Andrei Ducila and Luiza Badea’s four children were severely malnourished and suffering from other ailments when police discovered the couple panhandling in a Hobbs parking lot in 2019, court records say.
The couple were charged with child abuse. However, a lawsuit filed in federal court alleged state child protective services workers minimized findings that they were unfit parents and gave the kids back. The family slipped away, and when they were found months later, a girl of around 2 was suffering from a fractured skull and brain damage, records show.
The lawsuit against the state was finally settled late last month for $10 million, according to a report on social media — a staggering amount that outpaces most other settlements in recent memory. However, the deal was sealed by a judge, with intentions of withholding the settlement amount from the public.
Taxpayers are more commonly being left in the dark on increasing payouts in lawsuits against the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department as a court practice of sealing settlements becomes a rising trend. Nearly $16 million in secret settlement payouts have been approved on behalf of the agency so far this fiscal year, a spokesperson confirmed.
New Mexico has paid out tens of millions of dollars in recent years to settle wrongful death lawsuits and other cases in which CYFD is accused of failing to protect children in its care. But in a growing number of such deals, plaintiffs have agreed with the state to ask for judges to shroud the agreements in secrecy, arguing the action is needed to protect children’s privacy.
Some critics — including the state attorney general — contend the practice is part of a broader effort by the child welfare agency to dodge accountability by hiding behind confidentiality policies.
“CYFD offers you money, and — in exchange for that money so that surviving child can go on and live a better life, hopefully — [says] ‘We’re not going to accept responsibility, and don’t tell anybody about it,’ ” Attorney General Raúl Torrez said during a news conference earlier this month, when he released a scathing report on a yearlong investigation into the agency.
The New Mexico Sunshine Portal lists $3.1 million in CYFD-related lawsuit payouts since the start of 2025. That compares with a total of $13 million reported on the portal in 2024, and roughly $5 million the year before.
But those totals do not reflect all of the money paid out on behalf of CYFD. Several settlements are valued as only $1 because the agreements are under seal by a judge.
The Sunshine Portal lists at least six sealed agreements for CYFD in recent years. The number appears to have accelerated starting in 2024 — the Sunshine Portal does not list any sealed agreements from 2020 through 2023.
The agency has agreed to pay out over $15.9 million in sealed settlements so far in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, CYFD spokesperson Jessica Preston wrote in an email.
The agency’s decisions about whether to seek or support the sealing of a settlement “are not taken lightly and are guided by a careful balance of legal, ethical, and child-centered considerations,” she wrote.
Those include protecting sensitive details, such as medical and behavioral health information, children’s histories of trauma, family circumstances, and the identities of foster parents or others related to the case, Preston wrote. Still, she said CYFD does not use settlement seals to dodge accountability.
“CYFD recognized the public’s legitimate interest in transparency and accountability, particularly in cases of death or harm. Sealing a settlement does not absolve the agency of responsibility or oversight,” Preston wrote. “… Whenever possible, CYFD seeks to provide meaningful information to the public while still honoring legal obligations and privacy protections.”
Trend goes beyond CYFD
Alison Endicott-Quiñones, the guardian ad litem, or court advocate, for Ducila and Badea’s children, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in 2021 accusing the state of violating the children’s civil rights and seeking compensation for damages on their behalf.
She alleged a CYFD manager and others released the children to their parents because they wanted to avoid dealing with the case and obstructed the initial investigation into the family’s disappearance.
The case dragged on for years, but in August, the plaintiffs and state asked a judge to approve a settlement and, weeks later, to seal the agreement.
The judge agreed and approved the deal March 31. A day later, a watchdog Facebook account named “Eddy and Lea County Exposed” posted excerpts of the agreement, including a section revealing the state agreed to a global settlement of $10 million.
Preston declined to confirm the total, writing the agency does not comment on pending litigation and that it is “awaiting finalization of this case but cannot comment further at this time.”
Secrecy in lawsuits and the deals government agencies make to settle them extends beyond cases against CYFD.
Last year, for example, the city of Santa Fe settled a 2022 civil rights claim over the police department’s loss of key evidence in a rape case involving a 4-year-old girl, which had crippled the state’s criminal case against the child’s alleged abuser.
State Judge Bryan Biedscheid, in the First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe, ordered a seal on the settlement.
However, the agreement initially was made publicly available on New Mexico’s online court records database when it was finalized in February 2025. The New Mexican obtained the document through the public database; it shows the child’s family and the city agreed to a payout of $220,000.
Biedscheid also granted a motion to seal a recent settlement between the Academy for Technology and Classics and a student injured during an incident at the Santa Fe charter school. But The New Mexican was admitted into a virtual open court settlement hearing, in which the terms of the deal, including a payout of nearly $200,000 over five years, were openly discussed.
‘A little bit of overreach’
Judges like Biedscheid and attorneys representing child plaintiffs argue the secrecy is sometimes needed to protect the privacy of children who already have experienced serious trauma.
Although, in many civil cases filed on behalf of a child, the child is not named in the lawsuit or settlement to ensure their privacy.
Often, guardians ad litem representing children in legal cases push for settlements to be kept private, attorney Feliz Rael said, noting their duty is to put the children’s interests first, including by protecting their privacy.
Rael argued children also must be protected from predatory outside parties, such as factoring companies, which comb through court records to find children who have won sizable settlements structured to pay out over a long period of time. They offer lump-sum buyouts for “pennies on the dollar,” she said.
District Court rules bar judges from approving motions to seal documents in cases involving government agencies based simply on the parties’ agreements to settle. Instead, judges are required to find a motion passes a five-pronged test. The criteria include an “overriding interest” that trumps the public’s right to read what otherwise would be a public record on public spending. A proposed seal has to be “narrowly tailored.”
Yet it is often the parties involved in a lawsuit who, in their motions to seal a settlement agreement, say their proposal satisfies the test.
Biedscheid said in an interview Friday he requires attorneys to provide proof a settlement agreement should be sealed — if they don’t, he calls on them to give more information.
He does not make explicit efforts to block the release of overall settlement payout totals for CYFD in a case, as long as the amounts are not attributable to children, he said.
“I’m not trying to make sure that that never gets disclosed to the public,” the judge said.
Although he believes specific amounts going to specific children — and the structure under which they will be paid — are important pieces of information that should be kept private for the children’s safety.
“It is true that I view the privacy of that minor as incredibly important,” Biedscheid said. “… In terms of what else gets reported on the Sunshine Portal, and how agencies are doing things otherwise — that is not a factor at this stage of the proceedings of my court.”
Rael said privacy considerations at the core of her duty to child clients do not justify blocking total settlement amounts from the public.
“There appears to be … a little bit of overreach in terms of the confidentiality,” she said.
Will lawmakers push back?
New Mexico lawmakers and state officials have long emphasized the importance of transparency in claims against CYFD and have expressed concerns over the increasing pattern of sealing the state’s settlements in civil cases.
Torrez, the attorney general, has accused CYFD of a larger strategy of using New Mexico’s confidentiality laws and policies as tools to discourage foster families and employees from voicing criticism of the agency, and to obstruct investigations into its practices.
He noted the state’s practice of secrecy in settlements with children and their families, arguing CYFD’s refusal to accept responsibility or reveal the nature of its agreements only perpetuates a system that harms children.
“The problem with that system is that if it goes on like that over and over and over again, it doesn’t do anything to protect the next family and the next family and the next,” Torrez said.
Lawmakers have approved legislation to make clear settlement agreements and the amount of money paid out are available to the public. In 2020, the Legislature approved Senate Bill 64, a measure that required settlements and other records to be immediately available — a move made in response to a rule delaying release of such information for at least six months and sometimes longer.
Sen. Linda Trujillo, a Santa Fe Democrat who sponsored the bill, noted SB 64 does not address the issue of parties in a lawsuit agreeing to seal a settlement payout amount. However, she emphasized the importance of transparency in settlements with CYFD and said she would consider legislation to close the loophole.
“I have some reservation to say all of these records need to not be sealed, but I do fall on the side very strongly that the dollar amount needs to be available to the public,” she said.