Mayor cleared of child abuse accusations as he, wife fight over custody of two kids
Sheriff's investigators conclude there are no "actionable incidents" to charge Spencer Boudreau with crimes
This updated column removes the names of the Boudreaus’ children. And it corrects an error about a divorce filing. Lauren Boudreau filed for divorce.
A judge Monday granted limited visitation rights to the estranged wife of Longview Mayor Spencer Boudreau in a custody battle that began last month with an allegation that he tried to assault her and burned one of their children in hot bath water.
The Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office investigated those and other child abuse and neglect allegations against the mayor at the request of Child Protective Services.
It has closed the case as unfounded, concluding there was “no physical evidence of an assault or neglect” towards the couple’s two children. CPS officials agreed with that conclusion.
However, Boudreau, 25, and his wife, Lauren, 22, will continue to be monitored by CPS while they work through a custody battle, according to the sheriff’s office.
Court documents indicate that the young couple have struggled emotionally and come into conflict over parenting their son, 2, and daughter, 1.
Lauren Boudreau filed for divorce on February 10 to end their three-year-old marriage.
I normally don’t write about cases like this one. I’m only doing so now because Boudreau is an elected official.
The claims and counterclaims raise questions about each party’s self-control, anger management and parental fitness. The dispute has become nasty at times, with further unsubstantiated allegations arising since the sheriff’s office completed its investigation.
The latest development took place Monday. Cowlitz County Court Commissioner Jill Karmy granted Lauren Boudreau three, one-hour periods of professionally supervised visitation per week with her children.
Until Monday, Boudreau had sole custody of the children since he obtained a temporary protection order signed by Cowlitz Superior Court Judge Marilyn Haan on January 29. However, with the parents’ consent, sheriff’s deputies put the Boudreau children in the care of Lauren Boudreau’s mother, Kelly Schult, after receiving CPS requests to investigate Spencer Boudreau.
A full-fledged custody hearing has been postponed twice, at least in part because Boudreau has yet to hire a lawyer. The two sides are next due in court on March 10.
At Monday’s hearing Boudreau said his wife is “manic” and that he feared she would not take her medications and would endanger their children. (Lauren Boudreau said after the hearing that she takes medication for depression and anxiety.)
“Kids this age need to be with their mother,” Longview attorney Lisa Walvogel, representing Lauren Boudreau, told the court. She reported that her client is taking her medications and that there is no evidence she would harm her children.
Following the hearing, Lauren Boudreau said, “I haven’t seen my kids in four weeks. It’s painful. It’s not just how you feel. It’s physical.”
She said she was living in an out-of-county women’s support shelter and did not know Monday where their children have been staying.
The mayor declined comment following the hearing.
A sheriff’s investigator found no evidence of burns when he saw the children while interviewing Lauren at a shelter the night of January 29, three days after the alleged bathwater incident. At that time they seemed well cared for, the report notes.
Lauren Boudreau reported that in January her husband picked their daughter up from her high chair after she’d finished eating and started shaking her to remove food crumbs.
“Lauren advised she did not think this was an intentional act to harm” the child, according to the sheriff’s report. However, she said her own court filings that her husband was quick to anger with children and spanked them often.
A CPS caseworker, Shannon Brown, told the sheriff’s office she agreed with investigators that “there were not actionable incidents for law enforcement and that CPS would be working with the family,” according to the sheriff’s report.
The report does not address Lauren Boudreau’s allegation that her husband attempted to hit her. In his own court filings, Boudreau denies trying to strike his wife on the night of January 26.
Boudreau said he’s been the victim of “severe physical abuse as a child … and I would not raise a hand to my children or my wife to harm them.”
According to the sheriff’s report, Boudreau “felt that Lauren was unable or unwilling to care for the children without his direct supervision. He did not allege that she mistreated, assaulted or neglected the children.”
In court filings, both acknowledged coming from troubled backgrounds.
In a long letter to the court, Lauren Boudreau said she grew up in an abusive home with frequent corporal punishment. (She did not blame her mother for the abusive treatment).
“My childhood was traumatic. … Becoming a new mom, I had no idea what I was doing. My marriage has never been perfect. We started off as young and stupid kids and had to grow up very fast for our son.”
Boudreau’s longstanding political aspirations — which he has expressed since he was in high school — are a source of conflict. After court Monday, Lauren Boudreau said she objected to the amount of time her husband has to devote to his mayoral duties.
I’ve always hated writing stories like this, because it’s so hard to determine the truth in "he said, she said” conflicts. Also, the boundary between the couple’s privacy and the public’s need to know is fuzzy. So I’ve withheld some allegations in this case because there is little way to judge their veracity and they have not been investigated by authorities.
I have taken the children’s names out of the story. But readers must go to Lower Columbia currents site to see the updated version.
The troubling part of this story is not Mr. Stepankowsky’s error (if it even was one), it’s that our Mayor is embroiled in an extremely exacting personal turmoil. The public absolutely has a right to know he stands accused of engaging in domestic violence, and even if he alleges his wife is the aggressor, "the truth likely lies in the middle".
So, let’s have a little perspective here about this feigned outrage over the Mayor’s children being named, even if it is probably appropriate Mr. Stepankowsky redacted them.
First, the Mayor has been ~very~ public at council meetings and on “social media” about his children. He has shared multiple photos of his family (his current FB page profile photo is literally of him holding his son in the Mayor’s office) and he has gone out of his way to share detailed information about both of his kids, including their respective serious medical diagnoses. The point being, the Mayor has a well established practice of ~not~ keeping his family private.
Second, it’s rich as heck for Councilmember Halvorson to weigh in on these comments, when he himself ~deliberately~ distributed to a political associate an unredacted Excel spreadsheet from the city that contained privileged and confidential police records which included identifiable minor crime victims.
Don’t believe me? Enter a PRR to the Clerk’s office for Mr. Halvorson’s February 16, 2024 email to Rayleen Aguirre. It will now include a redacted copy of the spreadsheet, except that it ~wasn’t~ redacted when he disseminated it to her.