Tiffany Lewis was 21 when her two children were first separated from her. It wasn't until earlier this year, 15 years on, that she regained custody of them.
The Morristown woman was overjoyed when the Tennessee Department of Children's Services suddenly agreed to return her children to her within days of each other in April.
The 6-month-old and 2-year-old babies whose faces she struggled to remember over the past decade were now 15 and 17 years old, and their demeanors and personalities were foreign to her. Lewis had two more children in the intervening years. Unifying her family wouldn't be easy.
“It’s like the best thing that could ever happen but it’s a nightmare at the same time,” Lewis said. "We’re just kind of trying to mend two worlds, and
it’s hard.”
A federal lawsuit she filed last month says that, for years, Lewis was led to believe her parental rights had been terminated and her children had been adopted. Her lawyer says neither of those are true.
'They just didn't pay attention to her'
Lewis' attorney, Ethel Rhodes, said years of misrepresentations and a bureaucratic "black hole" kept Lewis from her children for more than a decade. Despite years of approaches and outreach to DCS, and even a victory in juvenile court, Lewis never quite knew where she stood.
“I’ve been in this business for 38 years," Rhodes said. "Nothing much startles me. But I was horrified that children were gone for that long of a time. They just didn’t pay attention to her.”
To make a bad situation worse, the lawsuit says the children were subject to abuse from the couple they lived with, including being forced to sleep on the floor and refused the use of a bathroom.
Lewis is suing three DCS employees, the couple the children stayed with for over a decade and the lawyer who represented the couple in court when Lewis was seeking to regain custody.
Rhodes said she is filing a claim against the state through Tennessee's Claims Commission, too.
"Because this involves pending litigation, DCS is unable to comment at this time," DCS spokesperson Ashley Zarach wrote in an email to Knox News.
In June 2011, DCS separated the children from Lewis when she was arrested on "prescription-fraud-related" charges, the lawsuit says. The juvenile court initially placed them with Lewis' sister, and Lewis was granted supervised visitation.
Lewis knew it was best for her kids to be placed temporarily with her sister. Ever since a car crash when she was 16 years old, she suffered from back pain and struggled with addiction.
“I wasn’t an outstanding citizen," Lewis said. "I was a troubled person. My whole world had been ripped from me. But I own that. I have accountability for what I did. It doesn’t account for what was done to me.”
The children were later moved to the home of Tabitha and Doug Magrich. Tabitha Magrich was the ex-fiancée of Lewis' father. Lewis believed that since Magrich and her father maintained a civil relationship, she would not have a problem staying in contact with her kids when she was out of jail.
Lewis visited with her children in October 2013. She wasn't granted contact again until 2026, the lawsuit says.
Lewis has maintained her sobriety since 2014. When she found a steady job and a home, Lewis says she made frequent attempts to contact Tabitha Magrich, to reach out to a DCS case manager and to work through the court system to regain access to her children.
Throughout the years, Tabitha Magrich told Lewis in social media messages that Lewis' parental rights had been terminated and the Magriches had adopted both children, the lawsuit says. Lewis grew skeptical of the couple's claim to the children, however, when Tabitha Magrich demanded she agree to an adoption.
Thinking her kids might not have been adopted, Lewis filed a petition in juvenile court in December 2017 and was granted visitation. DCS was required to open a "family support services" case to assist her in the process.
Through their attorney, Tabitha and Doug Magrich say what's in the lawsuit isn't accurate.
"My clients deny the factual allegations against them and look forward to defending this case in the court system exclusively," attorney Aaron Chapman wrote in a statement to Knox News. "We do not intend to comment otherwise."
'We'll have somebody call you'
DCS workers never provided the assistance that was required, Lewis' suit says, and did not make the court order part of the family's file.
“No one helped me," Lewis said. "When I did go to court, no one still helped me.”
At the time, Lewis did not have a driver's license. Instead, she would routinely take her father's riding lawnmower on the short journey to the Hamblen County DCS office to try to speak with a case manager.
She said she was consistently led on.
“We’ll have somebody call you," Lewis said was the common refrain. "And they never called.”
In February 2018, an attorney for Tabitha and Doug Magrich simultaneously filed an adoption petition in Hamblen County Circuit Court and a stay of proceedings in juvenile court, effectively halting Lewis's visitation rights, the lawsuit says.
The adoption petition was dismissed in 2025. The lawsuit says the Magriches' attorney, Michael Menefee, did not notify the juvenile court that the adoption effort had failed. The stay of proceedings stayed in effect until late 2025, when a new DCS case manager looked at the file with fresh eyes, saw inconsistencies and began asking questions, the lawsuit says.
Rhodes believes it is possible Tabitha and Doug Magrich never had legal custody of the kids during the years they lived with them.
DCS sought an order in juvenile court clarifying that the couple had custody of the children. The order, signed in July 2025, retroactively corrected the record to show the Magrichs had custody since February 2012.
The "forced estrangement" could have been avoided or resolved earlier had DCS workers made basic verifications, requested proof of adoption, reviewed the court file, responded to Lewis's inquiries or followed the 2017 visitation order, the lawsuit says.
"Instead, plaintiffs allege that DCS employees repeatedly accepted and repeated unverified information for years while Mother (Lewis) continued to seek information, visitation and reunification," the lawsuit states.
During this time, the children were subject to an "abusive household," the suit says, saying they were "injured, assaulted, forced to sleep on the floor and refused the use of a bathroom." Both children reported the abuse to a school resource officer, the suit says.
'It's traumatizing. They didn't even know I was looking for them or wanted them'
In 2025, a petition was filed in juvenile court and an attorney was appointed for Lewis' daughter to look after her interests. The attorney filed a petition for dependency and neglect, claiming there were "open DCS matters and allegations of physical and emotional abuse in the Magrich home."
Lewis' daughter was ordered into state custody. At a December 2025 hearing, the court record reflected that Tabitha and Doug Magrich were not the childrens' legal parents. During a meeting a week later, DCS stated it had only recently learned that Lewis' daughter had not been adopted, the lawsuit says.
On Jan. 8, 2026, a DCS case worker called Lewis and told her that her parental rights had not been terminated and her daughter had not been adopted.
Lewis was recognized as her daughter's legal mother on Jan. 20, and she was returned to Lewis on April 15.
The following day, DCS contacted her to ask if she would accept placement of her son, who also had not been adopted, the lawsuit says. She was awarded custody after a hearing on April 20.
“It’s traumatizing," Lewis said. "They didn’t even know that I was looking for them or wanted them. They had been told over the years that I didn’t want them.”
Rhodes told Knox News she believes DCS is now more efficient, but consistent staff turnover and a large bureaucracy meant things could fall through the cracks in years past. And while separating a child from parents can happen "in just a blink," getting visitation rights back is far more difficult.
“Once a child is removed, they just drag their feet," Rhodes said. "DCS is just very big and they’re very bulky and they’re very slow.”
The lawsuit asks for at least $45 million in compensatory damages, $15 million each for Lewis and her two children. That does not include any punitive damages or attorney fees.
Anthony Nicotera covers public safety for Knox News. Email: anthony.nicotera@knoxnews.com
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Mom reunited with kids 15 years after her case fell through the cracks | Exclusive
