In Harm's Way / Who's telling the truth?

Often, youngsters who are being abused are not believed. Second in a series.

Monday, September 19, 2005

	Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette
	Eric Trapolsi and his mother, Christine Alkhuzai, in their Brookline home. Charges brought against an Auberle aide involving an incident with Eric were dropped because of a discrepancy in information police presented at a preliminary hearing.   TODAY / PART TWO About the series and author Summaries of the incident reports reviewed for this series Inside the complaint process     PART ONE One boy's history of broken bones Drug convictions no bar to working with abused and neglected kids Juvenile home incident-report flow rapped   ONLINE CHATJoin Barbara White Stack in an online discussion about the issues in this series from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday. Click here beginning at 11:30 a.m. that day to log in for the discussion or to post your questions early.

Fourteen-year-old Eric Trapolsi was a difficult child. Nobody denied it. He attended a special school, Auberle Education Center in Homestead, that was supposed to help him learn to control his behavior.

Before he went to Auberle, he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder. When the 9th grader left Auberle, he had acquired one more diagnosis: post-traumatic stress disorder.

That came from an incident last November in which Trapolsi said a worker threw him to the floor, rubbed his face in the carpet, pinned him with a knee to his back and choked him until he couldn't breathe.

Police charged the worker, Michael Algeri, with assault, but District Judge Richard Olasz Jr. threw the case out in May, citing a discrepancy in the date police gave for the incident and the time marked on hospital photos of the boy's injuries.

Trapolsi was impassive afterward, saying he never expected anyone would take his word over that of a worker.

His mother, Christine Alkhuzai, was furious.

"Just because the child is in a school for bad behavior, they assume he is lying." Alkhuzai said. "But if I did it to him, I would be in jail."

The statistics suggest she's right.

The state Department of Public Welfare, which investigates allegations of abuse in group homes, detention centers and residential treatment centers, rarely finds children living there to be believable.

The department deems those children's allegations credible only three times out of 100. Yet when a child reports that his parents abused him, he's believed more than 3 times out of 10.

Since 1992, reports of children injured in institutions licensed by DPW have tripled, yet the rate at which they've been substantiated by DPW has declined from a high of 8 percent.

Each year, DPW finds essentially the same number of youngsters abused in group home care, no matter how many reports it receives. It found 35 cases were credible in 1992; a dozen years later, in 2004, if found 39 credible.

Pennsylvania's statistics are not unique. An evaluation last year of New Jersey's investigations of allegations that children were mistreated by foster parents or in group homes showed the inquiries failed to substantiate even the most glaring examples of abuse.

The report described as "professionally unreasonable" the state's findings that there was no abuse in 11 cases. That may have occurred because the state investigators failed to interview key people, such as witnesses, in more than half of the cases reviewed.

Eddie Lewis, a former Philadelphia foster child, talked about the credibility gap in testimony before the Pennsylvania Joint State Government Child and Youth Task Force Advisory Committee last year. "The workers believe you when you tell them what your parents did, but they don't believe you when you tell them what the foster parents did."

Montgomery County First Assistant District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman, who handled several cases against workers at Progressions, a residential treatment facility in Eastern Pennsylvania, talked about the credibility problem: "It is difficult to prosecute child abuse cases overall. As much as people say they believe what children say, when you present a case, there is a natural inclination to doubt the child.

"It is complex. There is a notion that children would not say things that are not true. But defense attorneys argue that children are making it up or someone put ideas in the child's head."

Laura Ditka, who prosecutes child abuse cases in Allegheny County, says the child victims themselves can make winning difficult: "These children are older and seem tougher; and jurors have a harder time with children who are older who they feel should be capable of fending for themselves."

Even more telling, Ditka said: "People just don't want to believe this happens. It is too ugly. People have a fantasy about these places, when they're really probably more like the orphanage in Annie, the musical."

Allowing repeat offenses

	This photo of Eric Trapolsi's forehead brush burns and broken blood vessels under his eyes was taken by Children's Hospital hours after he was restrained by staff members at Auberle Education Center.

For example, in April 2002, a young woman at the Three Rivers Youth Dithridge Street home in Oakland accused a worker of sexually assaulting her. Police and DPW investigated and discounted her story.

Four months later, two more girls at Three Rivers accused the man of molesting them. And a third girl said he'd made inappropriate sexual remarks. That time police and DPW decided the allegations were credible.

It's a shame DPW didn't believe the first girl, Three Rivers Chief Executive Officer Peggy B. Harris said, because she would have fired the worker then, preventing the second set of problems. "We, of course, rely on [investigators'] findings in these matters to retain or dismiss employees," she said.

A year before Algeri restrained Trapolsi at the Auberle school, another boy at an Auberle group home suffered a bruised lip when Algeri restrained him.

That boy's report was strikingly similar to Trapolsi's: The boy told investigators Algeri had held him down with a knee to his back, rubbed his face into the carpet and choked him.

Algeri's report says that child was cursing, biting and kicking. "I then placed [the boy] face first and hands to his side using the proper [Therapeutic Crisis Intervention] restraint."

DPW decided Algeri hadn't done anything wrong.

An escalating argument
On Nov. 10, 2004, a day when Trapolsi wanted to leave school early, Algeri was the classroom's behavior specialist.

The 5-foot-5-inch, 155-pound boy asked to be dismissed about 15 minutes before the final bell so he could catch a bus to the Waterfront shopping complex to help a family friend set up a business.

Algeri refused his request. Words were exchanged and Algeri ordered Trapolsi to the school's time-out room.

There, Trapolsi testified later, Algeri threw him to the floor, banged his head on the wall and punched him in the face.

"I was screaming for a second, then he was choking me so hard I couldn't scream or nothing," the boy told the district judge.

Eventually, he said, Algeri got off him and left the room. "I was on the ground coughing. Someone came in and said, sit in the chair."

John Patrick Lydon, chief operating officer at Auberle, said Algeri was forced to restrain Trapolsi after the boy lost control in the time-out room. Algeri specifically denied to police that he choked Trapolsi or hit him in the face.

Later, Trapolsi walked to the family friend's business, and that man, shocked by the bruises and carpet burns on the boy, drove him home.

His mother called his mental health social worker, who reported the incident to ChildLine, a Department of Public Welfare agency that arranges for county child welfare agencies to investigate allegations of abuse and maintains a registry of people determined to be abusers in those investigations. Trapolsi's mother and Children's Hospital also called ChildLine. The social worker and doctors are required by state law to call ChildLine when they suspect abuse.

But ChildLine never arranged for Trapolsi's injuries to be investigated. DPW says ChildLine will pursue allegations against teachers only when the complaints are received from police officers or from county child welfare officials who have been informed of the allegation by the school's administrators.

ChildLine will not arrange for investigation of a teacher if the allegation comes from other sources, such as doctors, social workers or parents, DPW says.

So DPW never determined whether anything went wrong in the Algeri's restraint of Trapolsi.

While Lydon contends Algeri did nothing improper, Trapolsi's story seemed credible to physicians at Children's Hospital, who examined him within hours of the restraint.

Their report says they found petechiae -- raised red areas caused by burst capillary vessels -- "along the neck, behind the ears, and across the shoulders consistent with forcible compression of the neck."

Trapolsi had scratches on his neck and shoulders, brush burns on his forehead and bruises on his left cheek, the report says.

Hospital officials photographed the injuries and recommended his mother call police.

Afterward, Alkhuzai said, Auberle wanted her son to return to school there. She refused. "I said no way. I will not put my son back in harm's way. "

State cites high standards
Warren Lewis, director of DPW's ChildLine, defended the low rate at which the state deems true claims by children like Trapolsi that they were hurt by caretakers other than their parents. He said the small number doesn't necessarily mean that DPW doesn't believe the children.

The state's finding that only 3 percent of the reports were credible, he said, means that only 3 percent met the department's high standard for abuse, which requires a very serious injury, such as a broken arm or a wound leaving a permanent scar.

In addition, he thinks the number of allegations have increased because institutions are more careful about reporting, not because there's more abuse.

And, he said, that rise in reports affects the substantiation rate: "A mere increase in reports can contribute to a decrease in substantiation."

Still, while he thinks institutions are more thoroughly reporting, there's evidence agencies are not turning themselves in every time.

DPW officials blasted Shuman Juvenile Detention Center in March 2002 when they discovered that not only had a staff member smacked and pinched a girl in the face, but workers had also refused to allow other girls to write witness statements, and had informed the girls, "what happens on this unit, stays on this unit."

Sometimes youngsters lie
Part of the credibility problem is that sometimes youngsters do lie.

Three Rivers' Harris said "children have been known to brag about getting staff in trouble."

Even child advocate Dr. Mary Carrasco, who directs A Child's Place at Mercy Hospital, which examines abused children, said of institutionalized children, "There are some significant con artists in there and some very disturbed children. Sometimes it is very difficult to tell what reality is. ... There are children who come to you who you would be predisposed not to believe because they have come to you with so many false allegations."

Auberle's Lydon said the effect of a false allegation on a worker is devastating, "You are working at this facility helping people. You could be making more money and have less responsibility working at McDonald's, and this is an added component. We need something that protects staff when abuse does not occur."

One protection some institutions use is video cameras, but there's no taping at Auberle, where Trapolsi was hurt.

Though some children may lie, there's a strong countervailing incentive not to fabricate allegations against group home staff, some youths say.

Workers may retaliate, children say, and that can make life unbearable in an institution where a child must live because a judge has ordered him there.

"The last thing you want to do is [tick off] the staff if you are there long-term," said Stephen Seman of Glassport, who spent two years in Auberle after his mother said she couldn't control him. "They can get a friend on staff to deny you privileges. You can get even with that one staff [member], but you are going to suffer in the long haul."

In fact, he said, he knew one child who kept his mouth shut after a worker punched him. "You snitch on them and they will get even, go to your probation officer and talk crap on you and extend your stay."

Workers also may bribe youngsters who witness abuse to keep quiet. Seman said staff members gave children pop and extra snacks in exchange for their silence.

In Trapolsi's case, no children saw the restraint. It was just Trapolsi, Algeri and another staff member, who aided in the take down.

Trapolsi did not see the second worker and doesn't know who he is, but his mother, Alkhuzai, is sure that man was in the district judge's office that day with Algeri to testify in support of his fellow staff member. The district judge dismissed the case before hearing from the defense.

Workers support each other
Although Auberle CEO Lydon expressed complete faith in his workers' story, prosecutor Ferman found in Montgomery County that staff members are willing to lie for each other.

A grand jury uncovered what she called a "code of silence" within the Progressions treatment center to protect workers.

"Adults who are charged with protecting children are not only injuring them, but now are lying about it, lying to protect each other," she said at a 2003 press conference announcing the indictment of a Progressions worker.

Fermin criminally charged a psychiatric aide with provoking a fight with a 14-year-old patient, injuring him, then conspiring with another worker to lie to cover it up.

In fact, Ferman said, after the worker punched the child several times in the face, opening a gash that required 17 stitches, the aide and the co-worker called police and reported that the youngster had attacked them. The second aide later told police he had misled them to protect the first worker.

Similarly, a former worker at The Summit Academy, a Butler County reform school, filed a civil lawsuit under the provisions of the state's whistle-blower law earlier this month contending he was wrongfully fired for refusing to go along with a fabricated story about a child's injury.

Summit told DPW in June that a 17-year-old boy tripped and fell, face first, into a pane of glass, lacerating his face. Joseph Vacanti, 24, of Latrobe, a former counselor at Summit, says in his lawsuit that his supervisor, Dave Akers, pushed the child without provocation into the glass.

Vacanti said both Akers and another supervisor demanded he say the injury was a tripping accident. Summit officials have admitted the account they submitted to DPW was false while denying a conspiracy among staff to advocate that false story. However, Vacanti was dismissed after he told police the boy was shoved into the glass.

Though Vacanti contradicted his supervisor's story, other workers have made it clear they'll support each other.

In an incident at Shuman Juvenile Detention Center last spring, five guards who were accused of brutalizing a 13-year-old boy in a "Scared Straight" session have said they will stand together, none testifying against the other.

The guards have said they never hurt the child, and their lawyers have called the boy a liar. "I think the possibility is the 13-year-old child decided to make up the story," lawyer Celeste Whiteford told the judge at the preliminary hearing.

Another lawyer for the guards, John Elash, called it "an atrocity" for county police to have taken the word of a troubled 13-year-old over that of the guards who, he said, are upstanding citizens.

Christine Alkhuzai says she has come away from her experience with the uneasy feeling that people believe workers at schools and institutions have the right to injure children who have behavior problems. "My son wasn't being treated like a victim," she said.

But, she says, the whole purpose of the Auberle Education Center was to help children: "I sent him to that school so he could learn to control his behavior problems, not so people could assault him."

She also believes the justice system mistreated her son. Though the district judge said police and the district attorney could refile the case against Algeri, they never have.

Tomorrow: When children are put in restraints

Barbara White Stack can be reached at bwhitestack@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1878.)