PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. — The Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) has agreed to pay $9 million to a woman who alleges that she was abused in her childhood foster home. The lawsuit asserts the department ignored or failed to investigate a number of red flags that should have prompted the state to intervene.

Ashley Miller said she was sexually and physically abused in her foster home between the years 1997 and 2004. Despite lapsed communication with DSHS, long absences from school and an unidentified adult living in the home, the department still allowed Miller's foster mother to pursue an adoption.

Miller told KING 5 that before her foster home she also experienced abuse, and she thought she was being saved. But what was supposed to be a safe haven, she said, tur

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