MA: Prosecutor: Mom drugged girl, 4, to death

NOTE: There are quite a number of issues here: first, a psychiatrist who diagnosed the little girl with ADHD at age 2, bipolar disorder at age 3, and prescribed medications not approved for use in young children; next, parents allegedly over-medicated her and then didn't seek medical treatment after she developed pneumonia; and finally - a preschool, where staff are all mandated reporters - did not report their suspicions of abuse by over-medicating, even after the school principal reported that once the child was so "floppy" and lethargic - to the extent that the child was unable to walk on her own - that the principal personally had to carry the child into the school building after she'd been dropped off.

The end result: A dead four year old little girl. And the tragedies continue...

‘Evil scheme’ to get Social Security benefits alleged in Mass. trial

updated 4:52 a.m. ET, Wed., Jan. 20, 2010

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34943897/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

BROCKTON, Mass. - In an "evil scheme," a Massachusetts mother fabricated symptoms of mental illness to get her 4-year-old daughter powerful drugs, then overmedicated the girl and allowed her to die when she became ill with pneumonia, a prosecutor said Tuesday at the woman's murder trial.

Assistant District Attorney Frank Middleton said Carolyn Riley took her daughter, Rebecca, to a psychiatrist when she was 28 months old in hopes of getting her diagnosed with mental illness and put on drugs so she and her husband could collect Social Security disability payments for the girl.

Middleton said Carolyn Riley consistently overmedicated the girl, giving her more than the amount prescribed by a psychiatrist. Then, when the girl became ill with pneumonia in the final days of her life, Carolyn Riley ignored the urgent pleas of three people who lived with them and refused to take her daughter to a doctor. Instead, Middleton said, she gave her daughter almost twice the amount of drugs prescribed by the psychiatrist.

"This defendant began an evil scheme that ended in murder," Middleton said.

Husband also faces trial
Riley and her husband, Michael, are both accused of murder in their daughter's December 2006 death in Hull. Michael Riley will go on trial after his wife.

Middleton showed jurors a note written by Carolyn Riley in which she detailed how much money the family was collecting through Social Security disability benefits — $2,668 per month — and how much additional money she hoped to collect — $633 per month — if she could convince Social Security doctors that Rebecca also had a mental disability.

But Carolyn Riley's attorney, Victoria Bonilla, said Carolyn took Rebecca to a psychiatrist when she was 2 because she was concerned about the girl, who was very active and had difficulty sleeping.

She said Carolyn Riley followed the instructions of the psychiatrist, Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, who diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder when the girl was 2 and bipolar disorder shortly after she turned 3. It was Dr. Kifuji, Bonilla said, who prescribed Clonidine for the ADHD and Depakote for bipolar disorder.

Defense: ‘Not nefarious’
"This is not nefarious," Bonilla said, but consistent with common medical practice to treat ADHD with Clonidine.

Bonilla also disputed allegations made by prosecutors that Carolyn Riley ignored pleas to help her daughter after she became ill with pneumonia. She said Carolyn Riley bought her daughter some children's cold medicine and gave it to her.

"Carolyn Riley did everything she could to treat her child. Carolyn Riley thought her daughter had a cold," she said.

Bonilla said a defense medical expert, as well as a prosecution expert, came to the conclusion that Rebecca died of pneumonia, not a drug overdose.

"She did not die at the hands of her mother," Bonilla said.

Middleton, however, said that in the last year of her life, Rebecca Riley was given well over the amount of Clonidine prescribed by Kifuji.

Middleton used a gruesome photo of Rebecca in his opening statement to the jury.

The photo, taken by police after her mother found her dead on the floor of their bedroom, shows the little girl wearing only a pink pull-up diaper, lying on a pile of magazines and clothing and a stuffed bear. She had a pink liquid oozing from her nose and mouth.

Carolyn Riley showed little emotion after her daughter was found dead, Middleton said. Later that day, he said, when Carolyn and Michael Riley went to get their daughter's things at her school, the principal saw them "joking and laughing" outside the school.

But Bonilla said Carolyn Riley was a "loving and caring parent," and was seen distraught by emergency responders after she found her daughter dead on the floor near her bed.

"She was cradling the child. She was hysterical," Bonilla said.

Like a ‘floppy doll’
One of the first witnesses to testify for prosecutors was Ellen McCarthy, the nurse at the Weymouth preschool Rebecca attended during the year before her death.

McCarthy said that in the months before her death, Rebecca was so lethargic and weak she was like a "floppy doll."

"When she was in the gym, she would sit down on the floor with me and she would just flop down," McCarthy said.

McCarthy said she was concerned about the amount of medication Rebecca was taking. She also said no one at Rebecca's preschool saw the aggressive or violent behavior Carolyn Riley described when explaining why Rebecca was on the powerful drugs.

The school principal, Victoria Silverstein, said that she once had to help Rebecca get off the school van after the driver called in and said the girl was shaking. Silverstein said that when she went to help her, Rebecca collapsed, "so I picked her up in my arms and carried her into the school."

NY: Man extradited from Guatemala in child sex-assault case

BY TIMOTHY O'CONNOR • TPOCONNOR@LOHUD.COM • DECEMBER 12, 2009

http://www.lohud.com/article/20091212/NEWS02/912120381/-1/newsfront/Man-extradited-from-Guatemala-in-child-sex-assault-case

BEDFORD — A man has been extradited from Guatemala to face charges he sexually abused a 9-year-old Bedford girl in a case that touched off a firestorm of allegations that school officials knew about the abuse for months but didn't notify police.

Cesar Joel Sagastume Morales, 30, was taken into custody Friday by Bedford Town police detectives and the Westchester County police warrant squad, Bedford police said.

"After a three-year investigation the Bedford Police Department is pleased to report the extradition of Cesar Joel Sagastume Morales," Bedford police said in a brief statement about the arrest. A Bedford police sergeant said no one was available Saturday to comment on the arrest.

The case led to the firing of Bedford Hills Elementary School Principal Victoria Graboski in 2006 and the filing of criminal charges against her for allegedly failing to report the abuse. The mother of the girl charged in a lawsuit filed in April 2007 in state Supreme Court in White Plains that school officials knew about the sexual abuse in December 2005 but failed to properly notify authorities.

The sexual assaults continued until August 2006 when Bedford police charged Sagastume Morales, a day laborer, with first-degree course of sexual conduct against a child, according to prosecutors in the criminal case against Graboski. It is unclear when Sagastume Morales fled the country.

A lawyer representing the alleged victim's mother did not return phone calls and e-mails Saturday seeking comment. Susan Elion, the president of the Bedford Central School District Board of Education, also did not return calls seeking comment.

Sagastume Morales, the boyfriend of the alleged victim's mother, abused the girl at her Bedford Hills home, according to the lawsuit against the school district, Graboski, and former school psychologist Kelly Cieslinski-Schluter.

In December 2005, the girl told other students she had sex with an adult and those girls were then overheard discussing it at a slumber party the next day, prosecutors in the criminal case against Graboski said. A parent of one of the girls told Graboski about the allegations. At another point, the girl's mother came to the school to ask if the girl's behavior had changed at school because she was "acting sad at home," according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said that instead of reporting the abuse to authorities, Graboski undertook her own investigation.

"As a result of the defendant's failure to report the suspected child abuse, the 9-year-old child victim continued to be sexually assaulted repeatedly over a period of approximately eight months following the victim's disclosure," prosecutors said in court papers filed in the criminal case against Graboski.

In December 2006, Graboski agreed to be part of a public education effort on reporting suspected abuse as part of a deal to have Westchester County prosecutors drop misdemeanor charges against her. She was re-hired by the school district that same month as a special education teacher at Fox Lane High School.

Graboski, Cieslinski-Schluter, and four other school staffers were placed on leave while the school districts investigated the allegations that they failed to report the abuse.

Sagastume Morales is due in Westchester County Court on Monday, according to booking information from the Westchester County jail, where he is being held without bail. Bedford police said he was extradited with the help of the Westchester County District Attorney's Office, Westchester County police, and federal authorities. He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted

MI: Staff didn't file abuse allegations

Sunday, February 15, 2009
BY DAVID JESSE
The Ann Arbor News
http://www.mlive.com/news/annarbornews/index.ssf?/base/news-31/1234683631155840.xml&coll=2

No member of the Washtenaw Intermediate School District's staff reported allegations of child abuse by a teacher's aide to either the local police or the state's Department of Human Services, a district internal investigation found.

"Under the Child Protection Act school personnel have a duty to report all instances of suspected child abuse,'' the report said. "No report was filed by any of the staff who witnessed the conduct referenced in the police investigation.''

A spokeswoman with the Department of Human Services declined to comment on whether her department had any contact from the WISD about the allegations. She also would not comment on whether the WISD broke the law.

Any investigation into that question would come from the county's prosecutor's office, Zoe Lyons, the manager of the state's Child Protective Services program, said in a telephone interview.

WISD Superintendent Bill Miller said no one is investigating the district for any possible violations of the state law.

The law is clear about who has to report suspicions of child abuse and what they have to do, Lyons said.

The law requires all school personnel to report child abuse. People in certain other professions, including health-care workers, are also considered "mandatory reporters'' under the law.

Mandatory reporters have to immediately contact the state when they suspect child abuse. If the allegations concern school personnel, those allegations are turned over to the local police for investigation, Lyons said.

"A lot of times, people report things to both the state and the police,'' Lyons said.

Failing to report child abuse is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for up to 93 days and a fine of $500.

Miller would not directly answer questions about whether WISD employees violated the act.

"District policies about reporting were not followed,'' he said.

MO: Failure to report sex abuse charge ends St. Louis principal's career

By Steve Giegerich ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
11/30/2008
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/education/story/EBEA86C8C54698DE86257510001BC2DC?

With nearly four decades of service in the St. Louis Public Schools drawing to a close, Richard "Rick" Sirna still felt the tug of his "calling."

Sirna, 60, figured he had two good years of remaining service to the city schools. And once his longtime tenure as the principal of Gateway Elementary ended, he planned to wind down his career at a less stressful county district.

Instead, Sirna's career flamed out with a three-day trial, a guilty verdict, a stern admonishment from a judge and an abrupt end to his career in the St. Louis schools.

It all came down to his decision not to make a phone call.


In the view of the city schools, authorities and the jury that convicted him, the former Gateway Elementary principal is a law breaker.

His crime: failing to immediately report the allegations of a 10-year-old Gateway student who said she was sexually assaulted by a computer instructor in a school storage area.

Because he did not call a state child abuse hot line as soon as he heard the allegations, Sirna was found by a jury to have violated the state's mandatory reporting law. That statute, which is rarely prosecuted, requires educators, medical personnel and others responsible for the welfare of children to notify the state of suspected cases of physical or sexual abuse.

Prosecutors contend that the law is clear: "If there is any suspicion that a child has been molested, you report it," said Philippa Barrett, an assistant city attorney who prosecuted Sirna.

Barrett and others say there are no shades of gray in the law.

But Sirna and those who support him say the issue isn't so simple. They maintain he's paying the price for an inexact statute that fails to clearly state on what terms hot line calls must be made.

Sirna, in a recent interview with the Post-Dipatch, contended that his case could have a chilling effect on other principals, who may call in even incidents in which abuse is not a factor.

"If I were (still) a principal," he said, "I'd be hot lining everything."

TRYING TO VERIFY

Professionally and financially, Sirna has paid handsomely for his convictions. He says his legal fees are in excess of $50,000.

A product of the St. Louis schools, Sirna returned to the system after college. He landed in a trajectory that took him from classroom teacher to building principal, with a brief detour as an administrator in the district's downtown headquarters.

Former Gateway assistant principal Marilyn Bailey said Sirna's influence extended across the district. "I'll bet 80 percent of the principals (in the district) asked him for assistance," she said.

Throughout his tenure in St. Louis, Sirna said, there were plenty of opportunities to move to better-paying jobs outside the city. But he stayed put. "This was always the best place for me, because this is where I was needed," he said.

Sirna says that in the course of 37 years as a teacher and principal, he contacted the emergency abuse hot line more times than he can recall. And he says that in every instance he attempted to verify the facts before picking up the telephone.

His conviction comes down to a decision to wait on calling as he tried to determine if a student should be believed.

"I had no reason to believe it, but I had no reason to disbelieve it either," he said. "I didn't know what happened."

The girl told him on Nov. 6, 2007, that Gateway computer instructor John Bender had touched her inappropriately four days before in a school storage room.

Sirna says he based his decision to delay on several factors, including the fact that staff members had complained about the girl's behavior in the past.

But of even more concern, Sirna said, was an incident, about six months earlier, in which the same student had made a similar accusation against a classmate. But that classmate was seated in an assistant principal's office when the assault allegedly occurred.

Also, the girl told Sirna that she'd reported the episode with Bender to her mother after returning home from school the previous Friday. Three days later, on Monday, she was back in class. The child then waited almost another full school day, on Tuesday, before approaching Sirna.

Why, the principal wondered, had almost four days passed before the child brought the allegation to his attention?

The earlier accusation weighing heavily, Sirna said, he walked the child through the sequence of events. She stuck to her story.

Still, believing there were "lots of questions and no answers," Sirna said, he summoned the girl's mother to the school.

It was approaching 5 p.m. when the conversation with the mother ended; any potential witnesses were already gone for the day.

Sirna departed, too, planning to pick up the inquiry where he left off the next morning. By Wednesday afternoon, he thought, he might have enough information to determine whether the accusation merited a hot line call.

He never got the opportunity.

The St. Louis Police Department, acting on a complaint from the mother — who'd gone to authorities after leaving the school — made the call at approximately 6 p.m. that evening.

"Our understanding is that the mother was frustrated because she felt nobody was listening to her," said Barrett. "That may not be the way (Sirna) perceived the situation. I think our perception is different."

The girl's parents did not respond to a message the Post-Dispatch left at the family address.

Sirna said police rejected his offer to call the hot line during a telephone conversation informing him of the mother's complaint. He resumed his own investigation, as planned, on Wednesday.

It was then Sirna learned that the girl's mother had told a teacher's aide in September 2007 that Bender had patted her daughter on the head and referred to the child as "sweetheart."

Had he been aware of that fact, Sirna said, he probably would have called the hot line the day the girl complained to him.

Still, Sirna believes that he had the latitude to examine extenuating circumstances before contacting state officials. He points to the state law's standard of "a reasonable cause to suspect that a child has been subjected to abuse or neglect."

He argues that he had justifiable reason to wait before calling the hot line.

The jury that convicted him this past September concluded otherwise.

He was found guilty of the misdemeanor crime of failing to notify the Children's Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services.

St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Barbara Peebles suspended jail time. She also set aside the educator's conviction once he meets the terms of a two-year probationary period.

Prosecutors say the details of the alleged abuse and whether the computer instructor truly assaulted the student is immaterial. In fact, the criminal case for that alleged abuse won't be heard in court for months.

Those who support the strictest interpretation of the law say Sirna was responsible for calling the hot line whether he questioned the abuse claims or not.

In declaring Sirna guilty, the jury based its decision, in part, on the testimony of the girl, who recounted for the court the abuse allegations that she described to the principal.

DEBATE OVER STATUTE

The investigation into the charges that roiled Gateway Elementary continued for nearly six months. Bender, 61, and an educator for 37 years, was suspended immediately. Sirna stayed on the job.

In late April, city prosecutors charged Bender with first-degree statutory sodomy and first-degree molestation. He was released after posting bond.

Bender's case is proceeding toward trial despite the sworn deposition testimony by the state investigator assigned to the case by Department of Social Services. The investigator determined that the accuser's allegations were "unsubstantiated."

Prosecutors, however, sometimes disregard the initial findings into sexual abuse allegations in deference to further investigation by police and other experts.

Officials say they know of only a few cases in which a teacher or school administrator has been prosecuted in Missouri for not reaching out about an abuse allegation.

By speaking openly about the circumstances, Sirna and others have moved the debate from the halls of justice to the court of public opinion.

Barrett, the chief misdemeanor officer, says the case raised red flags about Sirna's motive for delaying the hot line call.

"One thing that hit us particularly hard is if the defendant would have called right away if (Bender) had not been his friend," she said. "If the accused had been a neighbor or someone else he didn't know, would he have made the call right away? Does the law allow someone to make exception if someone is your friend?"

Sirna denies he and Bender were close.

He holds the view that if a mandatory reporter is prohibited from factoring "reasonable cause" into the decision to call the hot line, then legislation is needed to "take out those words, remove them" from the statute.

On that point, Rep. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, now headed to the state Senate, agrees with the former educator.

She suggests that a portion of the child protection legislation she is sponsoring be expanded to require teachers and administrators to call the hot line first and ask questions later.

"If you're a mandatory reporter, you can still do your due diligence," she said. "But call it in first."

At Sirna's sentencing, Peebles supported Cunningham's approach. "You second-guess kids in a playground fight or when something happens in the cafeteria," she told Sirna. "But you certainly cannot second-guess them when they come to you with allegations of abuse."

Penney Rector, the staff attorney for the Missouri Association of Elementary School Principals, sees some flaws in Cunningham's proposal.

Automatic disclosure, without even a cursory review, she fears, "will bog down the system" and divert authorities from investigating legitimate complaints.

Despite safeguards that unsubstantiated claims "will be placed in a closed record," Rector still fears that false accusations could smudge the reputation of a teacher or administrator.

Rector also believes it's easy to second-guess an administrator's actions after the fact.

"It is easy for someone to come in and say, 'You should have seen this and this and this,'" she said. "But at the time, you have to go on the information available and be true to the fact."

In the strictest sense, Sirna's interpretation of the law didn't cost him his career.

After his suspension last spring, Sirna, like Bender before him, proceeded with a planned retirement. The district, Sirna said, terminated him shortly after he informed administrators of the retirement decision.

Today, Sirna's plan for a second education life beyond the St. Louis Public Schools has all but evaporated.

Because he was convicted of a misdemeanor — and not a felony — his teaching and administrative certificates are still valid. Realistically, though, he doubts any district will want him.

"I'm going to find work in another field," he said. "But, to be quite honest, I'm not really sure what old principals do."