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CSB manager suspended over child-rape case
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Trumbull County Children Services suspended a superviser, Robin Moon, for two weeks Tuesday.
She was suspended because information she was responsible for did not get entered into a statewide computerized database until months later.
Her disciplinary form says she entered and/or approved on Oct. 6 and Oct. 7, 2011, a number of “activity logs” for parent/child visitations involving a child in CSB custody and her relatives. The information came from memory of visits that took place in the months before they were entered and were not entered from “physical notes,” the disciplinary form says.
The visits involved a child who allegedly was victimized during a visit at Children Services offices on Reeves Road on April 27, 2011. The biological parents are charged with raping the child, accused of sodomizing her.
Nick Kerosky, Children Services executive director, could not be reached to clarify whether Moon supervised the visits directly or whether she supervised employees who handled the visits. Kerosky confirmed earlier this week that one employee had been disciplined for her involvement in that child’s case but didn’t identify her until Friday.
Kerosky said an internal investigation of the incident is ongoing, so there might be additional disciplinary action forthcoming. Moon has a “good work record,” a letter attached to the form says.
The alleged sexual assaults, supposedly videotaped on a cellphone, have touched off criminal investigations of the parents and Children Services, as well two administrative reviews by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
The information Moon was responsible for was entered into the computer about a week after the Warren Police Department said it had arrested the parents, Cody and Felicia Beemer, and charged them with the rapes.
Prosecutors allege the rapes occurred when the girl was 9 months old.
The disciplinary form says Moon advised her department manager Oct. 25, 2011, that the information entered into the computer system Oct. 6 and Oct. 7 “was based upon observations frequently made during visitations and general times of the visitations, and that the information could not be attributed to a specific date.”
The disciplinary form, signed by Kerosky, says: “This constitutes a clear error in judgment.”
The form says her actions constitute neglect of duty. Failing to enter the information in a timely manner violates agency visitation policy and National Association of Social Work codes of ethics, Kerosky said.
An attorney representing the child’s biological grandmother says the “backfilling” of the records also calls into question the validity of all records being kept at Children Services.
On Oct. 25, Atty. David Engler called for all Children Services employees connected with the case to be placed on administrative leave so they would not have access to records relating to the child.
“Will they alter records? Will they destroy records?” Engler asked in a letter to Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins.
The administrative review of the child’s case conducted by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said Children Services employees received information starting in November 2010, a couple of months after the child was born, regarding the child but didn’t record the information in the Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System until October 2011.
Kerosky has said the failure to record that information wouldn’t have prevented the alleged rapes April 27, 2011.
A JFS spokesman has said keeping the records up to date would have made it “less likely to have a slip-up.”
Trumbull County Commissioner Dan Polivka announced earlier this week that he will be investigating the feasibility of folding Children Services into the county Job and Family Services to save money and because of questions about the agency that have arisen since the alleged rapes became public.
Also this week, Ohio JFS announced it will conduct another investigation of the agency to expand on the review it conducted earlier.
Kerosky said it was time for the Ohio JFS to conduct its routine every-two-year review of the agency but that circumstances dictated expanding it. Instead of reviewing 10 cases, JFS will review 20. It also will examine Trumbull Children Services’ overall visitation policy and further review the case involving the specific child in question, Kerosky said.
As for whether it makes sense to combine Children Services with Trumbull JFS, Kerosky said that he researched the idea for Ashtabula County commissioners just before he left his job as Ashtabula County Children Services director in 2010, and he found that few counties in the more-populated areas of Ohio have made this type of switch.
He added that Trumbull JFS has a relatively new director, Atty. John Gargano, appointed in July, and making him responsible for an additional 160 employees at Children Services would just make matters worse.