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State workers: Knew no facts of youth abuse
ELIZABETH MCFARLAND
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

State lawmakers seemed incredulous Monday as several state employees testified that they were ignorant of alleged abuses of juvenile delinquents in state custody in 1997 and 1998.
The employees told interim legislative committees that while they knew there were "problems" at the youth facilities, they knew little, if any, details of alleged sexual assaults, beatings and sewage backing up into cells.
Several said they were more concerned about how the department and Gov. Mike Huckabee would look in an impending newspaper article about the problems than they were about learning the substance of the allegations.
"Who cares who knew about an article coming out? Is anybody focusing on correcting the problem?" state Sen. Mike Beebe, D-Searcy, asked during the testimony.
State Sen. Kevin Smith, D-Stuttgart, said it was odd that those testifying seemed to clearly recall discussing personnel problems at the state Department of Human Services' Youth Services Division, yet didn't recall discussing alleged sexual abuse. Some testified that the division was having problems with employees and the grievance process.
"Where's the outrage?" Smith asked several times during the testimony.
Five of the nine witnesses who testified Monday were members of Huckabee's staff during the time period lawmakers are investigating. Monday was the seventh day over the last two months that the committees have held hearings on the division's problems.
In addition, lawmakers took testimony Monday from an Arkansas State Police investigator, the chief legal counsel for the Department of Human Services, the department's communications director, and the director of the state Employment Security Division.
The committees plan to issue a report on the hearings in October, said state Sen. Mike Ross, D-Prescott, chairman of one of the committees -- the Senate Interim Committee on Children and Youth.
The report will be used to recommend changes in the Youth Services Division and to prepare legislation for the legislative session that begins Jan. 11, Ross said.
Joe Quinn, the department's director of communications, told lawmakers he talked to Rex Nelson, Huckabee's director of communications at the time, several times a day to brief him on the department's "daily crisis."
A part of those conversations revolved around an article that Mary Hargrove, an associate editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was researching about juvenile justice.
Quinn said he talked to Nelson, now on leave to direct Huckabee's gubernatorial campaign, about the tone of the article and where it likely would appear in the newspaper.
Looking back, "I wish I personally had been a little more aggressive" in finding out about the abuse, he said. "I don't remember discussing specific allegations with Rex."
Still, as a former television anchor, he knew the story was "huge," he said.
Smith told Quinn that the only reason the story would be considered big is because of the alleged abuse.
"You knew that reason, didn't you?" Smith asked.
"I knew we had serious problems at DYS," Quinn replied.
Did the administration react promptly, Smith asked?
"I think we did a decent job of getting our point of view into the story," Quinn said.
Sandra Winston of Little Rock, Huckabee's liaison to the Department of Human Services, testified that she didn't know about most of the abuse allegations until Huckabee held a news conference in April 1998.
Winston had written a memo to Huckabee in August 1997 to say that Hargrove was working on the juvenile justice story and noted that there were "founded" cases of abuse. She wrote the memo after meeting with Ruth Whitney, the division's director at the time, and Lloyd Warford, an assistant director.
She acknowledged to lawmakers that Whitney and Warford had come to her because they had approached then-department Director Lee Frazier for help and "the message was not getting through."
Frazier resigned shortly after Hargrove's series was published in June.
Winston told lawmakers that she knew in August 1997 about an alleged sexual assault on a juvenile by another juvenile but had serious doubts that it had occurred. She also said she knew of "racial tension" between staff members and allegations of staff yelling, inappropriately restraining and hitting youths in custody, but "I did not hear all the details."
Winston said she believed Whitney and Warford had come to her for "administrative help," and she didn't believe children were in "imminent danger."
Looking back, she said, she wished she had done more. She said Huckabee never spoke to her about the memo, but he initialed it, which was an indication to her that he read it.
Jonann Coniglio, the department's chief counsel, testified about what prompted her to call for a state police investigation in April. She said Hargrove asked for a meeting where "she detailed some heinous things" that were happening to youth at the youth detention facility in North Little Rock, known as the Observation and Assessment Center.
That evening, Coniglio visited the center and was appalled at the unsanitary and unsafe conditions she found. Also that evening, she ran into Frazier in the department's parking garage and spent about 15 minutes telling him what she had seen.
"He told me that he had not heard any of that before," Coniglio said.
She found out later that Frazier had met with Hargrove about the situation for more than four hours the week before.
After visiting the facility, Coniglio called Huckabee's chief legal counsel, Olan Reeves, and "he immediately grasped the gravity of the situation," she said.
She said Frazier was upset with her at times for talking to the governor's office about the situation, but she did it because "it was required of me ethically." She said she was concerned about the department's liability and she was concerned "as a human being."
"My problem with Lee Frazier was he didn't want to act quickly enough," she said.
Frazier wanted to appoint a task force and study the situation for 60 days, Coniglio said. So, she went up the chain of command to the governor's office. Huckabee called a news conference a few days after Coniglio informed his staff of the problem.
"He acted at the appropriate time," she said of Huckabee.
Col. Ed Rolle, director of the state Employment Security Department, acted as an assistant to Frazier for several months this year. He testified Monday that he was not aware of the abuses until April.
If he had known of the abuses, "I would have been duty-bound and personally-bound to go to the governor of the state," Rolle said.
Nelson also testified Monday that he knew no details of the abuse allegations before April. "There were never any allegations of abuse that were raised to me," he said. If there had, "I would have been terribly concerned."
Bud Cummins, Huckabee's former chief legal counsel, testified that though Warford approached him about problems in the division, he believed Warford was talking about personnel problems such as difficulty in disciplining and firing incompetent employees. "I didn't know of any abuse," Cummins said.

This article was published on Tuesday, September 29, 1998

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