COALITION AGAINST INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD ABUSE
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2 ex-Whisper Ridge workers arrested
 
September 30, 2006

Charlottesville police have arrested two former Whisper Ridge employees indicted in a child abuse investigation.

Former mental health care specialist Michael Jerome Prosise, 23, was arrested Sept. 19 in his hometown of Richmond on a felony charge of sexually abusing a child while in a supervisory or custodial role.

Melissa Pohl Sargeant, 41, was arrested Sept. 6 in her hometown of Massanutten on misdemeanor charges of causing or encouraging acts that rendered a child delinquent or abused and failing to immediately report suspicions that a child in her care had been abused or neglected.

She is the former director of performance improvement at the facility, which provides psychiatric care for teens suffering from mental health or substance abuse problems.

Both have been released on bond.

Virginia’s Department of Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse is investigating the alleged abuses and other incidents that have bedeviled the facility recently.

Police are still searching for Jenicia Minter, 22, a former mental health care specialist and University of Virginia student who has been charged with causing or encouraging acts that rendered a child delinquent or abused. Her last known address is in Charlottesville.

Sargeant, Minter and Prosise were indicted Aug. 21 along with Whisper Ridge’s former director of operations, Bianca Nicole Johnson, and Bryan Antwann Vaughan, another former mental health specialist.

Johnson, 32, is charged with taking custodial indecent liberties with a child.

Vaughan, 32, has been charged with forcible sodomy and taking indecent liberties with a child while a custodial adult.

The indictments followed a six-month investigation into allegations of abuse. The suspects were not considered fugitives. Police believe they did not know they had been indicted.

Anyone with information about Minter’s whereabouts is asked to call Crimestoppers at (434) 977-4000. Tipsters with information that leads to an arrest could receive a $1,000 reward.

 

 

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