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September 12, 2002
Felony No Bar to Employment at Florida Child Agency
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An investigation by the Miami Herald reveals that Florida's child-welfare agency, the Department of Children & Families, employs at least 183 people who have been arrested and punished for such felonies as child molestation, child abuse, sex crimes, drug dealing - even welfare fraud against the agency itself.
Among the examples reported by the Herald:
- The head of the agency's data-security team in Tallahassee is listed on the state's list of sexual predators for molesting a 5-year-old boy.
- In Miami, the director of rehabilitative services for a mental hospital has twice been arrested for cocaine buys.
- In Chattahoochee, a man who supervises mental patients in DCF care was charged with attempted first-degree murder in 1986 after allegedly firing a shot at his wife and racking a shotgun at her as she cowered with their son in a closet. He pleaded no contest to lesser charges.
- In Kissimmee, the DCF hired a child-abuse investigator who two years earlier was convicted of violating a restraining order issued after she threw a brick through her ex-boyfriend's living room window and smashed his car windshield with a tire iron.
DCF administrators of the DCF told the Herald they have worked hard to screen employees.
In most of the cases undercovered by the newspaper, the agency was aware of the charges and thoroughly reviewed the backgrounds of the employees to make sure their lives were back on track and that DCF clients would not be imperiled, DCF officials said.
''In a perfect world, none of our employees would have any kind of criminal past,'' said Tim Bottcher, a DCF spokesman in Tallahassee. ``But we just know that is unrealistic. In reality, we are no different that any other large organization.''
While the Herald found 183 employees with questionable histories, Bottcher told the newspaper that it should be remembered his agency has 24,000 employees statewide.
``When it comes to our attitude on employees who have broken the law, we have considered the offenses and acted accordingly,'' he said.