City Attorney: Disabled adults forced to live in horrendous conditions
Sun colleague James Rufus Koren went to the scene where the alleged crimes took place. A more detailed article is scheduled to run in Saturday's edition of The Sun.
By Andrew Edwards
SAN BERNARDINO - Authorities on Friday arrested a woman on suspicion of 16 felonies for allegedly forcing disabled adults and seniors to live in prison camp-like conditions at an unlicensed group home, City Attorney James F. Penman said.
Sheriff's booking logs show that Pensri Sophar Dalton, 61, accused of forcing mentally ill adults and others to live in unsanitary conditions at a group home, is scheduled to appear in San Bernardino Superior Court on Wednesday.
Dalton has been booked at West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga. Booking logs show charges of causing harm to an elderly or dependent adult and theft from an elderly or dependent adult.
Penman said Dalton faces 16 felony counts.Penman said by telephone that seniors had been forced to live in chicken coops that had been converted into barracks. The home's residents were also reportedly forced to go the bathroom in buckets.
San Bernardino police reported their suspicions of elder abuse to City Attorney's Office investigators after officers served an arrest warrant at the home, Penman said.
The home is in the 2800 block of North Golden Avenue.
"It has me concerned that city inspectors didn't find it until today," Penman said.




There you go again, Jim Penman, throwing senior citizens out of their homes. Felonies? What felonies? This lady apparently is providing shelter for senior citizens when the city, thanks to Penman, has prevented the city from meeting its housing needs for our senior citizens. May be if Penman would stop thwarting the city's efforts in providing decent housing for poor folk, we would not have this despicable situation. Keeping homeless people from safe and clean housing leads to homeless people been beaten to death in a hobo field on the corner of 3rd and Watermen. Go Jimmy G
Penman said:
"It has me concerned that city inspectors didn't find it until today," Penman said.
OK!!! Which inspectors?? Code Enforcement????? Public Services? County Health??? How about the neighbors?? HHMMMMMM? No body saw anything???
SNAFU!
Nobody saw anything!!! Nobody hears anything? Sooo, nobody speaks of anything!!!
How convenient to let this go on and no service companies said anything!
How about the Laundry/ Linen company?
How about the food service or staples supply sales person?
How about the A/C repairman, plumber,electrician or maintenace man???
How about the pest control dude??????
How about the visiting nurses or Doctors, who are required to attend or show up to fill in their billing quotas?
How about the Gas company? Edison meter reader?? Employees??? OOOOOOOOOO; there is a novel group to suspect! Do all the employees have Health certificates??
Looking at the owners name gives me to wonder , due to my experience, in dealing with the convelescant and therapy care units and their ownerships. "I'LL TAKE SOME FLACK ON THAT STATEMENT, I AM SURE"!
Don't waste your print on that issue, I have the inside on that! PC or not, you would be wasting your type.
These little private care facilities are all over the valley and are not scrutinized enough. I have made complaints the County Health department and they are so good at dropping the ball. They even let the offender know ahead of time of their intent to visit, based on the complaint and have EVEN given over the name of the complaining party (annonyumous my foot)! So of course, they get their act cleaned up for a day or two!
Mr. Penman,
Here is a great chance to put the word out on these homes; disabled , rehab, parolee, homeless, what ever; that if they are going into the BUSINESS of taking insurance $, state $ and or Federal $ funds, to operate these facilities, they will/ MUST be livable, maintained to "CODE", if any codes are on the books!!!!!!FOR THE SAFETY OF THE OCCUPANTS!
ONE MORE IDEA: WHERE ARE THE CITY COMMISIONERS ON SENIOR CARE AND WELFARE???? What a great thing you can do here, is spot the offenders, turn them over to your council person, and see that they enforce the livable conditions in their ward care centers!
FRED, TIME IS SHORT, AND IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A RUN AT THIS, YOU WILL IMPROVE YOUR STATUS FOR THE CAMPAIGN! IT WOULD IMPRESS ME! I have no idea what level, the other council persons will rise to on this. Some will shout "POLITICS", or just grin and turn their heads. Hey LRC, what are you people up for on this???
Mayor, Maybe you could encourage your "brothers and sisters"(parolees), returning to SanBernardino to look into working in the care facilities (ruling out certain undesirables) and create jobs! I am sure there are grants for training such persons and the care facilities, who hate to pay high labor costs, would love the idea. Plus, having parolees , would bring in another inspector type of person into the picture, to be responsible to alert the authorities of such goings on as "Pensri Sophar Dalton", 61, is accused of!
HHMMMMMMMMMM???????????
Are you kidding me? There is plenty of LOW COST housing for seniors in the city. Lord, I believe you can buy a forclosed home for less than $30,000.00 in many of the wards. Also, there is housing for seniors in Rikki's ward and one in downtown across from the bus stop. I don't see how Penman is to blame for someone else trying to make a profit off of our seniors.
16 mentally ill and seniors living in chicken coups, no license to care for these exploited people? Are you kidding me, gmc? 6 people, fine, but 22? You must be smoking something to think that if PD called Jim's office (and they probably also called code but no one probably showed up, go Marianne Milligan, go, it's Friday) there must have been horrific conditions. Would you let your mother or diabled father live there? Probably. Do us all a favor and if that is so, don't vote for Penman. He does not need a nutcase like you voting for him. Stick with Morris, he is more your wacko type.
I know what Jim Penman is made of and know how he has helped and supported group homes for the developmentally disabled and seniors over his life's service to the community, including Casa Ramona, AHEPA, The Villas and many others. I know for a fact that he has helped promote and forward those wanting to open legally licensed group homes for the youth, seniors and the developmentally disabled throughout his career. gmc, you need a reality check. You sound like a very bitter unloved person and I feel sorry for you. Maybe you need to check into a group home to get some group hugs.
So gmc: are you ready to move those seniors back into that house? Safe, clean housing? Is that what you call allowing people to use buckets as toilets? Want to apologize to Mr. Penman yet, or are you still right on this one? I know where you can put up your grandmother for $750 per month, no toilets, locked in from the outside, exposed wiring, smell of urine, but they're providing a good service to the community, right? Wacko!
Back on other blogs, I believe gmc was identified as Jimmy Morris. No wonder his dad doesn't care about what happens to foster kids who wind up in the system. That family doesn't even care about their elderly! WOW!
so what the hell is wrong with this city's co-enforcement?? they had to know what was going on. and let it go.like the rest of the city , the only reason u have any clean up now is for the mayor's race. and maybe the rt66 ,so the rest of the time we see the tagging and the crap all over the city . im very tried of hearing people talk up for this mayor he's more into the ex-cons living condition . and yes he's got the people saying how great he is , well.... they live outside the city . they don't have to see the crap each day going to work , the tagging, the trash in the streets. or hear the sirens going off all night. yea they love him , but as i said ..they dont live here !!!, i hope the people of our city take a real good look at what has happen the last 4 years ,i hope we are smart enough to make the change that is needed. yes we do need a big change in the mayor office and the way we look at how we do business . maybe a little more business friendly so we would bring back some of the bus. we have lost lets give penman a chance. sure cant be as bad as it is now, and he does known the city and what it would take to turn it around.and who ever gmc is your head is up your behind!!!!
Ladies and Gentlemen of San Bernardino what you have just read about is a total system failure within our City. Where does the buck stop, who is accountable. It will quickly be decided who is responsible but who is going to be held ACCOUNTABLE? When a ship runs aground, the person driving the boat is responsible per say, but the CAPTAIN is accountable. Like wise, in this case, due to repeated poor leadership demonstrated by the Mayor of San Bernardino he MUST be held accountable for these deplorable conditions. Like his Operation Phoenix and the pedophile he hired to run one of the centers, his poor choice of leadership has once again surfaced to embarrass this City and its residents.
However, although accountable the Mayor can share some of the blame which needs to be spread to the local community where this home was located. Our society has become so callous we no longer look over the back fence, or check in on the wellbeing of our neighbors. We suffer from I don’t want to get involved syndrome. “ST” hit the nail squarely on the head when he identified many individuals and agencies that routinely were blind to these conditions in a day-to-day fashion. How can you willingly know these conditions exists and not feel compelled to do something? Yes, the City’s monitoring systems failed or perhaps it was the SB County who has the responsibility to oversee this commercial operation. There is more than enough blame to share with many. Who issued the business license?
OK, this ugly skeleton is now out of the closet, and made public. We must demand from the City Attorney’s office a through investigation into not only the cause, how did it get this way and for how long it has existed. Just as importantly what will be the corrective action taken to assure there is not a repeat and there are no other facilities that parallel this one. Like a mouse, if you see one, you know there are others!
I would not expect the sitting Mayor to do anything for reasons stated above. If he were to try, I would discount the effort as too little too late! Perhaps with luck, this will be the last straw the City of SB will have to endure under his leadership. Four years of one embarrassment after another is too much to ask the voters to accept. Change and November can not get here soon enough.
This illegal group home may just be the tip of the iceberg. How many more like this one do we have operating in the city?
It is really sad because defenseless people were being victimized.
The only good thing about this whole thing is that now that city attorney James Penman is involved we can bet he will get to the bottom of the matter. His concern is: Why were these people allowed to continue to suffer? Why did city inspectors miss this place?
Adelante con Penman!
It is sad that there are people that would make other less fortunate people live in these conditions but the person was making a profit...my questions is what about the neighbors? The neighbors knew what was going on....why didn't they call? They could have called Adult Protective Services or even Code Enforcement.
To answer "rog's" question, Code Enforcement is reactive not proactive. If someone doesn't call to report a problem they don't know (or care, in my opinion).
The Code Enforcement officers that drive around the city aren't making notes as they drive past problems. They scurry from one reported issue to another.
The problem is the Asst. Code Enforcement director, Marianne Milligan.
You are all idiots. Every single one of you. Why is it that when something goes wrong in the City of San Bernardino everyone is so quick to point the finger at either the Mayor or Penman. What just happened on Golden is not either one of their faults. Pensri "Sophar" Dalton is a straight up criminal. She is nothing but a money hungry Bitch that steals from mentally disabled people. I know first hand that she does this. when I heard about the chicken coops I could not believe a person could do such a thing to another human being. Sophar has a history, a long history of complaints for mistreating her clients. it is not the mayors fault that she has a house filled with mentally ill folks. If she is not licensed then she does not need to report what or who lives in her home. Its who ever refers those folks to her, thats who needs to be accountable other than Sophar herself. so lets take the blame off our Mayor and maybe focus on who really should be the blame here. How about the Department of Behavioral Health for instance? or any other Mental Health organization that contracts with Sophar. Those are the people that needs to be investigated. Sophar is running her "Room and Board' illegally. She is unlicensed and is distributing medication to her clients. That is a STATE issue NOT a local City issue. so all you ignorant people out there. before you jump on the band wagon know what the Hell your talking about. Oh, and by the way, there not "Senior Citizen's that are living there. They are all mentall ill people that rely on Sophar to take care of them. Which she does not, she takes advantage of them. she charges them $750 a month which includes a place to sleep and three meals a day. sounds great. WRONG! Their meals usually consists of top roman soup, mac and cheese, sanwhiches, and cereal. and you heard about the living conditions. So is that worth $750 a month to you? Their SSI check is only $850 a month. that only leaves them with $100 a month to spend on themselves. can you survive on $100 a month. I don't think so. A typical Room and Boark should cost anywhere from $500 to $675 a month and the meals are much more nutritious than what she serves. So before you start to defend her, you better take a long look at what she has been doing to these poor innocent victim's she has been abusing fincacially, physically and mentally. And yes. there are a lot more places out there that are doing this to the mentall ill. That is why we need a "ONE STOP CENTER" in our city. Are you listening City Council? maybe if we had a ONE STOP these Room and Boards wouldn't be over crouded and over looked. I hope Sophar rots in Hell.
To Straight Shooter,
I agree that this is neither the fault of Penman or the Mayor, for the reasons you stated. What is so shameful is that now Penman and his rabid supporters are tryihg to turn this into an election issue. As I stated, maybe for once Mr. Penman will not make this about himself or the Mayor, but truly try and help these people. We will see, but it's hard for an old dog to change his spots.
Some of these people are not idiots at all, they just know some of the inside scoop. What Straight Shooter isn't getting is that Code WAS called by neighbors several times. Once for the razor wire, once for the smell, and several other times for other reasons. The Mayor put Marianne Milligan in her position as the current head of code enforcement and now they are embarrassed. Morris loves group homes. He has been angry with Penman for years you see Penman's has fought hard against people like Dalton and people like her as they are greedy and unscrupulous. All he has ever cared about in situations like this is to close them down and hold people like Dalton accountable. Milligan, Morris and Dalton ARE the problem in this community and unlicensed facilities like this are proof enough for me. Not 100 One Stop centers would solve the problem because it is always about the money with people like Dalton and hundreds others.
Yes, Just Me Two, except now the your Dad (Pat) has called the Chief of Police who sent two captains and a Lt. who called ABC news out to the scene to report to them that Penman over-reacted to this situation and it's not really that bad. Talk about a message of a false sense of security for helpless people. Talk about how embarrassing for the Mayor and his girl Marianne Milligan (Penman's opponent for City Attorney) who did zippo, did not raise a finger to help these people out of squallid conditions. Yes, Marianne, Pat is trying to cover your butt and his for allowing this to continue without your department doing anything. He will fail, as will you, the damage has been done. Penman did NOT create, contrive, call the media, or order anyone but his own staff to do anything related to this travesty. But your Dad did, but I am sure it had nothing to do with Pat's bid for re-election, did it?
Just Me Too...again you are either clueless, uninformed, or an idiot. In all of the media coverage not once is it mentioned that Penman made any statements against the mayor or anyone else in city government. He is not the one making illegal group homes and parolee houses an election year issue. You are being defensive because you know that Morris is the one proposing more low-income housing and parolee housing in the city. If it is true that Morris is pressuring the police and others to attack Penman on the closing of this illegal group home then it is Morris who is being rabid. He doesn't seem to care about these people.
Get real!! Vote Penman for mayor!
Why is my boring handle suddenly so popular? J/K
This is clearly a failure of a community. The sad part is that there are plenty of abusive foster homes and group homes for children and adults in this city. Whenever code or the police are called, they do nothing. That IS Morris' fault.
You see, Morris is tied in to many of these "non-profits" (I'm not calling that monster of a mess one of his, but there are plenty just like it I'm certain he has ties to). For instance, Morris sits on the board of directors to the Community Foundation. The Community Foundation writes grants for places like Set Free (a "church"). The pastor (from what I'm told) uses some church funds to pay for his tickets. Now, I'm sure there's a reason that can be pulled out of SOMEBODY'S rear end to explain that, but the church has really not been there for the community lately. It's just gaining and gaining. Morris would never allow anything to happen to them because, OMG!, they're involved in Operation Phoenix, ANOTHER one of Morris' charities that is contracted by the city!!!
Oh, & I'm voting for PENMAN!
The lady who ran that group home is awful, but Morris is no better. He may not be at complete fault for this one, but he's got other, similar issues. I don't understand why people would vote for him again. I can't believe he actually thinks he'll win.
As far as code enforcement goes in this city, I've seen them go out to an apartment complex with exposed wiring, insect infestations and tubs that were ready to fall through the rotted floor, but they did NOTHING! I know it's not quite so bad as this, but it was bad. Morris doesn't care how San Bernardino residents live. I say we get a court order to force him to live in the Guthrie area of San Bernardino, where the shooting of those 4 kids took place, until he has the field that contractors dump in gets cleaned, the street lamps work, better street signs are put in, the apartment owners fix their apartments and a small park for the kids is put in. Too bad he'd be able to slip out of it.
how many more is the question ??? i seen that in the blog , and that it might be just the tip of a iceberg. i'm sure that we have a much larger problem. but if penman goes after them , well then he's running poor and sick people of of their homes (tents in the back yard ) when the question of ex -cons is brought up ... Penman is told to shut up, when he ask about operation phoenix... he's told to shut up . when he asks questions on the tagging mess we have he's told to shut up . we elected this man to be our city att. he should ask those questions and a hell of a lot more. so the people can see just what is going on in our city .if the mayor was smart ,he'd take the blame ..... admit that there is a problem in many areas .... tagging .... ex-cons. operation phoenix (being we have no ideal what is being spent there) and the lost of business .. the image of not being business friendly ... i seen the word "idiots" we're all idiots .. yep we do have our share of them , and with the things happening in sb the last 4 years it has to be laid on one man. He is "the captain of the ship " as a great president once said "the buck stops here " well now its time to call on the captain ? to give some answer's or let another man do the job , as i think Jim Penman will do. the key word is change.
You cant blame everything on Mariann. Mariann is an attorney she knows nothing about Code. She can write laws for Code but she does not know anything about Code. Just the story she hears from Code Officers .SB is so lucky to have some who cares only about running for City Attorney . Thats why she turn down the Dir of Code Enforcement position because she was going to leave to work as a attorney somewhere else . But she could not find a job. City of SB is so lucky to have her.... NOT
Mariann for City Attorney: You're so cute. Pat Morris unfortunately has tried to feather his nest and hers by coaxing her into running for City Attorney. He then figured putting her as the second top dog in code would give her a place holding job until she could run against Penman again. In the meanwhile, under her direction, code is falling apart, ie. The Golden Ave. house of pain. Can someone find her a lawyer job back in the O.C., please?
You know what is really sad? How these people are turning a digusting event into a chance to further their political beliefs.
Give me a break, that is exactly what Morris did when he called ABC news out there the second time and ordered Police Lt. to tell the reporters it wasn't as bad as Penman said it was. Talk about reducing the truth for political capital.
Come on, we all know Penman knew about this situation and just waited until he had announced his run for Mayor to break the news. How could Penman be so crass and cold-blooded to use these poor wretches for his propaganda machine. What did Penman know and when did he know it? Let us see what he has to say.
IMWRIGHT...don't you mean when did Morris's girl Marianne Milligan know it and why did SHE wait so long to tell the Mayor that she needed to do something about it? These facilities are what Pat Morris lives for and I am certain that Milligan has been given her marching orders by Pat to look the other way. Accusing Penman of something so callous is not only stupid, it makes no sense.
IMWright---Here we go again...Morris people making false allegations against Penman. Get real! Nobody believes Penman set up this scenario. It was the PD who called the city attorney's office. It was an efficient city attorney investigator who reported the abuse. It is city attorney Penman who is investigating this rotten group home. It is also Penman who is putting into place measures to avoid San bernardino from becoming a dumping ground for more parolee houses and illegal group homes.
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