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TRUMBULL COUNTY Jury to decide if CSB workers face charges
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
In one of the few cases of its kind in state history, a Trumbull County grand jury will decide whether any employees of the Trumbull County Children Services Board will face criminal charges for their handling of a child visitation at CSB offices.
Atty. Paul Scarsella of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office was appointed last week as special prosecutor. He will present information to a grand jury, which will determine whether criminal charges are warranted, according to court documents filed recently in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office and its Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation conducted an investigation into the actions of CSB employees after allegations surfaced that the biological parents of a 9-month-old girl raped the girl during a visit at the CSB offices on Reeves Road in 2011.
One of the parents, Cody Beemer, has since pleaded guilty to that offense, as well as others, and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. His wife, Felicia Banks-Beemer, remains in the Trumbull County jail awaiting trial.
Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins and his staff have handled those prosecutions.
Watkins asked state investigators last October to determine whether any Children Services employees should be charged with child endangerment for their role in the sexual assaults.
The state has completed that investigation, and Scarsella wrote to Watkins on Aug. 1 to indicate he had reviewed the investigation and is prepared to present its findings to a grand jury.
“It has always been my policy to present [a] case such as this to the Grand Jury,” Scarsella wrote to Watkins. “I believe the grand jury can best assess the credibility of the individuals involved and make a decision as to clearing or charging an individual.”
Watkins sought a special prosecutor in relation to the actions of the employees because Watkins and his office serve as legal counsel to the Children Services Board and therefore would have a conflict of interest in handling the matter, Watkins pointed out in a court document.
Benjamin Johnson, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, which has oversight of agencies such as Trumbull Children Services, said the Ohio JFS is aware of one case in Hamilton County where a prosecutor considered charges against a public children-service agency employee in connection with the employee’s job duties, but charges were not filed.
Jill Del Greco, public information officer for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, said the office doesn’t have any way to determine whether any investigations of that type were ever conducted before.
The Beemers were charged after Warren police secured cellphone videos showing sex crimes being committed against the child in April 2011 in a visitation room at CSB’s Reeves Road facility.
Trumbull Children Services had custody of the girl since just after she was born, but a visiting judge transferred custody to a similar agency in Geauga County in May.
Scarsella, who previously prosecuted a theft charge against former Trumbull County Engineer David DeChristofaro, will not charge a fee for his services, but the county will reimburse Scarsella’s office for expenses.
In November, after Ohio JFS conducted an administrative review of the raped child’s case, it said Trumbull CSB had failed to keep proper records and suggested various changes to Trumbull CSB practices and procedures.
For instance, Trumbull CSB employees compiled information about the child who was raped starting in November 2010, months after she was born, but that information didn’t get recorded in the Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System until October 2011, after the rape allegations came to light.
Trumbull CSB has since modified record-keeping and other policies and practices.