Salon owner facing lockdown fine now says state targeting her children

Gov. Kate Brown, D-Oregon

An Oregon salon owner who has been fined for reopening her business in defiance of Democratic Gov. Kate Brown's stay-home executive order says she's now under investigation by the state's Child Protective Services.

DailyMail.com reported Lindsey Graham, owner of Glamour Salon, reopened her salon May 5, explaining she and the contractors she supervises needed to take care of their families.

Graham already has been fined $14,000 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for "operating a hazardous facility" for employees. She's fighting the fine, arguing her workers are contractors, not employees.

Now Graham says the state is investigating her care for her three children.

"At this point, I’m deciding that it’s more important for me to feed my family and pay the bills that are going to keep our home and our family alive than take the risk to remain being shut down for an undisclosed amount of time," Graham told KPTV-TV in Portland, Oregon, in an interview.

The state "retaliated against her," she said, by sending investigators to her home.

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"They questioned my husband and I. Questioned my child without me present. They searched our home," she told reporters. "And I never expected such a violent, aggressive, vindictive thing could ever be done to me or my family because I’m trying to earn a living. Because I’m trying to work."

She has sons who are 8 weeks and 6 years, and a 3-year-old daughter.

DailyMail.com reported the Oregon agency said it could not comment on an investigation but claimed that failing to follow a stay-home order would not trigger a CPS review.

She's also accused of breaking her lease agreement by violating the governor's coronavirus-response orders.

Graham said she really has no choice in the matter.

"I'm almost broken, I’m almost closing, which is terrifying," she said.

A GoFundMe account on her behalf already had raised more than $57,000 by Monday.

A judge ordered Luther to jail for operating her business in violation of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's order. But Abbott modified his order, eliminating confinement as a possible punishment, and the state Supreme Court then ordered the judge to release her.

The Western Journal reported another investigation by Child Protective Services related to stay-at-home orders.

A couple who had moved from New York to Kentucky and were opening up a bank account were forced to bring five of their young children inside the bank because they couldn't leave them unsupervised in the car.

When they returned home, they found a Child Protective Services investigator and a law enforcement officer waiting.

The couple's attorney speculated a bank employee might have abused the state's anonymous reporting system as "retaliation" for the family not adhering to social-distancing guidelines.