Counselors being indicted for spanking troubled youths in Boston
By Jacqueline Tempera
BOSTON (Reuters) - Eight former youth workers were being indicted on charges they routinely spanked young men in custody last year at a Boston residential facility to punish them, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The indictments come after a year-long State Police investigation into the Casa Isla Department of Youth Services facility, located on an island in Boston Harbor. The program housed 14- to 19-year-old boys committed by juvenile courts.
Assistant District Attorney Gloriann Moroney told the court the defendants spanked young men at the facility from April to August 2014. The men working at the facility, hired through Volunteers of America, would pull a young man's pants down, and hit his bare buttocks with an orange department-issued sandal, in a game they called "orange chicken," prosecutors said at the arraignment Wednesday.
Victims were targeted if they misbehaved or if they had returned to the facility after being discharged. Moroney said the technique was often used on the eve of a child's release, as a warning not to return.
"The evidence in this case suggests violence and threats meted out under the guise of discipline," Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley said.
Seven of the defendants: Jalise Andrade, 34, Joseph Cintolo, 26, Silvio Depina, 36, Wilkens Jeanty, 40, Hermano Joseph, 24, Ainsley Laroche, 40, and Raymond Pizzaro, 24, were arraigned on the charges Wednesday.
The eighth man, 30-year-old Emmanuel Fedna, is expected to be arraigned Thursday.
Prosecutors charged each of the former workers with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Joseph, Andrade, Depina and Laroche each face threat and witness intimidation charges. Joseph and Depina are facing additional charges of assault and battery and indecent assault and battery over 14.
"We are cooperating with authorities in every way we can, including turning over 2,300 hours of security camera footage," Stephanie Paauwe, a Volunteers of America Massachusetts spokeswoman said in a statement.
The program has been shut down and its contract with the state terminated.
(Editing by Scott Malone and Eric Walsh)
