Sometimes when day care providers are accused of breaking rules, they get a second chance. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth and so on.
Take the case of Athena Skeeter, a day care operator now awaiting trial for allegedly beating 20-month-old Cardell Williamson to death. Skeeter was charged on Aug. 22, 2014 with pummeling and stomping little Cardell and then placing him in scalding water.
This was not the first time Skeeter was accused of violence against a child, records obtained by the Daily News reveal.
According to the tip, the boy’s arm was broken in this incident and Skeeter warned the child “I’ll f— you up” if he revealed what happened.
Investigators learned the boy’s arm had indeed been broken, but the child did not implicate Skeeter, saying he “fell off the monkey bars.” The boy’s mother said she believed Skeeter and the day care operator denied hurting the boy.
In the end, the state Office of Children & Family deemed the abuse allegation “unsubstantiated” and found Skeeter “in compliance” with all regulations.
Cardell’s father, Carlyle Williamson, 57, didn’t know about any of this when he enrolled his son in Skeeter’s day care in Claremont, the Bronx. A city benefits program he was in required him to seek employment. Skeeter’s Happy Face program was near his Bronx apartment.
“They had to be a licensed child care provider,” Williamson told the Daily News. “They gave me the green light. She came up A-OK.”
In her statement to police, Skeeter said, “I was wrestling with Cardell. I flipped him on to the bed. I had a lot of stuff on the bed. I lifted him by one arm and one leg and threw him to the floor. The floor was hardwood. I stepped on his stomach three times. I didn’t use full force. I then threw my son on top of Cardell and stomped on his stomach three times.”
In November, Williamson’s attorney, Neil Wiesner, sued the city, alleging negligence in signing off on Skeeter. He noted she had no insurance on her day care center.
“How could they let her operate without insurance?” the lawyer asked.
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Williamson is furious at the city and heartbroken at the loss of a son he was trying to raise on his own. He recently visited his son’s gravesite in Linden, N.J., placing a single white rose on the unnamed flat stone in the snowy turf.
Though the state crime victims board paid for the burial of Cardell, they did not fund a tombstone. In his continuing grief, Carlyle hopes to one day see one sitting above his son. Right now, he can’t afford it.
“Some days I have good days, some days I have bad days. Some days I just break down and cry when I look at his pictures,” he said. “I didn’t get a full good life with him. There’s a lot of things I wanted to do. Halloween. Christmas. All of that.”
At times the city appears to drop the ball on investigating complaints.
The News revealed on Thursday that an internal e-mail stated that city policy is for inspectors to make three unannounced visits at different times when checking the existence of an unlicensed day care.But a city health department spokesman says inspectors have discretion to do fewer visits.
In the case of SoHo Day Care, an unlicensed facility where an infant died in July, an inspector looking into a tip made one visit that lasted about an hour and closed the allegation as “unsubstantiated.”
That incident was one of 100 cases in the last three years where allegations were closed as “unsubstantiated” either because the inspector couldn’t gain access or simply couldn’t determine whether a day care center was operating.
The state also plays a role. The Office of Children & Family Services oversees more than 9,000 of the city’s 11,513 sites, but relies entirely on the city inspectors to check them out.
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Sometimes, it appears, operators who lose their licenses over serious violations stay in business anyway.
In July 2014, city inspectors investigated a complaint about an incident at Happy Angels Group Family Day Care on Wilson Ave. in the Bronx, records show. First they learned an assistant who wasn’t approved by the state to work in a day care was monitoring seven children, including four under age 2.
According to a report obtained by The News, inspectors learned the assistant put one infant in a bouncer seat to nap in a separate room outside her view. While she was preparing food in the kitchen, the child somehow injured herself.
Neither the assistant nor the operator could explain what happened, but inspectors say the child “required emergency medical attention,” the report states.
The list of injuries was sobering. She suffered “bruising and cuts to her face on the bridge of her nose and swelling to her upper lip,” according to the report. And she had “bruising and swelling above and below her left eye” and “bruising and scabbing on her right hand and scabs on her right ring finger.”
On August 8, 2014, the state revoked Happy Angels’ license. Just three weeks earlier the state issued a license to Happy Angels Group Family Day Care II. It happens to be located just one floor above in the same small brick house.
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Last month the provider, Jose Diaz, told The News: “That incident happened with an employee that used to work here. It’s in court. We’re trying to clear our name.”
“The employee was off the payroll right away,” he added.
“Many owner/operators have multiple child care programs,” state officials said. “By law, each one must be evaluated independently. A problem may exist at one site but not the others. There are currently no violations against Happy Angels Group Family Day Care II warranting license suspension or revocation.”
With Gnomiki Day Care in Midwood, Brooklyn, the city and state took two different approaches to punishment.
On Sept. 11, 2014, the city Department of Investigation charged owner Viktoriya Fedorovich with three felonies, including criminal possession of a forged instrument.
DOI caught her submitting bogus documents claiming her employees had been trained, and recommended that both of Fedorovich’s two facilities on Ocean Ave. be closed.
Her city-licensed facility at 2221 Ocean Ave. was shut by the city Health Department immediately.
The state Office of Children & Family Services didn’t initiate revocation until after Fedorovich pleaded guilty in October. Fedorovich appealed.
During a Dec. 1 inspection by city inspectors, Gnomiki was cited for submitting fraudulent training and CPR certifications.
On Jan. 13 a woman who identified herself as Viktoria answered the phone. She told The News, “The kids are sleeping. You can’t come in.”
Questioned about her license, she said, “My English is not so good,” and hung up.
A week after The News’ visit, she withdrew her appeal of the state’s revocation.
Then there’s the case of Tamicka Williams, whose day care license was revoked in 2014 after she was arrested and charged with selling crack.
According to a report of the city’s investigation, on July 29, 2014 Williams “sold a quantity of crack cocaine to an undercover detective while parked in the driver’s seat of your vehicle while your own three children were in the vehicle. You have placed children at risk by selling illegal narcotics in their presence.”
Court papers show Williams was charged with one felony count of distributing narcotics, one misdemeanor count of drug distribution and one misdemeanor count of endangering children.
The state revoked Williams’ license on Aug. 15, 2014, but reinstated her after the charges filed by the Queens District Attorney were dismissed in October of that year.
When The News found Williams running her Success Group Day Care on Springfield Blvd. in Cambria Heights last month, she said the charges were dropped because “the police was lying. That’s why it got expunged. … Obviously if I’m open, obviously I’m not guilty.”
State officials declined to discuss Williams’ case.
At Magic Kingdom Day Care a few miles away in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, operator Ilene Ward has had her license revoked not once but twice in the last three years for a long list of issues.
And still she remains open for business.
In December 2013 her license was suspended after inspectors “determined that children in your care have been placed in imminent danger.” She corrected the problems and was reinstated, then lost her license again in August 2014.
This time inspectors discovered one summer youth worker supervising eight kids, and the facility’s second egress in a back alley padlocked shut. The report went on to say, “Your building is not fireproof. There was garbage, debris, broken glass and a dead rodent observed in the egress pathway, causing a safety hazard.”
Again she promised to clean things up and her license was reinstated in March. Her most recent inspection in September came up with zero violations.
During a Jan. 13 visit, Ward said there were 22 children supervised by four staff, including six younger than 2. In the back alley the second egress was still padlocked shut, but Ward said now she has a key.
She complained that with so many rules, it’s sometimes difficult to avoid violations.
“It’s not like we’re bad people. We just get caught up in whatever the political changes are. It’s not fair. When they come in they’re on a hunt. We don’t have a voice. We don’t have a union.”
She says the long list of rules is daunting.
“When you first come into day care there are many rules and regulations. You’re busy. You’re the director trying to run your business. And they change the rules all the time. It’s killing us. A lot of people are closing down.”
“A lot of times it’s things that you overlook because you’re so busy,” she said. “I don’t want to be penalized forever for things from the past.”
My Precious Moments Day Care in Woodhaven, Queens, has apparently overcome its sordid history. For months Michael Gomez, 24, sold marijuana and ecstasy to undercover cops from the basement of this one-family house — one floor below his father’s day care center.
Narcotics detectives made drug buys on Feb. 3 and 17 “while children were present in day care center upstairs,” police said.
The NYPD said it appeared that the father, who was listed as the day care owner, was apparently clueless about the drug dealing one floor below, but the state revoked My Precious Moments’ license in February 2014.
By May 2015, My Precious Moments was relicensed to Gomez’s mother, Berca. An employee, who identified herself as Nina, said Ms. Gomez couldn’t come to the door because the children were sleeping. She did not return a call.
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State officials said they reinstated the license when the son’s charges were reduced to a misdemeanor and the owner documented that the son is no longer living there.
Finally there’s the amazingly resilient Avalon Childcare centers in Park Slope, Brooklyn. There are two, right next to each other off Fifth Avenue, run by the same owner.
Starting in the spring of 2011, Avalon Childcare and its sister, Avalon Fifth Avenue Toddler Program around the corner, racked up 12 separate violations within two years for packing in too many children with not enough supervision.
Again and again, city inspectors showed up and cited them for failing to have enough supervisors monitoring the children. In 2011, they were cited in April, then again in May, followed by another visit with more violations in July, and yet another in October. Finally just before Thanksgiving, 2011, the inspectors found Avalon in compliance.
Then it started up again in 2012: Another violation in March, then again in October, and so on through April 2013. All told the two Avalon day care centers managed to be cited 12 times for packing in too many kids over the course of 17 visits in less than two years.
Since then Avalon has been hit with four more public health hazard violations, including water in a sink deemed too hot and choking hazard items found in cribs. Also, on an October 2012 public health hazard violation, Avalon was cited for making “false, untrue or misleading statements” to the department.
City Health Department officials told the News an Avalon employee “submitted forged Department of Investigation criminal clearance letters. The forgery was discovered upon inspection review.”
It’s difficult to know why the city didn’t just shut the place down for putting children in a potentially dangerous situation and for making false statements to the Health Department, but Avalon ultimately came up with another incident that allowed the city to do just that.
In May, surveillance video from inside the Park Slope facility surfaced of workers at Avalon Childcare pulling the hair of one child and pushing another to the floor. At that point, the Health Department suspended Avalon Childcare’s license.
The same day the city shut down Avalon Childcare, inspectors toured Avalon Academy around the corner and cited that facility with another violation.
The city gave them two weeks to correct the problem. Last week the problem was listed as “corrected,” and Avalon Academy was open for business.
