Worker Who Watched Boy Hang Convicted of
Neglect
The counselor faces up to five years in
prison after snapping photos as a teen
dangled from a belt at a care center.
By Associated Press
Published March 19, 2004
FORT LAUDERDALE - A jury on Wednesday
convicted a youth care worker of child neglect
for letting a 15-year-old boy hang from a belt
looped around his neck at a shelter for troubled
teens as she took pictures of him during the
suicide attempt.
Anthony Dumas was still breathing as Sandra
Trotter, 41, snapped the Polaroid photos.
Dumas lapsed into a coma after the June 2000
incident at the Lippman Family Center and died
four months later.
Trotter, who was a counselor at the center,
faces a sentence ranging from probation to five
years in prison.
She will be sentenced March 27.
Two other employees were suspended over the
incident.
Lutheran Services Florida, a Tampa-based
nonprofit organization, runs the 20-bed center
under a contract with the state Department of
Juvenile Justice.
Assistant State Attorney Dennis Siegel told
jurors Trotter could have tried to get the
110-pound boy down by lifting him up a foot to
place him on a bunk and relieve the pressure on
his neck.
"Four pictures of a hanging, unconscious
child - she was able to do that, but she didn't
lift that child one foot up," he said.
Siegel said Trotter gave varying excuses to
justify her actions.
Trotter testified Wednesday that her
supervisor ordered her not to touch the boy, but
that she did try to loosen the belt.
She said she took the photos to show the
position of the boy's body "for Lippman or
whatever purpose they could be used for."
A judge had ordered Dumas into the center 19
days earlier, after he was arrested for shoving
his mother.
State records indicate he told a counselor
within hours of his arrival that he planned to
hang himself.
"Justice was served," Dumas' mother, Shirley
Finley, said. " ... I think it's been the
hardest thing a parent can go through."
The family has a lawsuit pending against the
Department of Juvenile Justice.
Finley reached a confidential, out-of-court
settlement with Lutheran Services.
[Last modified March 19,
2004, 01:20:38]
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