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Despite vows for an independent investigation, Alameda County leaders waited over four years after Sophia Mason’s death to begin an inquiry into social workers’ failings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nAlameda County waited years to investigate failures before Sophia Mason\u2019s death. 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