Witness tells of false reports in Kelly death

By Nathan Gorenstein  Inquirer Staff Writer  Posted on Wed, Feb. 10,
2010

Within hours of Danieal Kelly's death, officials at the social
services company responsible for the 14-year-old girl's safety were
rushing to produce backdated paperwork in an effort that apparently
included forging the signature of the teen's mother on a form,
according to testimony yesterday in federal court.

Written on the day of Kelly's death, Aug. 4, 2006, the document was an
"encounter" form recording a home visit that had in fact occurred
months earlier.

Kelly suffered from cerebral palsy and lived in a West Philadelphia
household with seven siblings. She died, covered in bedsores, of
starvation. Her family was under the supervision of the city's
Department of Human Services, which subcontracted the work to now-
defunct MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc.

After Kelly's death, nine MultiEthnic employees were charged with
billing the city for services they never provided to her and other
children, and with fabricating and destroying subpoenaed documents.
Five have pleaded guilty, and four are on trial in U.S. District
Court.

Yesterday, Christiana Nimpson, a former MultiEthnic caseworker, said
she filled out the encounter form on the day of Kelly's death at the
request of agency cofounder Mickal Kamuvaka - and that she left the
"recipient signature" line blank.

Officials were rushing to complete required paperwork for the family's
file, which DHS was demanding.

Nimpson said that after she completed the form, either Kamuvaka or
Solomon Manamela, another supervisor, asked her also to sign the name
of Kelly's mother, Andrea. Both supervisors are among the four on
trial.

Nimpson said she refused, testifying, "I thought it wasn't right."

Under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea Witzleben, Nimpson
said she could not recall which of the supervisors made the request.

The form - bearing the signature Andrea Kelly - was entered into
evidence. Defense attorneys did not challenge Nimpson's testimony, and
exactly how the form came to be signed, and who signed it, was not
answered.

Nimpson also said that on 10 occasions, Kamuvaka asked her to go
through other caseworkers' files and fabricate missing reports. She
said Manamela asked her to do the same thing five times in her four
years with the agency.

Previous witnesses had testified that MultiEthnic managers worried
that incomplete files would threaten the agency's contract with DHS.

To generate data for the forms, Nimpson said, she sometimes called
families that were supposed to have been visited by other caseworkers.
She also sometimes fabricated her own "progress notes" because she did
not have time to make the required visits, she said.

Nimpson said she was paid about $28,000 a year, and, like other
caseworkers who have testified, said she worked two or three jobs.

Nimpson said she did visit the Kelly household in late May or early
June to teach Andrea Kelly parenting skills and was accompanied by the
family's caseworker, Julius Juma Murray. Nimpson said she spoke to the
mother on the porch and waited outside while Murray entered the home.

Andrea Kelly later received a 30-year prison sentence for her role in
her daughter's death.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20100303_Two_Danieal_Kelly_Casework...

Four Danieal Kelly social-service workers found guilty

By Nathan Gorenstein  INQUIRER STAFF WRITER  Posted on Wed, Mar. 3,
2010

Two administrators and two caseworkers from a city-funded social
service agency were convicted today of health care fraud and
conspiracy charges stemming from the death of Danieal Kelly, the 14-
year-old with cerebral palsy who died of bedsores and malnutrition at
her mother's apartment.

While the verdicts ended a month-long federal trial, they are not the
final legal acts stemming from the West Philadelphia girl's death in
August 2006 and the ensuing investigations into the agency,
MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., and the city's Department of Human
Services.

Mickal Kamuvaka, 60, a MultiEthnic co-founder who served as day-to-day
manager, had no reaction as the verdict was read and declined comment
afterward. She still faces a city charge of involuntary manslaughter,
as does Julius Juma Murray, 52, the caseworker assigned to the Kelly
family and who was also convicted today. Murray also faces trial on
federal immigration charges.

An overhaul of the city's Department of Human Services that started
after the disclosure of treatment failures in Kelly's death is also
continuing. DHS used federal funds to have MultiEthnic provide in-home
care for the teen and other at-risk children.

The U.S. District Court jury of seven men and five women also
convicted Solomon Manamela, 52, another agency co-founder, and
caseworker Mariam Coulibaly, 42.

Coulibaly was acquitted on three of 20 charges, and Murray was
acquitted on three of 19 charges.

The four face sentences ranging from three to more than seven years.

According to court testimony, the federal investigation started after
William McDonald, a criminal investigator from the Department of
Health and Human Services, read a lengthy article in The Inquirer
about Danieal's death.

The fallout from that incident, and other failings earlier reported by
The Inquirer, prompted then-Mayor John Street to fire the commissioner
and top deputy of DHS. Mayor Nutter later discharged other employees
and installed a child advocate, Anne Marie Ambrose, as DHS
commissioner.

Murray had claimed, and agency records said, that he had visited the
West Philadelphia home on July 24th 2006, less than two weeks before
Danieal died Aug. 4. But prosecution witnesses testified that the odor
from Kelly's massive bedsores - the odor of decaying flesh - would
have been impossible to miss.

The jury found that the defendants fabricated paperwork for home
visits that never happened, and when a federal investigation started,
tossed out or shredded documents sought by the government.

"Danieal Kelly starved, and to put it bluntly, rotted to death in her
bed," Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea Witzleben said after the verdict.
Deliberations extended over parts of two days.

From July 2000 through December 2006, the city paid MultiEthnic some
$3.7 million for services it was supposed to have provided to more
than 500 families over that time period.

Some of those services were delivered, as defense witnesses testified.

"We've never alleged they provided no services at all," said
Witzleben, who prosecuted the case with Assistant U.S. Attorney Vineet
Gauri. Rather, she said, agency workers encountered some cases "that
were very difficult to work with . . . and they chose not to do so."

Andrea Kelly, the teen's mother, was caring for eight of nine children
in the first floor of a rowhouse in the Mantua neighborhood. She
pleaded guilty in state court to third-degree murder and child
endangerment, and was sentenced to up to 40 years in state prison.

Today, Ambrose said DHS, which has 1,800 employees and 100,000
children receiving varying degrees of care, has overhauled the in-home
services program, established new oversight policies, and is setting
up a program to expand checks on families receiving care from private
contractors.

"We've tried to really create a culture of responsibility," she said.

The head of a non-profit agency that offers legal representation to
children in DHS said the agency still has issues to resolve -
including how complex cases like Danieal's are managed - but agreed
there have been extensive improvements.

Frank P. Cervine, executive director of the Support Center for Child
Advocates, said that the circumstances of Danieal's death were an
aberration, but that the agency's failure to adequately oversee
private contractors was not unusual. He said that shortcoming has been
improved under Ambrose.

"I feel much more confident," he said.

Testimony from coworkers described Kamuvaka and Manamela as frequently
failing to provide training and supervision to agency workers.
Kamuvaka, in particular, was said to have condoned the creation of
false records.

Her attorney, William Cannon, said Kamuvaka "was very disappointed" by
the verdict and repeated his courtroom defense that she and other
managers were the victims of their own staff, "social workers who did
her in" by faking reports and not providing services.

Paul J. Hetznecker, Manamela's attorney, said his client was "scammed"
by his own employees, though he conceded there was "significant"
mismanagement.

"But that doesn't take away from the dedication Solomon Manamela has
had" to social work, Hetznecker said. Kamuvaka holds a doctorate from
the University of Pennsylvania, and like Manamela has had a career in
social work.

Manamela and Coulibaly also declined comment. Murray is being held on
the federal immigration charges.