Tuesday: Vinyl Nights - Divine Barrel Brewing - Tuesday at 6:00PM
Drop-In Dance Class from Charlotte Ballet: Latin Dance Class - Marion Diehl Park - Tuesday at 6:00PM
Be Well Birkdale: Free workout series - Birkdale Village - Tuesday at 6:00PM
Brewery Yoga - Cavendish Brewing Company, Gastonia - Tuesday at 6:30PM
Comedy Night at Starlight on 22nd - Starlight on 22nd - Tuesday at 7:00PM
Trivia with Big Pop Trivia - Great Wagon Road Distilling Co. - Tuesday at 7:00PM
Karaoke VS Trap Karaoke along with Karaoke Tuesday's - Section @ Recess Charlotte - Tuesday at 7:00PM
Wednesday: Poppy's Summer Movie Magic - Gem Theatre, Kannapolis - Wednesday at 10:00AM
Students: buy one ticket get one free at Independent Picture House on Wednesdays - Independent Picture House - Wednesday at 12:00 PM
Pup Social - Percent Tap House, Harrisburg - Wednesday at 4:00PM
Free Wednesday Evening at Mint Museum Randolph - Mint Museum Randolph - Wednesday at 5:00PM
Drop-In Dance Class from Charlotte Ballet: Afro Beats Fitness Dance Class - Marion Diehl Park - Wednesday at 6:00PM
Stitch N Bitch Craft Circle - Petty Thieves Brewing Co. - Wednesday at 6:00PM
Kids Eat Free Tuesdays and Wednesdays - Gilde Brewery - Wednesday at 6:00PM
Brewhouse Yoga - Sugar Creek Brewing - Wednesday at 6:30PM
Open Mic Night - Madison Perk Coffee Bar - Wednesday at 6:30PM
The OG Boot Camp - Lenny Boy Brewing Co. - Wednesday at 6:30PM
Once Upon A Trauma Storyjam - VisArt Video - Wednesday at 7:00PM
Game Night - Southern Strain Brewing Company, Concord - Wednesday at 7:00PM
Vanderpump Rules Reunion Viewing Party - Brewers at 4001 Yancey - Wednesday at 9:00PM
Thursday: Culture Night - Gilde Brewery - Thursday at 3:00PM
Charlotte Spring Carnival (admission is $5 -- rides are more) - 4525 The Plaza - Thursday at 5:00PM
Country Music Nights at RSVP South End -- live music, free line dancing classes, more - RSVP South End - Thursday at 6:00PM
Music at the Met - Metropolitan - Thursday at 6:00PM
Name the Music at Rhino Market & Deli South End - Rhino Market Uptown - Thursday at 6:30PM
LangTree Live Concert Series - LangTree Lake Norman (Mooresville) - Thursday at 6:30PM
Thursday Night Yoga - Lenny Boy Brewing Co. - Thursday at 7:00PM
Tango CLT in Uptown Charlotte - The Market at 7th Street - Thursday at 7:00PM
Fight Club: Round 2 - VisArt Video - Thursday at 7:00PM
Crossroads Cinema at Camp North End: Footloose - Camp North End - Thursday at 7:00PM
Open Mic at Redd's on Union - Redds on Union, Concord - Thursday at 9:30PM
Friday: Live After 5 -- Outdoor Concert Series at Old Town Public House - Old Town Public House - Friday at 5:00PM
Free baseball clinic for kids: Charlotte Knights PLAY BALL Clinic - Knothole Foundation Tuckaseegee Dream Fields - Friday at 5:30PM
2nd Friday Street Festival in Old Town Cornelius - Oak Street Mill - Friday at 6:00PM
Live From the Boileryard Music Series - Camp North End - Friday at 6:00PM
Live Under the Oaks music series - Birkdale Village - Friday at 6:00PM
Drive-In Movie at Badin Road Drive-In (price is per person) - Badin Road Drive-In - Friday at 6:30PM
Pineville Rock'n & Reel'n: Pandora's Box - Pineville Lake Park - Friday at 7:00PM
Fortune Friday - Red Clay Ciderworks - Friday at 7:00PM
Huntersville Movies in the Park - Veterans Park (Huntersville) - Friday at 7:30PM
Trap & Paint + Karaoke - Superstarz CLT - Friday at 8:00PM
Sports One Uptown CLT Free Friday Night RSVP LIST - Sports One Charlotte - Friday at 8:00PM
Want us to send you all the fun happenings in Charlotte directly to you? Join the LocalFYI newsletter (
by clicking here) to get the inside scoop sent to your inbox every Monday.
Any other fun things happening this week? Let us know your plans in the comments and share an event with us by
clicking here. Hello lovely readers,
Welcome to the second and final discussion of
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton. This autobiographical comic was
Canada Reads (an annual "battle of the books") winner for 2023. You can read the first discussion
here.
Summary The story picks up one month after that horrible party. Kate sleeps with Mike. She continues to get weird sexual comments from the men she works with, but she has started to laugh the comments off. Many of the men seem to have problems with her giving them orders, and her superiors get pissy with her for minor things or for wanting ‘special treatment’. Joe, a fellow Nova Scotian, overhears her swearing in frustration and tells her that everyone at the mine is just yelling at the guy next to them for work they’re not doing themselves, but that people tend to be friendlier to people from their own region of Canada. Kate wonders aloud to Doug whether the oil sands make people better or worse.
The men at the mine have heard that Kate’s ‘little friends’ (her sister Becky and friend Lindsay) are going to be joining them, and she warns them to leave them alone. When Becky and Lindsay arrive, they are wearing skirts and they quickly notice the staring and weird behaviour from the men on site. Kate apologises for it, and they wonder why she is saying sorry.
Kate tells Becky and Lindsay that the other men have been leaving her alone since most people know about her and Mike, and they tell her it’s because in their eyes she’s ‘claimed’.
They take a trip to
Gregoire Beach, but Kate doesn’t wear a swimsuit or go swimming. Becky asks her what’s up with her, as she’s noticed something is wrong. Kate talks about how everything at the beach seems so normal, but that she isn’t. However, she doesn’t explain further.
Kate looks for other jobs online, and sees a post for a job at the
Maritime Museum of British Columbia in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia.
Not long afterwards, she sees the man who forced himself on her at that party. He and the group of men he’s with see her and they start laughing.
Kate hears a man playing
Peter’s Dream on his guitar, and joins in singing the song.
She goes to Becky’s room and tells her that she needs to leave the oil sands for a while, even though she and Lindsay have just arrived. She asks her to promise that she and Lindsay will look out for each other, and finally tells her about the assaults. Becky tells her that it wasn’t her fault, and wishes she had been there sooner to protect her as that’s her job as the big sister. She tells Kate that it happened to her too, at her university dorm. She tells Kate she should go.
We leave the oil sands, for a year in Victoria. Kate gets the museum job but it’s no more than 21 hours per week, so she gets a second job. In a coffee shop, she hears the song
An Innis Aigh playing, and tells a woman who was wondering aloud about the language that it’s
Gaelic.
Victoria seems like a nicer place than the oil sands, but it isn’t perfect – the city big problems with homelessness and mental health, but none of the old, rich people living there care [read runner note – according to Victoria’s
Wikipedia page, the city is known for its disproportionately large retiree population. Some 23.4% of the population of Victoria and its surrounding area are over 65 years of age, which is higher than the overall Canadian distribution of over 65 year-olds in the population (19%). A historically popular cliché refers to Victoria as the home of "the newly wed and nearly dead"]. Kate is fired from her job for not taking American money and not wanting to sell the merchandise badly enough. One of her colleagues (I think?) sees her drawing a comic, and suggests that she should
make a website.
Kate tells her parents that on her days off she works at a grocery store, and her father wonders what her degree was for. Shortly afterwards, she is fired from the grocery store for yawning and ‘being surly’. She goes on a date, but panics when the guy tries to kiss her at the end.
Kate can’t get a reprieve from her student loan payments, even though she paid half of it off the previous year with her oil sands earnings. She decides to go back to the oil sands to pay the rest off, and says goodbye to the museum.
After that brief reprieve, we’re back in the oil sands, this time at Shell Albian Sands. Kate has taken a job in the warehouse office, and her living quarters are a bit fancier than at the previous sites. The site also has a
Tim Hortons, Wi-Fi and a gym, even yoga classes. Lindsay tells her that a lot of the warehouse crew from Long Lake have moved up there too. One of her new colleagues is Hatim, who is creepy in a new way, plaguing her with messages despite having a wife and children.
The team get a congratulations message with a gif for achieving three million man hours without a lost time incident (LTI). Kate’s boss, Ryan, tells her that they don’t have LTIs at the site because they look bad for the company, I guess implying that they cover them up.
She sees Doug again, who seems to feel that she’s all high and mighty now with her office job, and struggles with her ‘bossing him’ since she’s younger than him (and presumably because she’s female). When she has to cover a warehouse shift, Doug laughs about how she’s down from on high and has gone soft. He tells her that he sang with
The Men of the Deeps and even sang for the queen, which she doubts because he has a terrible voice. She sings a bit of
Coal Town Road (which I’m kind of disappointed doesn’t sound like Old Town Road) and asks if she could be in the choir too, but he seems annoyed about her singing a mining song when she’s not a miner.
Kate’s sister Becky is still working at Long Lake, but lives in Fort McMurray, and Kate goes to meet her there; she says it’s much better than living in the camp. She tells Kate, that one time a guy jumped out of the closet in her room, but she was able to kick him out. She always locked her door, but often heard the handle jiggling at night. She even had a stalker, who managed to get into her room with a bottle of alcohol and suggested doing body shots – she didn’t report it, but when he got fired everyone thought she had.
Kate struggles to read some of the order sheets because many of the workers are bad spellers or have unclear handwriting; many of the older men at the mine left school in grade six. Lindsay tells her about one of the lead hands from Newfoundland, who can’t read, and was humiliated by the other workers when they tried to make him read the safety memo aloud so they could laugh at him. Lindsay says she’s never seen a grown man ashamed like that, and they discuss how he’s one of the nicest guys there.
A group from the Calgary office visits the mine site, and Kate has to find the nice hard hats and safety vests for the visitors, the ones the actual workers can’t have because they’re too fancy. Basically, they have to put on a show for the head office people – everyone has to look sharp, make things tidier than normal etc. One of the visitors takes a photo of Kate. After they leave, Damian asks if he can have one of the fancy new vests, but they were taken back to Calgary even though they don’t need them at head office.
Kate continues doing her comics, and her colleagues occasionally read them. Ryan finds some of them in the scanner, which she had used to upload them to her website, and tells her not to leave her stuff lying around at work.
Becky and Kate discuss what it would have been like if their father had gone out to the oil sands to work when they were children, as many people did. They wonder if he would have been like the other men they work with, and how they must all be normal at home. Kate says she tries to remember that there are a lot of men who don’t bother her, but she doesn’t remember them because they’re not the ones in her face.
Their safety lectures tell them basic information about how ice is slippery and is all over the ground, which presumably every Canadian already knows. One of the men remarks that it’s not about safety, but an arse-covering exercise so that a worker can’t sue them if they fall. Kate doodles
a pony in her notebook (thank you
u/Amanda39 for linking to this comic in last week’s discussion!).
Many of the staff have families that they don’t see very often. One of the men gets a phonecall from his wife’s phone, which he answers thinking it’s an emergency as she never calls during the day; it turns out to be his young son, who is calling to see when he’s coming home next.
Brian asks Kate if she heard about the ducks (TITLE DROP!!); three hundred of them got
stuck in a tailings pond at another oil sands site [read runner note – two years later, Syncrude was actually found guilty of the death of
1,600 ducks]. The site begins installing anti-waterfowl devices, and the staff are reminded that they have to wear PPE at all times. They’re also told about the death Gerald Snopes, another worker; some of the men talking amongst themselves, and Ryan tells them to have some respect. He had a heart attack while operating a crane, and threw himself out of the cab so that he wouldn’t land on the controls and cause an accident.
Kate hears about a road accident involving some men from Cape Breton. She asks Davy about it to see if she knows them, but neither of them do. Kate finds the news articles and feels annoyed that they were misidentified as Calgary men.
Kate notices some welts on her back; Lindsay has them too but doesn’t know what it is. Kate mentions all the dust they have to wipe off everything, and how there’s so much crap in the air. Lindsay wonders what kind of cancer they’ll have in 20 years.
Kate finds Doug building a scarecrow for the tailings pond, which is meant to scare off the ducks. Probably another arse-covering exercise.
Activists from Greenpeace try to block an oil sands pipeline, and 11 people are arrested. One of the workers gets angry about it, asking who will put their life on the line to unclog the pipe Greenpeace has blocked, and that it sure as hell won’t be the president of Shell. Kate hears about another death – a contractor was in his trucks, and one of the heavy haulers drove over it, crushing him.
Lindsay writes
an article for a grassroots paper, giving the inside perspective on working at the oil sands. Kate considers doing a comic about it for them. Lindsay later wonders if she made a mistake writing her article, as many of the comments are critical, including many from women which Lindsay did not expect.
Kate sees a
video on YouTube of Celina Harpe, an elder in the Cree community of
Fort McKay, talking about the effect of the oil sands on the First Nation. Kate had not realised when she arrived there that Fort McKay was a First Nation, nor that it was so close to Syncrude. She thinks about how she’s not the president of Shell, but she’s still working there, and she can’t extract herself from having come.
At another safety meeting, the staff are down the safety pyramid, which has different levels: at the base it has at-risk behaviours, then near misses, then minor incidents, and it all leads to a major incident or a fatality.
Kate receives a phone call from a reporter at the Globe and Mail who had seen her comics about the oil sands. She asks several leading questions about her experience as a woman at the remote sites and the harassment, but Kate feels uncomfortable giving her examples. She later tells Lindsay that she couldn’t talk to the reporter as she felt like she just wanted gossip, and that the story was already written before she called.
The leering of one of the other workers bothers Kate in the lunchroom, and she tells Lindsay about her assaults. Lindsay is horrified that Mike and Brian laughed at her when she told them about it. Lindsay tells her that it happened to her in university as well.
Kate calls her parents to tell them that she’s finally paid off her student loan, but she needs to keep working at the site because now she has no money. She’s going to try making it as a cartoonist, and her parents are unimpressed.
Kate notices that Ryan is acting strangely, being absent a lot and not doing his work, and it can’t fully be explained by his recent divorce. She hears about other workers who are taking cocaine and behaving strangely too. She asks Ryan if he’s ok and he brushes it off. Kate contemplates the safety pyramid again. She finds a piece of paper on Ryan’s desk with an appointment for the employee assistance program. Emily later tells her that Ryan has left suddenly, and that they need to figure things out until a replacement is found.
Kate wonders why there are so many safety meetings but none have ever talked about drugs or alcohol. Her coworkers say that everyone knows why there is so much of both, and that the company can’t have safety meetings about illegal activities anyway.
Kate finally gets to leave the oil sands and go home. Her colleague Norman gives her prints of some of his photos of the northern lights as a leaving present, including one of a rainbow. Before she leaves, the company organises a staff photograph with all the workers on the site. Kate sees the man who assaulted her the second time, and he recognises her but can’t remember her name or who she is, and asks her how it’s going.
Kate trains her replacement, and finds out that she’s earning more than her despite not having any experience in tools. She complains to John about it, and finally rants about all her shitty treatment in the oil sands. She goes to see Gary in the head office, and demands her full bonus, which was going to be docked because she was leaving. Gary tells her it’s company policy. She tells him about the harassment, and he claims she could have come to them about it, but she fires back that he knows she couldn’t have. Gary agrees to give her the bonus. Her colleagues organise a going-away barbecue, and even Mike attends.
Back in Nova Scotia, Kate is reunited with her family. While out enjoying the seaside air, she chats to a farmer who tells her he’s keeping a field for his son who is working out west in case he ever comes back and wants to build a house. A man called Lauchie visits the house before moving west himself, and tells them there’s something for everyone out there and that the young people have everything they want. Out in Halifax with friends, she and Becky see a man from one of the camps, who tells Becky that they had a bet on who would sleep with her first. Their friends who haven’t worked in the oil sands can’t believe they’d let a man talk to them like that.
In the book’s afterword, Kate talks about how the book chronicles her specific experience at a specific time. She is wary of sensationalism of her story, especially because sexual assault is so common that it’s not actually sensational. She notes that neither of the men who raped her probably consider it to have been rape. She is also critical of the treatment of Indigenous people, and says the YouTube video of Celina Harpe was a “sword that cut through my ignorance”. We also find out that Becky died of cancer, and that her former coworkers pooled money together to send to her.
Bookclub Bingo 2023 categories: Non-Fiction, Graphic Novel (grey), Mod Pick (grey)
Other links:
- The first discussion
- Canada Reads page about Ducks [I hadn’t realised that Station Eleven, another recent bookclub read, was the runner up]
- Kate Beaton on Wikipedia
- Hark! A Vagrant, the archive of Kate Beaton’s comics website
- The original Hark! A Vagrant sketch comic about the oil sands (links to all five parts; I’ve posted the parts individually below this in case that’s easier)
- Original Ducks Part 1
- Original Ducks Part 2
- Original Ducks Part 3
- Original Ducks Part 4
- Original Ducks Part 5
- Lindsay Bird was one of the people in the book whose name wasn’t changed, and in 2019 she published a poetry collection about working in the oil sands called Boom Time. There’s a CBC article about the book here.
The questions are in the comments below. Thank you for joining me and
u/fixtheblue in reading this book!
There was an annoying paywall below and someone from the Complain about SSO discord got past it. Here is the full text from the article below.
https://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/2023/05/grass-lake-woman-accused-pediatrician-father-of-sexual-abuse-before-she-died-of-fatal-overdose.html GRASS LAKE, MI – When 23-year-old Sophia Dinverno died, there was an outpouring of grief on YouTube, where she posted popular equestrian-related videos.
At the time of her death, her channel had 238 videos and more than 178,000 subscribers.
People posted sentiments like: “A beautiful soul, gone too soon. We will remember you always. We are all so saddened by the passing of this amazing young woman.”
Related: Jackson County woman remembered as popular YouTuber, horse enthusiast
Records show that Sophia Dinverno died of a drug overdose, but the manner of death – accident or suicide – still has not been determined. Police are continuing to investigate.
Part of the investigation involves her own father, a well-known local pediatrician whose office was recently searched by Michigan State Police and the Jackson Sheriff’s Office. Police confirmed computers were seized as part of a double-pronged investigation into Dr. Joel Dinverno’s medical license and Sophia Dinverno’s death.
Police and court documents obtained by MLive/Jackson Citizen Patriot also reveal Sophia Dinverno accused her father of sexually abusing her at a young age.
The allegations prompted a 2021 criminal investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and caused Joel Dinverno to temporarily lose custody of his children, according to the records. And days after Sophia Dinverno died, the state’s licensing agency opened a complaint against Joel Dinverno’s license.
The complaint, which does not include any mention of the sexual abuse allegations, remains pending.
Meanwhile, Joel Dinverno continues to practice medicine in Grass Lake, a sleepy, tightknit community in eastern Jackson County where people bump into each other at Missy’s Little Grass Shack or Sawds Village Inn.
The doctor, 52, has worked as a licensed pediatrician there for nearly two decades. His private practice, Sacred Heart Pediatrics, is nestled next to a Chevrolet dealership on the outskirts of the one-stoplight village. A 2005 Jackson Citizen Patriot article headlined “The Kid Doctor” hangs in the lobby of the small-town practice.
Dinverno and his wife lived with their seven children at a rural home in Grass Lake Township. Now two of those children – Sophia Dinverno and her brother, Micah – are dead of drug overdoses, according to court records. The remaining children range from high school to elementary school age.
The allegation of child sexual abuse brought police to his doorstep in late 2021, according to police documents.
Joel Dinverno has repeatedly declined to make an official comment about the investigations when reached by reporters in person and by phone.
A complaint launches a police investigation
On Aug. 26, 2021, a Jackson County Sheriff’s Office deputy and a Child Protective Services caseworker came to Joel Dinverno’s house, prompted by a call from Sophia Dinverno to the Sheriff’s Office. They drove down a long driveway at the doctor’s rural Grass Lake Township home to find him outside doing yardwork, according to a police report.
Assisted by police, CPS was responding to allegations that Joel Dinverno had touched an immediate family member inappropriately, according to a 16-page police report MLive/Jackson Citizen-Patriot obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. While speaking to police, Sophia Dinverno reported being sexually abused by her father at a younger age, according to the report.
The then-22-year-old’s initial complaint with CPS also alleged that one of her brothers had a habit of intruding in Sophia Dinverno’s bedroom and the bathroom at inappropriate times, she alleged in the police report.
According to court testimony, this son had “a mental breakdown” after his brother, Micah, died in 2020 at age 19. The Jackson County Medical Examiner found Micah’s death to be the result of drug abuse, records show, and his death is attributed to an accidental drug overdose in court documents.
Until the investigation was complete, Joel Dinverno – along with the son listed in the report – agreed to temporarily move into the Sacred Heart office under a safety plan initiated by CPS.
Joel Dinverno told investigators he had a conversation with his wife about their daughter’s allegations. He described multiple times where his daughter would sit on his lap or lie on top of him when they were alone in his bedroom, prompting him to get an erection, according to the police report.
Sophia Dinverno, bringing the allegations as an adult, said she was naked and Joel Dinverno had been in his underwear when this occurred, according to the police report. Joel Dinverno argued the version of the story had been inaccurate but did not want to call his daughter a liar, according to the report. They were always clothed when this happened, he contended.
Joel Dinverno suggested the erections might have simply come from the child moving around on his lap and not sitting still, according to the report.
In response to the allegations, Joel Dinverno also cited his Catholic faith.
He told police he’d gone to confession where a priest advised him to stop the behavior, but these actions continued for several months before he returned to ask for forgiveness, according to the police report. Joel Dinverno also told officials he practices a pre-1958 version of Catholicism described by one of his family members as though he created and taught his own version of the religion.
Joel Dinverno wrote a letter to his daughter in 2020 saying he couldn’t change what happened, and he would never harm her again, according to the police report.
Within weeks of the police visit, the case stalled.
On Sept. 23, 2021, the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office told the Sheriff’s Office it would not issue charges against Joel Dinverno because the alleged victim did not want to move forward with the criminal investigation.
“A warrant request was denied because the victim did not want to go forward against their dad,” said Jackson County Prosecutor Jerry Jarzynka. “Without their cooperation and testimony, we were not going to be able to meet that burden of proof.”
Good touch, bad touch
Even without criminal charges, CPS stepped in. A petition seeking jurisdiction over the minor children was filed against Joel Dinverno and his wife in September 2021, according to court records.
Jackson County Family Court records about the petition filed by the Department of Health and Human Service are sealed, according to court officials. DHHS officials said they cannot discuss custody cases.
After the petition was filed, Jackson County Family Court Judge Richard LaFlamme ordered Joel Dinverno removed from the family home and that he was not to have any contact with his four minor children during court proceedings, according to Michigan Court of Appeals documents obtained by MLive/Jackson Citizen-Patriot.
Both Joel Dinverno and his wife were named in the petition, according to court records. Joel Dinverno requested a jury trial, which was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A bench trial for his wife took place in December 2021 before LaFlamme.
At her bench trial, Joel Dinverno’s wife testified she first heard about the alleged abuse when her daughter was 15 years old, court documents show. After the teen’s high school class discussed the concepts of “good touch” and “bad touch,” Sophia Dinverno said her father touched places that should not be touched, according to the court records.
The teen did not give her mother any further details and did not want to talk to anyone else, including police or a counselor, about what happened, according to testimony detailed in the court records. She also testified that Sophia Dinverno was about 9 years old at the time of the alleged abuse, and it had not happened since then, according to the court records.
“(The mother) basically did what (her child) wanted and didn’t call the police and didn’t set up counseling,” a CPS representative was quoted as saying in the court documents.
CPS argued the remaining minor children were in “substantial risk of harm” because their mother would not call police in the face of abuse allegations. The mother, contending there were no other “red flags” of abuse, asked for the petition to be dismissed, saying there was no concern for the safety and wellbeing of the children, according to court documents.
Joel Dinverno appeared before LaFlamme to begin his jury trial on March 1, 2022 – which ended with a hung jury decision on March 3, Jarzynka said. Prosecutors tried Joel Dinverno’s case again in court before a jury on June 13, ending with a verdict where the court assumed jurisdiction over the children on June 15, Jarzynka said.
During his testimony, Joel Dinverno once again recalled the incidents where his daughter sat on his lap.
“While (Dinverno) volunteered this information to the detective, he did not think that Sophia was even aware of these incidents, as he was clear that both he and Sophia were fully clothed each time and that he never touched Sophia with his erection,” court documents read. “(Dinverno) recalled this happening four times and he also recalled it as an ‘unwise situation.’”
Ultimately the court assumed jurisdiction over the minor children – meaning the children become wards of the state under the protection of the court – because of the sexual abuse allegations, according to court documents.
“At the time of both jury trials last Spring, the father was not allowed to live at the family home. After the jury verdict in June where the jury adjudicated and gave the judge jurisdiction over the minor children and family, the judge allowed the father to return to the family home,” Jarzynka said in an email to MLive. “The judge also indicated to the petitioner that he would not terminate the father’s parental rights in this case.”
The verdict prompted both Joel Dinverno and Sophia Dinverno’s mother to appeal. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s ruling in both cases, according to court records.
On April 7, Joel Dinverno filed a motion with the Michigan Supreme Court that would send the case back to the Court of Appeals for review or dismiss the trial court’s order assuming jurisdiction over the minor children.
The Supreme Court case remains pending. Joel Dinverno’s attorney did not respond to a message left for this story.
Suspected overdose
At 7:59 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 17, police and fire personnel were called to the Dinverno residence, where they found Sophia Dinverno unresponsive in her bed, according to a Jackson County Sheriff’s Office report.
Her mother made the 911 call, according to the report.
Sophia Dinverno’s death was initially reported as a possible overdose or suicide, though the cause and manner of her death are still under investigation.
A “small silver container that contained orange pills” was found at the scene of her death, police wrote in the report, though toxicology results are still pending.
SophiaDinvernoSocial
Sophia Dinverno
The 23-year-old had a special love for horses and became an accomplished young horsewoman, her obituary states. This passion for horses extended into the virtual realm.
Sophia Dinverno reached a widespread audience through her active and successful YouTube channel. Under the moniker “Violet Flowergarden,” Sophia Dinverno frequently posted videos of her experiences playing the online game Star Stable.
The ‘Kid Doctor’ continues practicing medicine
After the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office visited the Dinverno home in August 2021, the state’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs opened an investigation into his medical license.
It resulted in an administrative complaint brought against Joel Dinverno’s license on Jan. 20. But the complaint mentions nothing about the sexual abuse allegations; rather, it focuses on Joel Dinverno being his children’s primary doctor.
Joel Dinverno kept almost no medical records for his children, refused to vaccinate them because of “personal religious beliefs” and gave them prescription antibiotics without documentation, Michigan Assistant Attorneys General Adam Masserang and Eric St. Onge wrote in the complaint.
Four claims were brought against Joel Dinverno, including a violation of general duty, failing to meet minimal medical practice standards, failing to keep full medical records and a “lack of good moral character.”
Police search doctor’s office
Police executed a search warrant at Sacred Heart Pediatrics, Joel Dinverno’s office, located at 11745 E. Michigan Ave. in Grass Lake, at 6:30 a.m., April 12.
State police and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office seized computers from the office as part of a joint investigation, according to police.
“The search warrant was in relation to the LARA investigation as well as the suspicious death of Sophia Dinverno,” Lt. Tedric Gibbs with the Michigan State Police wrote in an email to MLive/Jackson Citizen Patriot.
Joel Dinverno Office
Michigan State Police seized property from Sacred Heart Pediatrics, 11755 E Michigan Ave., in Grass Lake on Wednesday, April 12, 2023. (Photo by Rose White MLive)
Gibbs said five to six detectives were at the scene, along with a total of eight to 10 uniformed officers from both agencies.
When reached by a reporter immediately after the search, Joel Dinverno did not have an official comment.
Grass Lake is rattled
The case has been talked about in hushed tones in Grass Lake for some time, according to residents. The sexual abuse allegations are something of an open secret, with residents sharing police and court records about the cases on social media.
When a copy of the original police report started circulating on Facebook last year, Kim Williams, 36, found a new doctor for her two children. Williams had been going to Sacred Heart ever since the birth of her son 11 years ago.
Nothing inappropriate ever happened with her children, Williams said, and Joel Dinverno – despite what she termed his “quirky personality” – was always professional. But the Grass Lake mother questions why the doctor was treating patients after being accused of sexual abuse.
“It seems like as soon as someone is accused of something like that, they shouldn’t be able to practice with kids,” she said.
Next steps
A woman who answered the phone at the Sacred Heart offices on Tuesday, April 25 said Joel Dinverno was with patients that day. She said he could not come to the phone. A message was left.
Meanwhile, the police investigation into Sophia Dinverno’s death continues. Gibbs and Jackson County Undersheriff Chris Simpson on Tuesday, April 25 said there were no updates to report.
The process with the complaint against Joel Dinverno’s medical license also continues.
Joel Dinverno had 30 days to respond to the initial complaint in January. LARA has declined to provide any further information about the process.
The complaint could lead to a settlement where Joel Dinverno complies with a sanction – which could be a fine, a suspended license or revoked license – or the case will go before an administrative law judge. Jeff Wattrick, a spokesperson for LARA, said a health professional board usually decides sanctions.
“No such final determination has been made in this case,” Wattrick said in a Feb. 10 written statement.
In early April, a LARA spokesperson said the case against Joel Dinverno’s license remained unchanged from when the complaint was filed in January.
On April 25, a LARA spokesperson said there were no updates and did not provide any additional details about the case.