Officials with the company that operates four Arkansas youth lockups told the state and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that it had fired three employees after child abuse allegations at a Lewisville facility.
They didn't.
One Lewisville employee ended up in a similar position at a youth lockup in Texas run by the same company, Youth Opportunity Investment LLC. And a state ombudsman has questioned whether other workers were actually terminated.
Darryl Williams, former assistant facility director at the Lewisville Treatment Center, now works as the assistant facility administrator at the Rockdale Regional Juvenile Justice Center in Rockdale, Texas.
Gary Sallee, a company spokesman, said last week that Williams was fired as an employee at Lewisville, then hired elsewhere within the company.
"I felt like I was telling you the truth," Sallee said Thursday, referring to previous comments to the Democrat-Gazette. "I thought we were talking about his employment at Lewisville ... so I said, 'Yeah, his employment was terminated.'"
He added that when he spoke to the newspaper previously, "I don't think that I knew" about Williams' continued employment with the company.
A Sept. 18 email from ombudsman Brooke Digby to Jim Hill, the company president, challenged Youth Opportunity's claim that Williams had been fired.
Digby copied Michael Crump, the Division of Youth Services director, in on the email, which the Democrat-Gazette obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Digby wrote that she'd understood that Williams and former facility director Devon McClain were fired by the company, but had confirmed that Williams had not been fired. She questioned whether McClain also still worked for the company.
"Can you please explain to me why YOI was not honest about their plan to terminate these employees?" Digby wrote.
The newspaper called the Rockdale facility Tuesday morning and confirmed that Williams was scheduled to begin his shift shortly after 2 p.m. Messages left for Williams later that afternoon were not returned.
Youth Opportunity, an Indiana-based company, operates the Texas facility and has a one-year, $15.8 million contract to manage Arkansas' juvenile lockups. Its contract began July 1.
In an interview last month, Sallee said that direct care staff member Alicia Johnson had also been terminated along with Williams and McClain in August.
The moves came after allegations of youth lockup abuses that Digby called "torture."
Sallee said Thursday that Johnson and McClain no longer work for Youth Opportunity.
The state Department of Human Services required Youth Opportunity to develop a corrective action plan after an Aug. 11 report from Digby alleged improper mental health care, staff members slamming child inmates into walls and zip-tying of children overnight.
The corrective action plan, dated Aug. 19, mentioned the firings of Williams, McClain and Johnson.
The plan also included "written reprimand and corrective action up to and including termination" for staff members who were playing video games during shifts, and not providing adequate supervision and appropriate redirection.
But an email sent Sept. 3 by Reagan Stanford, a Disability Rights Arkansas employee, to Andrew Winters, an attorney with the Department of Human Services, questioned whether two other Lewisville employees not mentioned in the action plan had been disciplined after the abuse allegations.
Disability Rights is a nonprofit that is federally authorized to monitor the treatment of disabled individuals.
Amy Webb, a state Human Services Department spokeswoman, said in an email Friday that Justin Owens, one of the employees mentioned in Stanford's email, had also been terminated.
The other employee, Devonta O'Guinn, still works at the Lewisville center, Webb said. She was unsure of their titles, she said.
Sallee said last week that internal company investigations showed that Williams was "not personally involved" in any abuse, although Digby's Aug. 11 email alleges that he was "physically aggressive" with youths.
"They described him 'slamming kids into walls' and using improper holds until youths 'cried out in pain' or until they could no longer breathe," Digby wrote.
But Sallee said the company had assured that Williams could be employed to work with children in Texas.
"He has passed all of the requirements for working in Texas, and the Texas laws or rules or regulations allow a person being investigated without a finding of child abuse to be employed in that position," he said.
Keesa Smith, the Human Services Department deputy director, said in an interview that the agency was not aware that Williams was working in Texas until officials received Digby's September email.
But she added that the company is not contractually obligated to tell Arkansas whether it retains employees at other facilities after they're terminated, "as long as they aren't working in the state of Arkansas."
When asked whether she was concerned about Williams continuing to work with children, Smith said any comments would be speculative because she wasn't sure exactly what Williams' role is in Rockdale.
"But I will say we do not want him working in our facilities in Arkansas," said Webb, who sat in on the interview.
"Absolutely not," Smith interjected.
Digby visited the Lewisville lockup unannounced on Aug. 7 to talk with teens at the 32-bed facility. She emailed the Youth Services Division later that day and followed up with a three-page report Aug. 11 to the state and Youth Opportunity's president.
In an interview last month, Crump said the state was able to confirm that employees used restraints improperly.
Digby, in her Sept. 18 email, wrote: "I would like to think that YOI executives care as much about the youth as I do; however, I am not convinced of this now. The behavior of Mr. Williams and Mr. McClain should never be acceptable or condoned. They certainly should never have the opportunity to harm anyone else. I am disgusted to say the least."
Digby went on to say she'd alerted the Ombudsman Division in Texas about the Arkansas situation.
J.D. Robertson, the Texas division's chief ombudsman, declined to say how he learned about Williams' employment, but said his office is monitoring the situation.
He added that there aren't any "ongoing issues" at the Rockdale facility.
"If anything develops, we will be on top of it," Robertson said.
As of Friday evening, no criminal charges were listed for any of the three employees in online Arkansas court records, but Sallee confirmed in a previous interview that there is a pending Arkansas State Police investigation.
Emails sent this month between Human Services officials, Youth Opportunity staff members and Digby also mention the investigation.
When asked about it, Webb said agency staff can't confirm or deny the existence of such an investigation.
The Child Maltreatment Act prohibits the disclosure of details concerning state police or Human Services Department investigations into child abuse allegations, she said.
Smith criticized Sallee's disclosure of the investigation's existence in a Sept. 3 email to Brian Neupaver, Youth Opportunity's chief operating officer.
"Mr. Sallee stated that YOI was working with the State Police in their investigation," Smith wrote. "The State Police's investigation is a child maltreatment investigation, which are always to be held confidential and should never be confirmed nor denied in accordance with our confidentiality statutes."
Sallee said company officials were told recently that it's a violation of Arkansas law to discuss "any third party investigations." He added that he'd comply with instructions from the state not to discuss any investigation.
Smith's email to Youth Opportunity also expressed concern over Sallee's statements to the newspaper.
Sallee had refused at first to release the names of the three fired employees to the Democrat-Gazette and challenged their relevancy to the story in an email sent last month.
"Mr. Sallee openly questioned why the reporter wanted the information and then elected not to give the reporter information that she was entitled to under Arkansas law," Smith wrote.
She went on to ask that all media requests be directed to Webb.
"I would prefer that, when the media reaches out to YOI, for them to be referred back to Amy Webb," her email read. "She can coordinate getting the information from whomever your media point person may be and that keeps DYS and YOI on the same page."
Sending all interview requests made of vendors to Webb is department policy, Smith said.
Sallee said he's twice spoken with Webb and that they are still working out a system for working with the media.
The Youth Opportunity corrective action plan also included "climate surveys" for youths and staff members, corporate support for 90 days and a new facility administrator.
For about a month, state monitors visited the Lewisville lockup twice a week. They've recently scaled back to once a week, and all of the youth lockups are required to send in daily reports on any grievances filed, Crump said. Facilities also have to report on any grievance resolutions.
He added that the increased frequency of visits has improved the monitors' relationship with the kids.
"This wasn't something we had as robustly in the past," Crump said.
Moving forward, he said, the facilities will "always be subject to monitoring."
Smith said the department hasn't been in contact with any Texas officials to talk about Williams, but if asked, Arkansas staff members would tell them what happened in Lewisville.
"If these employees were not safe around youth in Arkansas, what makes you think they will be safe around youth anywhere else?" Digby wrote at the end of her email. "I am hoping your leadership team will be more truthful in future."
SundayMonday on 09/29/2019