ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Reporting on a child sex abuse case from a generation ago changed me as a person.
A fresh-faced reporter just out of the woods of Maine, I was assigned to cover the Country Walk Child Sex Abuse case in Miami.
My assignment editor, Jan Hollingsworth, had just finished producing a report on child sex abuse and what symptoms to look out for in abused children. She couldn't believe it when she started noticing all those symptoms in her neighborhood's children. It turned out all of these children were going to a day care in the home of one Francisco Fuster Escalona.
He was a convict, [manslaughter for shooting a cop in New York] and was on probation when he had raped a 16-year-old girl from Nicaragua. She thought because they had sex she was obliged to marry him. Together she and Frank Fuster acted as if he would not be around when his wife started taking in baby-sitting clients. Sadly he was.
He is currently serving what's left of a 155-year long prison sentence for molesting more than a dozen children in his wife's care [although prosecutors believe the number exceeds 100]. It was the children in Jan's neighborhood that were molested and she was the one to call the cops.
I thought I'd seen evil before that year long, gut wrenching, sickening story. But, looking in the eyes of Frank Fuster in that courtroom, I was shaken to my core. He had raped children and killed animals in front of them to keep them from telling their parents, among his many deviant crimes.
My understanding of the coldness of humanity was darkened then, but when my own children came along, I physically shuddered at the thought of the callous sickness of those who prey on children in any way.
Jan Hollingsworth went on to write the book "Unspeakable Acts," which ABC saw fit to turn into a television movie. I have recently flashed back a lot about that case in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky case at Penn State.
Today, I found myself asking what is wrong with us as a nation that we can't seem to get reporting child abuse, particularly child sex abuse, right.
You see, today the University of Michigan admitted it made major mistakes in the case of Dr. Stephen Jenson, a resident in pediatrics at U of M hospital. Yes, a pediatrician, facing four counts of child pornography possession. The cops say it was on computers and flash drives in his Pittsfield home. The Washtenaw County Sheriff's office confiscated his electronics in a raid on Jenson's home last Dec. 2. The real problem here is the original police report came in May of 2011 at the University of Michigan hospital.
Why did it take so long? Well, UM admits it did not properly deal with this case.
Here's the quick version of what happened.
May 2011, a doctor in a secure doctors lounge area finds a flash drive in a computer displaying a disturbing image of an adult lying on top of a child with her hands tied behind her back and her naked body lashed to a bed.
The doctor says she was coming to the end of her shift and panicked. She was not sure what to do. After tossing and turning all night she returned to the hospital the next day and reported her find to her superiors. They brought in hospital security. The flash drive was gone and no one could say for sure what the doctor found. Hospital security took a report, turned it over to the hospital lawyer and no one else. The hospital lawyer apparently decided there was not enough evidence to move forward.
The case lingered for six months.
Somewhere along the way the hospital security told the University Department of Public Services [the cops] and once they started investigating there was a police raid and computers with child porn allegedly found. Dr. Jenson no longer works for the university, but it's important to point out that this doctor treated children for six months while the porn report sat collecting dust inside someone's desk drawer. There is no evidence any children were put in danger, but it should give everyone pause!
Now, it seems ridiculous to have to write this sentence, but I'm feeling compelled!
Child abuse, child sex abuse, child porn are all crimes. In most cases they are felonies. If you suspect any of these crimes CALL THE COPS! You might be wrong, you might be right, it doesn't matter. Protecting children is the imperative here. There are no gray areas!
If you see child porn on a computer flash drive pick up the phone and CALL 911! If you see a coach showering with children and witness heinous sex crimes, pull the two apart, and CALL 911! For some odd reason we are tip toeing around what ought to be thought of as a dire, general alarm emergency. It's much like if you see a day care burning. You CALL 911!
Be like Jan Hollingsworth.
Penn State is already facing hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits in the Sandusky case. The University of Michigan may escape the same fate in the Jenson case if it is lucky. It is expending considerable energy to prevent this from happening again and I will give you the school's release on that subject below. But can we all just stop panicking, stop worrying about the impact of making this kind of charge and just consider the child first?
Please get it right! It is children and their welfare we are talking about here!
This release is from the University of Michigan:
Here are some of the preliminary recommendations from our internal review, which is not yet complete.
University Audits was asked to examine the internal controls related to an issue that was first reported in May 2011 but not fully investigated until November 2011. The case was dismissed in May because of a lack of evidence.
When it was brought forward again in November, the case was fully investigated and evidence showed wrong-doing on the part of a University of Michigan medical resident.
There were several factors caused the case to be stalled after the first attempt at investigation:
>Primary evidence that had been seen on a thumb drive attached to a hospital computer disappeared between the time it was first seen and the next morning when Hospital Security went to retrieve it.
There was not a clear line of responsibility for investigating the case. The Office of the General Counsel for the Health System ultimately took ownership of the case and determined that there was not enough evidence to continue the investigation.
Hospital Security did not log the case in the system shared with DPS. If that had been done, DPS would have seen that there was a possible crime to investigate.
MCIT (Medical Center Information Technology) reviewed the computer internal logs where the thumb drive had been seen and was able to determine who had accessed the computer. However, MCIT does not have the technology or training to do forensic investigation of electronic devices and, therefore, was not able to retrieve other relevant information such as thumb drive access.
There was confusion about the roles of Hospital Security and DPS. Hospital employees that reported the incident thought they were talking to police when they were talking with Hospital Security.
DPS and Hospital Security have strong policies and procedures for their individual departments, but weak communication protocols between the two departments. To correct that the university is exploring a number of things:
• Developing a common set of guidelines for reporting security incidents throughout the university.
• Consistent logging of all potential criminal activity in a reporting system that is shared by Hospital Security and DPS.
• Development of joint training exercises.
• Referring all computer forensic needs to DPS.