DECEMBER 21 - DECEMBER 27, 2012
FLORIDA
A3
Trial in Rilya Wilson case continues Legal custodian says she was afraid of live-in lover accused of killing foster child FROM WIRE REPORTS
Testimony continued this week in the trial of Geralyn Graham, accused of killing 4-yearold Rilya Wilson and disposing her body. Charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated child abuse, Graham faces life in prison if convicted. The foster child’s disappearance has led to a series of Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) reforms over the past decade. The girl’s body has not been found. Born to a drug-addicted mother, the child was under the supervision of the DCF nearly her entire life. In 2000, the agency placed her in the home of Pamela Graham, the live-in lover of Geralyn Graham. Pamela had legal custody of Rilya and a younger sister, Rodericka.
Tied up, abused A caseworker failed to properly supervise the child for more than a year, and DCF did not realize Rilya was missing until April 2002. Geralyn has insisted that a
MIAMI HERALD/MCT
An undated handout photograph of Rilya Wilson at her birthday party was shown at the trial of Geralyn Graham, a foster caretaker charged with abuse and murder of young Rilya Wilson. DCF employee took Rilya away for mental health treatment in January 2001 and never returned her. Geralyn was not indicted for murder until 2005 after she allegedly confessed to a cellmate that she had smothered the girl and dumped her body in a South Miami-Dade waterway. Pamela Graham made a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to child neglect and child abuse with no harm. She likely will face no jail time. In testimony on Monday, she said her former lover was domineering and controlling so she
CARL JUSTE/MIAMI HERALD/MCT
Geralyn Graham listens to testimony during her trial in Miami on Monday. She is charged with the murder of four-year-old Rilya Wilson. went along with a lie that a state welfare worker had picked up Rilya and never returned her. Pamela, legal custodian of the foster child, said Geralyn confined the girl to a small laundry room in their South Florida home, sometimes for days. At night, Rilya was tied to her bed by the wrists to keep her from climbing on furniture. And to punish the girl for wetting the bed, Geralyn once even dipped
the girl into extremely hot bathtub water, Pamela Graham told jurors Monday.
‘I was weak’ Pamela says she suspected the worst when the girl disappeared but did nothing because she was afraid of getting the blame. She also spent years repeating stories that Geralyn had made up about how Rilya vanished in
Abuse at girls center shows flaws in state’s juvenile system, critics argue BY MARGIE MENZEL THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA
JOE BURBANK/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT
President Barack Obama works with campaign volunteers at the “Obama For America” Orlando field office in Orlando on Oct. 28. He made numerous visits to Florida during the campaign.
It’s official: Florida goes for Obama NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA
The state of Florida’s 29 electoral votes were officially cast for President Barack Obama at a brief ceremony Monday at the state Capitol. It took a little more than 30 minutes for electors to commemorate Obama’s win in November and hear from outgoing Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith. Obama, who also prevailed in Florida in 2008, was the first Democrat to carry Florida twice since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Smith said.
“That means that we have a president who I think ... finishes this election and hits this inauguration with the wind at his back,” Smith said. Electoral votes will officially be counted Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C., with Obama’s second inauguration following two weeks later.
Bills would prevent funeral protests Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers, filed a bill last week aimed at preventing protests that would disrupt funerals,
burials or memorial services. Benacquisto’s proposal (SB 118) would apply to services for members of the military, emergency-response workers, elected officials or minors. People who violate the law could be charged with first-degree misdemeanors. Earlier this month, Rep. Patrick Rooney, RWest Palm Beach, filed a similar measure (HB 15), though it would not be limited to services for members of the military, emergency-response workers, elected officials or minors. The issue has surfaced in recent years, largely because a small Kansas church has staged funeral protests to draw attention to its anti-gay views.
Bill targets ‘malicious’ campaign tactics After winning one of the state’s fiercest legislative elections last month, Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Boca Raton, has filed a bill that would crack down on malicious attacks against candidates. The bill (SB 114) would allow the Florida Elections Commission to impose fines up to $5,000 against candidates, political parties and various
types of political committees and organizations if they run ads or do other types of communications that include libel or defamation against an election opponent. The bill says libel or defamation would mean a “false or malicious statement that injures the reputation of a candidate and exposes the candidate to public hatred, contempt
or ridicule.” The bill also would require candidates who run ads to attest to their truthfulness within 72 hours. Sachs defeated former Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, last month in a multimilliondollar race that included attack ads against both candidates.
TALLAHASSEE – After two incidents of staffers charged with abusing teens at a juvenile lock-up in Milton – one caught on video – the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) has frozen admissions at the facility and put two ombudsmen on every shift until further notice. Also, a group monitoring the safety and civil rights of youth in detention in Florida is asking why DJJ gave the Milton Girls Juvenile Residential Facility a 100 percent satisfactory rating just over a year ago – including in the category “provision of an abuse free environment.” (Milton is located in the Florida Panhandle.) “It is clear that DJJ needs to do more to protect children in its care, and that not only is its residential system broken, its safety monitoring system is fatally flawed,” said David Utter, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Troubling incident DJJ last week released August surveillance videos of a guard at the Milton lockup, Shannon Abbott, appearing to slam a 15-year-old inmate into a cement wall, throw her to the ground, and then pinning her down for 20 minutes. In the video, the teen appears passive – although Abbott reported her as resisting. The teen called the Department of Children and Families abuse hotline the next day. DCF then verified the incident as abusive. The video “seriously contradicts its description to us by officials representing the facility,” said DJJ Wansley Secretary Wansley Walters Walters in a statement. “We are also troubled that the facility did not officially report the incident to DJJ until two days after it occurred, and only when the victim called the [Department of Children and Families] Abuse Hotline. This lapse is inexplicable.” DJJ has transferred the teen in the Abbott incident, which occurred in August, to another facility. The agency is also investigating charges that Carol Andrus, the Milton lock-up’s program director, last month grabbed a restrained 15-year-old and threw her down, lacerating her face and ear. Local law enforcement is investigating as well.
Systemic problem Utter said the gap between DJJ monitors’ reports and the facilities being monitored is a systemic problem. He cited a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice to Gov. Rick Scott in December 2011, after Walters had closed the Dozier School for Boys the previous June. “The constitutional violations identified in the enclosed report are the result of the state’s failed system of oversight and accountability, which we suspect affect the
2000, she said. “It’s not something I’m proud of, but at that point in my life, I was weak,” testified Pamela Graham, who is not related to Geralyn. Pamela is 48 while Geralyn is 66. “I just did not like confrontation. I knew the defendant. She just controlled every aspect of my life. It wasn’t that Rilya wasn’t worth it.” The trial is expected to last through mid-January.
entire juvenile justice system statewide,” Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez wrote to Scott. “These conditions return youth to the community no better, and likely less, equipped to succeed than when they were first incarcerated.” Detained youth have a right to reasonably safe conditions of confinement and freedom from unreasonable restraints. Perez noted “it is incumbent upon the state to insure that the unconstitutional conditions of confinement [at Dozier] do not exist at its other juvenile justice institutions” and that if DOJ “learn[s] of the existence of other unconstitutional conditions of confinement at other juvenile justice institutions in Florida, we have the right to open an investigation there.” Scott replied to the letter in January 2012. “We will conduct a comprehensive review of DJJ programs and facilities, redirect youth into alternative programs where appropriate, and reduce the number of deep-end residential beds. I expect that these steps will result in the strategic closing of facilities that have not maintained the standards DJJ has mandated.” However, Scott continued, he disagrees with Perez’ suspicion that the problems at Dozier are system-wide. “The issues investigated by your office were confined to the closed facility, and do not constitute a sufficient, sound or fair basis for concluding that an entire state agency and its employees are failing to properly administer the juvenile justice system in Florida,” wrote Scott.
‘Right-sizing’ care The plan Scott approved for DJJ is a combination of diversion, detention reform and “right-sizing” residential care. Reduced detention over the past five years has allowed DJJ to close hundreds of beds, saving more than $25 million, according to the agency. Right-sizing has revealed “far too many low-risk youth confined in expensive residential institutions,” Walters wrote agency employees in January. They consume scarce resources that could instead be invested in communitybased sanctions that hold youth accountable, protect public safety, create jobs and promote healthy futures for children. Community based sanctions are more effective at reducing juvenile crime and cost much less than correctional institutions. Walters said the smaller the program, the smaller the rate of abuse. “That is why we are fighting so hard to keep kids out of facilities, because things happen,” she said.
Access to hotline Walters also pointed out that every Florida facility has a phone with direct access to the DCF abuse hotline, which is how the teen in the Abbott incident managed to circumvent the staff. But as Detective Larry Tynes of the Santa Rosa Sheriff’s Office wrote in his report of the incident, “the victim stated she waited to call the Child Abuse Hotline the next day because she was told by other girls in the facility it would be worse for her if she called DCF right away.” Utter said the inmates are not interviewed in depth by DJJ monitors, and that it’s time to include their input in the oversight of juvenile facilities. “Now that we have videotaped evidence of physical abuse of a young girl, by a guard whose most important charge is to keep children safe, it is important to look at the larger picture,” he said.