Governor Carcieri said he was completely unaware of widespread physical and mental abuse that allegedly plagues Rhode Island’s child-welfare system as outlined in a sweeping civil-rights lawsuit filed in federal court last week.

Speaking publicly about the suit for the first time yesterday, the governor said his office is investigating specific allegations regarding 10 children cited in the court filing, but that there were no immediate plans to move any children or discipline staff. And Carcieri largely denied suggestions that the system designed to care for foster children in Rhode Island is broken.

“We don’t believe right now … that there are any youngsters in our care right now being abused,” he said during an impromptu news conference outside his office yesterday. “Are the allegations in fact true? I don’t know any of that right now, but we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”

The state Child Advocate, Jametta O. Alston, filed an 85-page lawsuit last Thursday against her boss, Carcieri, and Patricia Martinez, director of the Department of Children, Youth and Families, and Jane A. Hayward, secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

The governor’s comments followed a 45-minute closed-door meeting with Alston. It was the first time the pair had met since the lawsuit was filed. And it was the first time they had spoken in months, Alston later said.

The lawsuit is backed by the international law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges and Children’s Rights, a nonprofit New York City organization that has successfully brought similar lawsuits in six other states. They have agreed to work for free, but will collect legal fees if they win what may be a lengthy court battle.

Named in the suit are children such as 13-year-old “David T.,” now institutionalized after living in 14 different homes during 11 years in state care in which he suffered alleged sexual abuse, according to the suit. “Sam” and “Tony M.,” now 13 and 9, are also currently living in institutions after being passed through homes where they were burned with cigarettes, beaten and sexually abused, the lawsuit says.

Alston is pursing class-action status on behalf of David, Sam and Tony and all 3,000 children now in state custody, aiming to overhaul Rhode Island’s child-welfare system. Rhode Island was the worst in the nation in the rate of children abused and neglected while in state foster care in five of the six years between 2000 and 2005, according to federal data.

The suit claims state caseworkers are laboring under “excessive caseloads”; the state places too many children in institutions, group homes and emergency shelters; and children are being reunited with parents who have abused them.

Carcieri said he did not discuss the lawsuit with Alston, but focused instead on how to “smooth out communication.”

“I just wanted to reassure the child advocate — I appointed her to that position — that I need her, I need her to be the advocate,” he said. “I need to know if, in fact, she is aware of situations in our system where youngsters are not being dealt with properly.”

Alston is in the middle of a five-year term which expires in February 2010. She works in an office of six in the Pastore Complex in Cranston. While her position was established by the General Assembly in 1980 to protect the legal rights and interests of children in state care, state law allows the governor to fire her “with cause.”

Carcieri gave no indication yesterday he would take that route.

He said he was upset, however, that he learned of the lawsuit Friday morning in the newspaper. “I knew nothing about it,” he said.

Alston said yesterday she had tried several times to convey her intentions to the governor’s office and the head of DCYF. She said she had twice told Martinez in recent months that “she was contemplating a suit.” (Martinez said she did not take the conversations seriously.) And Alston said she tried several times to arrange meetings with the governor.

“I sent him letters and I also called for appointments,” she said. “I’ve had serious concerns and had addressed them with his cabinet member and thought I should try to address them with him. I was never able to get a meeting.”

The governor disputed Alston’s claims.

“If the child advocate called and said, ‘Governor, I need to speak to you; it’s very important,’ then she would have been here,” Carcieri said. “It’s possible that sometimes they go through the staff and I might not have been aware of it. To my knowledge, there has not been an effort to meet with me.”

Meanwhile, Carcieri said he had no knowledge of the allegations in the suit.

“Of course not,” he said. “If I did, I would have done something about it.”

When asked if he had a responsibility to know what was happening in one of his agencies, the governor said there was “a whole hierarchy” of staff that works with foster children in the DCYF. “I can’t deal with it unless I know about it,” he said.

At least one foster mother wasn’t happy with Carcieri’s explanation.

“It’s our job to make sure the kids are safe,” said Deanna Hunter, of Johnston, a foster mother of two who attended an unrelated rally for foster children later in the day on the State House steps.

“Shame on him that he didn’t know that,” she said. “I know that the president doesn’t know everything that goes on in the country, but when [something happens], he’s the one who’s going to be responsible. It’s up to the governor to know exactly what’s happening with the kids.”

Carcieri said his staff was investigating the allegations and would brief him on the situation this afternoon.

“I take responsibility that if this is true, and we’ve got 10 youngsters that have been abused, that something’s going to happen,” he said. “I need to know who the social workers were, who the caseworkers were, who the supervisors were, and what kind of systems were in place that we’re not reporting that. I take this very seriously.”

speoples@projo.com