The FBI has opened a criminal investigation into a potential HIPAA violation at Manning Family Children's Hospital in New Orleans, where a licensed counselor accessed and shared the medical records of a preschool girl whose parents reported she had been sexually abused by a classmate. The counselor, Claire Beaumont Poché, was not on the child's treatment team. She shared information from the chart with her sister-in-law, Emily France Poché, the preschool principal at Kehoe-France school — the very institution the family was suing over the alleged abuse. The breach is structurally damning. Court documents and deposition transcripts establish that Claire Poché accessed the child's file, discussed its contents with Emily Poché, and was subsequently fired from the hospital for code of conduct violations involving an "impermissible disclosure." Emily Poché then departed as preschool principal shortly after. Text messages between the two women surfaced during litigation reveal Emily calling the child's father "a narcissist" and baselessly suggesting her boss believed the father was abusing his own daughter — a weaponization of medical access against the reporting family. The FBI's involvement, revealed through 15 October court filings, escalates this from a civil dispute to a potential federal criminal matter. HIPAA violations can carry criminal penalties depending on intent and scope. The filing notes that neither Claire nor Emily Poché had been contacted by the FBI at the time of the memo. Emily Poché's attorney, Renee Culotta, characterized the disclosure of FBI involvement as "a blatant attempt to utilize a willing news outlet to color public opinion just days before trial." The Williams family attorney, Richard Trahant, countered that the FBI investigation was precisely the reason Emily Poché failed to appear for her deposition. The institutional dynamics are revealing. Kehoe-France is owned by International Schools Partnership of London. Emily France Poché is the granddaughter of the school's founders. The family filing suit — Jana Williams, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, and Roger Williams, a U.S. Army veteran who earned a bronze star medal in 2023 for "exceptionally meritorious wartime service" in Iraq — are not people who lack credibility or resources. Yet the system's initial reflex was to circle wagons: a hospital insider accessed the victim's records and funneled information to the institution being accused. Claire Poché's post-firing career path adds another layer. After being dismissed from the children's hospital, she gained employment at the New Orleans district attorney's office — where she had previously worked — before later leaving. The DA's office did not respond to requests for comment. A counselor fired for breaching a child abuse victim's medical privacy subsequently working in a prosecutor's office raises questions about vetting and information flow between institutions. The Williams family's broader advocacy produced Louisiana's "Charlie's law," a new early-childhood education safety statute. But the law was subsequently weakened after private schools across the state argued compliance was financially burdensome. The pattern is consistent: families bear the cost of systemic failures, fight for structural reform, and then watch as institutional lobbying dilutes the result. The civil trial is tentatively set for the week of 26 October. Neither Poché is a named defendant, but both are fact witnesses. The protective-order dispute over Claire Poché's deposition and text messages remains contested — the Williams attorneys argue no one designated the deposition as confidential within the required 20-day window, and portions were filed into the public record without any confidentiality marking. The FBI investigation, the trial, and the question of who had access to a child's most sensitive medical information will converge in the coming days.
