Motion To Seal Records Is Filed After Multiple Documents Name Victims Of Child Abuse

Monica, Jade, and Brian Campbell attend a hearing at the Cochise County Superior Court. [Photo by Terri Jo Neff]

The attorney for four children whose adoptive parents were sentenced last week to prison for multiple counts of felony child abuse has asked a judge to seal several documents recently filed in the cases because the victims’ names and confidential medical data is revealed.

The motion to seal records lists nine documents filed with the Clerk of the Cochise County Superior Court in January in advance of a sentencing hearing for Brian Campbell and Monica Campbell. The couple pleaded guilty last year to four felony counts involving abuse of four adoptive children, including a July 2018 incident in which one of the minors was Tasered by his parents while other children watched.

Two of the victims are now adults and have been named in some court proceedings, although their identity has remained protected in court documents by use of their initials. Other documents which contained names instead of initials were either filed under seal or ordered sealed by the court dating back to when charges were initiated against the parents in early 2019.

Five of the nine documents were filed with the clerk by attorneys for the Campbells, including a 22-page letter to Judge Timothy Dickerson from Monica Campbell which contains confidential medical and psychiatric information about all four of the victims as well as another adoptive child. There was no request submitted with the letter asking the clerk to seal the document from public access.

On Jan. 22, Dickerson imposed a three-year sentence for both of the Campbells during a morning hearing. Later that day several case documents were posted to a Facebook group dedicated to Cochise County Courts, Crime, Jail, Justice & Politics. Monica Campbell’s unredacted letter was one of the documents.

However, it was not only the Campbells and their attorneys who failed to protect the privacy of the victims in the days leading up to the sentencing hearing.

According to the motion to seal filed by victim advocate Lynne Cadigan, the two pre-sentence reports prepared for Dickerson by the Cochise County Adult Probation Department also contained identifying information about the victims. Neither document was filed under seal.

And even Cadigan submitted two documents which she acknowledged should have been filed under seal.  All nine documents were properly released by the clerk’s office as public records.

The Campbells are in the Cochise County jail awaiting transfer to the Arizona Department of Corrections. They voluntarily severed their parental rights in April 2020.