An agent embroiled in the aftermath of the Turpin child-abuse case is facing public calls for the state of California to suspend or revoke her real estate license.
Vanessa Espinoza was a former deputy public guardian with a full-time assignment to help the seven oldest Turpin children navigate life after escaping their parents’ abusive home. She also worked part-time in real estate during this period, ABC News reports.
Vanessa Espinoza
Now, Espinoza is the subject of a new change.org petition that asks the California Department of Real Estate to investigate whether she did enough to meet the older Turpins’ needs as she juggled those responsibilities with her real estate career.
The petition surfaced after a recent “20/20” report from ABC News further detailed the conditions in which the 13 Turpin children were forced to live by their parents — including years of isolation, physical abuse and neglect, with limited access to food or clean clothes. The report also described their difficulty finding safe housing and other services in the years since they were rescued.
Espinoza was part of that broader effort to assist the Turpin siblings and help them achieve a sense of normalcy and security they never knew in their parents’ home.
But some of the adult children said that Espinoza was unwilling to answer even basic questions to help them adjust to life outside those doors, including how to use public transportation or cross the street safely.
“She would just tell me, ‘Just go Google it,’” Joshua Turpin, one of the family’s older siblings, told ABC News.
Espinoza did not immediately return a phone call from Inman requesting comment.
In its first three days, the online petition has garnered more than 1,300 signatures in support of stripping Espinoza of her real estate license, or at least suspending it.
“[Espinoza’s] lack of professionalism and dereliction of duties in her work with the Turpins and County of Riverside suggests unethical and…