CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — A grandmother says she finally feels the system did right by her grandsons after separate judges in Chesterfield County sentenced the boys' father and his fiancee to decades in prison for abusing them.
Angela Fountain said the verdicts brought relief and also raised painful questions about why it took so long.
"They're free of this now. It's no longer a weight that's holding over them," Fountain said.
The boys' father, Bhalmiki Maharaj, is a former Henrico police officer.
His fiancee, Barbara Paul, is a former Henrico teacher.
"They won't have to deal with her and the joy, the elation is just beyond," Fountain said.
But Fountain believes accountability came years too late.
During the sentencing hearing, she learned that multiple reports had been made by school counselors to Child Protective Services (CPS) about the boys over several years.
"Somebody dropped the ball on my boys and it continued for seven years, eight years. What happened?" Fountain asked.
Allison Anderson, a counselor at Chesterfield's Evergreen Elementary School, testified about five different reports staff made to CPS starting in 2018.
The first report, sealed and not yet accessible, dates to Nov. 27, 2018, when the older boy was in kindergarten.
Anderson testified that the boy told classmates his father had hit him and knocked him over.
She said the child also reported being hit in the back of his head with a belt because he had been "messing with the cat."
According to a second report from October 2019, the older brother, who was then 6 years old, reported being repeatedly hit in the nose with a pencil by Paul for not doing his homework correctly.
He had visible bruising on his nose and bumps on his head. He also reported Paul sometimes lifted him off the floor by his neck.
In court, Judge David Johnson asked Anderson whether there was any follow-up on that report.
She replied, "Not that we know of."
"There was proof, there was physical proof of these boys being abused," Fountain said.
One undated report documented bruising on the eye and temple of the younger brother, which he said was the result of a fall in the bathtub.
Two final reports concerned the older brother, one from 2021 and one from 2022.
The November 2021 report states that a police officer would come to interview the child.
However, a later entry says no officer ever came.
When asked about that report, Chesterfield Police Captain Jason Seamster initially said the department had no record of receiving a CPS referral notification during that time frame.
He then later followed up with a statement that read in part:
"We reviewed Special Victims Unit records from November and December 2021 related to the CCPS referral to CPS. The supervisors assigned to the unit during that window have no record of receiving a notification.That two month period averaged more than 110 CPS referrals a month. Within that volume, we located one email exchange that could potentially relate to this matter. The exchange contains no names or case numbers. As a result, we can't confirm a connection to the Maharaj-Paul case."
CBS 6 filed a public records request for the email exchange, and Captain Seamster then followed up to say Chesterfield Police had found a record of the referral.
But, Chesterfield FOIA specialist Tiffany Valenta said they were withholding the records under a state code provision that allows criminal investigative files to be disclosed by the custodian at his discretion.
We've asked why Chesterfield opted to withhold them, and we are waiting to hear back.
"Nothing was ever done," Fountain said.
It was not until October 2024, when a student told Swift Creek Middle School counselor Kristen Braithwaite they were worried about the older boy, that the child disclosed everything happening at home. Chesterfield police responded that same day.
Detective Christopher Neville testified he watched more than 2,500 hours of video captured by security cameras the couple had set up inside their home and found multiple instances of abuse.
"At the end of the day they're just innocent boys," Fountain said.
When asked whether CPS followed up on the five reports Anderson testified about, a Chesterfield County spokesperson said they could not confirm it — because there are no records of the reports in the state's official child welfare database.
The county told us that any time they receive a report involving marks or bruises, the police department is notified within two hours of CPS receiving the report.
Judge Edward Robbins addressed the apparent failures directly during Maharaj's sentencing.
"Reports were made, people were told, and you would think in 2026 we would be someplace other than where we are. I'll take that one to my grave. The defendant is not to be sentenced for the institutional failures of others," Robbins said.
Fountain said she hopes someone will look into the failures to ensure it never happens to another child.
"Something should be done or said," Fountain said.
When asked whether school staff should have done more and what policy requires when abuse is suspected, Chesterfield Schools did not respond.
A review of the district's child abuse and neglect reporting policy found it requires employees to contact the Department of Social Services — the umbrella agency overseeing CPS. The policy does not mention contacting police.
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