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WEST PALM BEACH A grand jury is calling for four firings and two demotions of state social workers for “incompetence” and “negligence” in two children’s deaths and a beating that put another child in a coma.
Warning calls had been made to the state’s abuse hot line on all three children, and the Department of Children and Families had open cases on them at the time of the assaults.
The Palm Beach County grand jury issued a report Friday saying investigators failed to follow state standards for helping the children.
“We take very seriously what the grand jury has told us, and we’ve done something about it,” said DCF spokeswoman LaNedra Carroll. “There have been aggressive measures taken from the start.”
Joshua Saccone, 2, died after repeated reports that he was abused by his mother’s boyfriend. Dylan Cassone, 4, drowned in a swimming pool with cocaine in his system. Moesha Sylencieux, 2, was beaten into a temporary coma.-
“Excuses of backlog and large caseloads are clearly unacceptable in light of the blatant and continuous errors which culminated in the death of Joshua, the death of Dylan and the life-altering injuries sustained by Moesha,” the 53-page report said.
State workers often looked the other way when critical mistakes
The department plans to fire Eleanor Parker, a supervisor in Moe sha’s case.
Patty Mattison, who worked on investigations involving Joshua and Moesha, resigned in June.
Of the four targeted workers, two are already gone from the department.
Evelyn Diez, an investigator in Moesha”s case, resigned earlier this year.department.surfaced, and case files disappeared and reappeared without explanation, the grand jury said.
Edwin Wesley, an investigator assigned to Dylan’s case, has been retrained, and the department says he has made a complete turnaround in job performance.
(Naples Dailey News August 2001)
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