The Criminal in the Next Room
By Brian Donovan and Eden Laikin, Investigations Team
Originally published in Newsday, 1999
DAY TWO
Caring for day-care children in a drunken stupor, Holly Hanemann of South Setauket passed out on her couch while a baby in a crib went hungry for hours, Suffolk Child Protective Services reported in 1997.
"It was learned that Holly … gets intoxicated when she is with the children," sometimes drinking as early as 7 a.m., the agency said of Hanemann, who had been approved by New York State as a day-care provider. "She has blacked out while working. Holly's actions have placed these young children at risk of harm."
On the day she was found unconscious at 3 p.m., a CPS report said, "there were an unknown number of children in the home. An infant was found in a crib who appeared to have been in the crib since the morning. It appeared that the child had not been fed his lunch at the time."
Previously, there had been complaints that at least four other day-care children were hurt at her home, another CPS report said.
It wasn't just Hanemann's irresponsibility that led to these problems.
New York State approved her without knowing she had a criminal record that included a DWI conviction for an accident in which a young man was killed.
The state's approval wasn't an isolated mistake—Hanemann slipped through the cracks of one of the nation's weakest systems for keeping dangerous people away from day-care children.
A Newsday investigation has found dozens of others with criminal records, on Long Island and across the state, who have given their addresses in public court documents as homes that New York State has approved for day care. They are among 178 people with records of convictions for crimes or violations such as harassment, including 31 day-care providers. And state officials, acknowledging that mistakes have been made, say they want to strengthen the system.
Hanemann, whose day-care license eventually was revoked by the Bureau of Early Childhood Services (BECS), did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Lawyers representing her said she had no comment. She sued the state, seeking to get her day-care license back, and has denied in court papers that she ever harmed children or drank during day-care hours.
One mother who chose Hanemann for day care, Linda Ackley, said the fact she had a state license was a strong factor in the decision. "It makes you feel comfortable that someone has looked into their history," Ackley said.
"If you hear the state of New York is backing something up, it's like with the dairy farmers—when the state backs up milk, I feel like I'm going to get fresh milk. So when the state says this person is licensed and they know about her, they must know that she's OK."
In fact, the state certificate on the wall of a day-care home in New York State doesn't guarantee anything of the sort.
Across the state, from the suburbs of Long Island to neighborhoods in New York City to cities and villages upstate, records show some parents like Linda Ackley are unwittingly leaving their children at state-sanctioned day-care homes where people with criminal records live.
Statewide, a computer analysis by Newsday found 178 people with convictions for crimes, or violations such as harassment and disorderly conduct, who gave their addresses in court documents as homes that New York State has approved for day care. In Nassau and Suffolk, 76 such offenders have listed their addresses as day-care homes.
The cases range from minor offenses such as shoplifting to people who have committed sex crimes, injured victims with weapons, beaten women, sold drugs, wrecked cars while drunk and served prison sentences.
On Long Island, 43 of the offenders had been arrested for alleged violence or drug activity, and at least 32 of the cases elsewhere in the state also involved violence or drugs. Thirty-one of those 178 with conviction records, on Long Island and elsewhere in the state, were the providers themselves; others were relatives who gave their addresses as the day-care homes.
Some, like Hanemann, disclosed that they had criminal records but were approved anyway. A DWI conviction wouldn't have automatically disqualified her, but BECS officials admitted her case was handled badly. The agency should have checked court records and learned about her fatal DWI accident before deciding whether to approve her for day care, officials said.
But most of the offenders found by Newsday escaped notice by BECS simply because under New York's system, officials don't check the records or ask the questions that would bring such situations to light.
The fact that someone with a criminal record list a day-care home as their address in police and court records does not prove, of course, that he or she regularly has access to day-care children. But it raises the possibility that they might, which is why most states have a system for looking into such matters. New York doesn't.
New York is one of a handful of states that does not screen day-care applicants and household members for criminal records, despite recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health Association that states check criminal-record files for all providers and all adults who live in day-care homes.
A study this year by The Children's Foundation found that at least 42 states do some kind of independent checking into whether day-care applicants have criminal records. Proposed legislation to authorize such checks has been introduced several times in the State Legislature but has never passed.
Instead, New York relies on voluntary disclosures—essentially, an honor system. Applicants seeking state approval as home providers are asked to check a box on the application form if they've ever been convicted of a crime.
Although state law says "the applicant and all members of the household must be of good character and habits," BECS doesn't even ask if other members of day-care households have criminal records, a step that could be taken without any legislation. After Newsday asked about that, BECS officials said they would soon add such a question to a redesigned application form.
For day-care center jobs, under state regulations the center's own management—not the state—asks applicants if they have criminal records. Some centers conduct criminal-background checks at their own expense; others don't, industry officials say.
Newsday's findings, to be sure, involve only a small percentage of the state's approximately 20,650 state-approved day-care homes. For most day-care kids, there's no criminal in the next room.
But for the hundreds of preschool children who are affected, day care means spending most of their waking hours in houses that adults with conviction records have listed as their homes. When those children move on to kindergarten, others in their most formative, vulnerable years will take their places.
Some day-care professionals say the danger posed by people with criminal backgrounds in day-care homes is not so much that the children will become crime victims but that they will be exposed to—and copy—the behavior of people who use violence or drugs to cope with the routine stress of life.
"As a society we need to err on the side of the safety and welfare of the children," said Deborah Bedell, a partner in Debbie's Creative Childcare, a Plainview day-care center accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. "If that means some people can't be in this profession, then that's what it means."
Suzanne Zafonte Sennett, director of BECS, said in a letter to Newsday in October that "the information that surfaced during your review of day care providers with regards to criminal convictions only reinforces our position that we must go back to the drawing board and work harder and more aggressively this year to remove barriers in this area."
Since Newsday began looking into the issue, officials said, the agency has begun working on a proposal for new legislation to authorize checking applicants for criminal records, but no details have been disclosed.
Currently, day-care applicants in New York are checked only through a state register of people who have figured in substantiated child-abuse cases within this state.
These are some other elements of the situation:
State officials don't use available information. BECS officials say they don't have legal authority to check for criminal records. The State Legislature hasn't authorized them to take fingerprints, they say, and fingerprints are the key to getting criminal records from the state's criminal-justice agency. But there's another way to find many of the people with criminal records at day-care homes. Newsday used a a computer to match data on convicted defendants' addresses, which are public record and available from the state Office of Court Administration, to BECS data on the addresses of day-care homes. BECS officials said they never thought of doing that. Among those Newsday found was Yolanda Linares of the Bronx, approved as a provider shortly after a judge ruled that a "serious mental disorder" led her to set a family's house on fire with a gasoline bomb.
Newsday's numbers understate the situation. Matching OCA data to day-care homes gives only a partial picture of how many people with criminal records have access to day-care kids in New York State. Newsday's figures don't include people convicted of crimes in other states. They don't include people who care for children in day-care centers rather than homes. In New York and other big cities, Newsday's computer-matching was less effective because apartment numbers are missing from some data. The superior resources available to state government could find more criminals. The OCA data also do not include federal crimes. One Elmont provider with a history of violating day-care regulations was being processed for a new license last year when the state happened to find out she'd been arrested on federal charges of trafficking in automatic weapons. The woman, later convicted, didn't get the license, but there's no system for screening out other federal offenders.
The state has accepted offenders' self-serving versions of their crimes. When applicants voluntarily disclose criminal records, state guidelines say regulators should check law enforcement documents to find out exactly what the applicant was accused of doing. But records show that's not always done. In the push to expand the day-care system, sometimes the state has approved applicants from their own accounts of their crimes, which omit key facts. They approved Felicia Bellamy of Westbury—whose home day-care program had a child-abuse violation this year—after she acknowledged convictions for marijuana possession and resisting arrest. They didn't check court records that say the drug case involved smuggling more than 10 pounds of marijuana into the United States, and that Bellamy, who declined to comment, threatened to kill a police officer, his wife and his children.
People accused of violent crimes aren't screened out because their criminal charges were plea-bargained. Among those who gave their addresses as day-care homes are people arrested for rape, fighting with police, beating and stalking women, buying cocaine, hitting a police officer with a bottle, and committing violent crimes with guns, knives, razors, baseball bats and a rake. One victim needed 100 stitches, records show. But all of those cases were settled with guilty pleas to harassment or disorderly conduct. Those are "violations," not crimes. Such plea deals are common when victims such as family members, girlfriends or people with criminal backgrounds themselves decide not to testify. Even if the state starts asking relatives of day-care providers about their criminal records, all of those people can say—truthfully—that they have none. The state doesn't ask about arrests. Carolyn Wade of Roosevelt fired a shotgun in the direction of her sons while they fought with a baseball bat, then pointed the gun at police, court records say. Charged with a felony, she pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, told the state she had no criminal record, and was approved for day care. Wade did not respond to requests for an interview.
Evidence of criminals in day-care homes hasn't always been investigated. BECS policy guidelines say that if regulators get information that a day-care household may include a criminal, "the department is obligated to follow up … It may be necessary for [regional office] staff to do some ‘leg work' in order to obtain the information needed to evaluate the criminal conviction history." But with a handful of inspectors trying to monitor about 1,800 day-care facilities from the Queens border to the East End, that hasn't always happened. A source told BECS that Hempstead provider Clydia Smith had two sons with records of drug dealing and other crimes living with her. Court records show three sons with criminal records have given their address as the day-care house. Two inspection visits found unidentified young men hanging around, but the state never looked into who they were, records show. Smith declined to comment.
Some day-care centers won't hire people with any kind of crime in their background, no matter how minor. "I'm very liberal in most of my attitudes and very conservative about who should care for children," said Jill Rooney, executive director of Harbor Child Care, which has five centers in Nassau. "The person you want has to be mentally and emotionally competent and follow the rules of citizenship—that's the model."
State governments, however, generally don't set standards that strict. Most states' guidelines ban people who have harmed children or have been convicted of serious sexual or violent crimes. For lesser crimes, day-care regulators are allowed to use discretion to consider how long ago the offense happened and whether applicants or household members have straightened out their lives.
New York State has such guidelines for applicants who voluntarily disclose past crimes. But with no independent checking, few criminals are found. On Long Island, Newsday found only two providers whose registrations were revoked because state officials learned they had criminal records: one person twice convicted of drunk driving, and a woman convicted of prostitution-related charges in 1979 and 1982.
Although the state does not check for criminal records, some local governments do. Providers who are paid with public money through the Nassau and Suffolk departments of social service under welfare and workfare programs, and those household members whom providers disclose, are fingerprinted by the counties.
But Newsday found more than a dozen such day-care homes—places that providers or relatives with conviction records had given as their addresses—that weren't eliminated through county-level screening. The reason remains unclear; the counties would not release records on the screening of specific people or homes, citing confidentiality rules.
When state officials in New York consider whether an applicant should be disqualified because of a criminal background, their legal authority to reject people is restricted by a little-known law that tilts the system in favor of those with criminal convictions.
Passed by the State Legislature before day care was a pressing public issue, this 1976 law, intended to curb discrimination against ex-offenders, says: "The public policy of the state to encourage the licensure and employment of persons previously convicted of one or more crimes."
To reject an applicant with a criminal record, state policy says, BECS officials should establish "a direct relationship between one or more of the criminal convictions and the person's child care responsibilities" or that "the person would present an unreasonable risk to the welfare of the children."
Sometimes people arrested for violent crimes aren't disqualified from day care because they were allowed to plead guilty to violations such as disorderly conduct or harassment. Those offenses aren't crimes under the law, and state applications ask only if would-be providers have been convicted of any crime.
That was the case with Carolyn Wade of Roosevelt. One evening in 1992, Wade's teenage sons were fighting in the living room when she came in with a shotgun "and fired one round at me … but she missed," her son Robert Spurgeon said in a written complaint. "Then she fired two more shots into the ceiling. She was saying ‘stop fighting' as she was firing the shotgun."
Police said she pointed the gun at them, too. Charged with a felony and two misdemeanors, she pleaded guilty only to disorderly conduct. When she filled out her day-care application in 1997, she said she'd never been "convicted of a crime." The answer was true, and the state approved her.
Both sons have criminal records. One woman told police that at Wade's day-care home at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday in 1998, Kyle Spurgeon, her other son, grabbed her hair when she refused to leave and dragged her down two flights of stairs. That case was dismissed after the woman later refused to cooperate. He has an assault conviction in another case.
Besides a drug conviction, Robert Spurgeon has served time for slashing a man with an 11-inch knife in a gang fight, causing "serious permanent scarring to the face." Two rape charges against him have been bargained down, one to disorderly conduct and the other, involving a 15-year-old girl, to sexual misconduct.
Wade did not list either son as living in her home, though Robert has listed her house as his address in court documents as recently as 1998.
Some say the state should be trying harder to keep people with a history of criminal activity out of day-care situations. Det. Lt. Larry Strand of the Hempstead Police Department, who knows some of the criminals who have given their addresses as day-care homes, said, "If the state is not regulating this, it should be. Anyone arrested for drugs, guns, violence or sex offenses should not be around these kids.”
If the state had checked public records on Holly Hanemann when she first applied in 1993 to become a day-care provider, officials would have found two thick court files raising questions about her suitability.
In 1990, while driving on Route 347 near her home in South Setauket with her 6-year-old daughter in the car and more than twice the legal level of alcohol in her blood, Hanemann got into a crash that killed a 21-year-old man driving in an oncoming lane. She was indicted on charges of manslaughter, endangering the welfare of a child and two other felonies but was convicted only on misdemeanor DWI charges. Visibly pregnant at her trial, she was sentenced to 6 months' home detention and 3 years' probation.
The previous year she had pleaded guilty to criminal mischief for smashing a tenant's $3,300 computer during a dispute. The order sentencing her to 3 years' probation for that offense said she must abstain from alcohol and "enter a facility or rehabilitation program for the treatment of alcoholism as may be deemed necessary by the Department of Probation."
Robert Papasodero, whose son died in Hanemann's DWI accident, said he was appalled to hear that the state approved Hanemann for day care. "We knew that it was only a matter of time before something drastic would happen again with this person," he said.
Hanemann's ex-husband, Felix, said her drinking got worse after the fatal crash. She favored vodka in the tiny bottles commonly served on airline flights, he said, because they were "easy to down and easy to hide." And she began her career in day care, operating at first as an unregistered home provider.
She was still on probation for both criminal convictions in 1993 when the state got a report from Suffolk's Child Protective Services, which had received a complaint against her from a day-care parent. It was the first of three complaint cases involving Hanemann that BECS would handle over the next few years without learning about her drinking problem, according to records.
Her story shows not only how the state sometimes approves people with criminal convictions but also how parents' complaints about providers sometimes have been dismissed after only cursory investigations by BECS.
In the 1993 case, CPS alerted BECS officials to a parent's complaint. The charges, records say, were that Hanemann "pulls child's hair ‘if he doesn't listen"' and that the child was "sent to back room, for punishment." The report also said: "Child currently has bruise on back, may have been kicked," and "Child has ‘anxiety' attacks when left with provider." Further details weren't available; the law prohibits CPS from commenting on its cases.
It took BECS 17 days to send a licensing inspector to Hanemann's home, according to records released to Newsday, although state law says an inspection should be made on the next business day if danger to a child is involved. The inspector reported finding nobody home and left a letter in her mailbox. The letter invited her to register as a provider, which is required for anyone taking care of three or more day-care children.
Hanemann sent BECS a note saying she had been caring for only two children. Records released by the state show no further attempt to look into the complaint. CPS' inquiry into the abuse charge was inconclusive because the child "could not confirm the allegations, as he was too young," a report says.
Later that year, Hanemann applied for state approval as a registered provider. The application asks if applicants have ever been convicted of a crime, and she disclosed that she'd been convicted of DWI and criminal mischief.
She didn't mention the accident that killed Robert J. Papasodero, 21, of Lake Grove. The BECS application for day-care providers asks applicants to provide "true and accurate" and "relevant" information about their crimes. But the application doesn't pose any specific questions, such as what happened or what harm was caused.
State officials, according to a BECS policy statement, are supposed to look into "the nature of the incident(s) which resulted in the criminal conviction," checking records to "ensure that the applicant's written response is complete … " After Sennett, director of BECS, was asked by Newsday if the state had looked into the circumstances behind Hanemann's convictions, she replied in a statement:
"It appears from the record that staff at that time did not follow agency procedure. There is no record in the file that staff requested written confirmation from local authorities to substantiate Ms. Hanemann's version of her criminal conviction. We did not become aware of the true nature of her criminal involvement until we received information through … another agency in 1997."
Some states that check for criminal convictions authorize regulators to reject applicants convicted of alcohol-related crimes. Oregon law says convictions for DWI or any major traffic offense "are inconsistent with any position of unsupervised contact with children." In North Carolina, driving while impaired or even public intoxication can disqualify an applicant. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico says providers and family members must have no history of drug or alcohol abuse. West Virginia bans any applicant with a DWI conviction during the past five years.
New York State approved Hanemann for day care in 1994 and the following year authorized her to expand her operation. She was granted a "group family" license, which allows a provider with an assistant to care for 12 preschool children plus two school-age children.
Her ex-husband said that often during her drinking bouts, Hanemann would disappear from the house during the day and he would get frantic calls at work from her assistants. "That happened a lot," Felix Hanemann said.
Once they found her passed out in her car a few blocks away, he said. Other times, he said, he found her drinking at neighbors' houses. "There were numerous occasions," he said.
When parents were around, she chewed gum or garlic to conceal any odor on her breath, he said. "I don't think the parents had any indication," he said.
When she was drunk, he said, "I would do whatever I could to keep her away from the kids, put her in the bedroom."
Linda Ackley said she took her son out of Hanemann's day-care program after she observed Hanemann hurting a young boy. Ackley said Hanemann would discipline the child by snapping her index fingernail across his lips. In November, 1995, Ackley filed a complaint with BECS alleging that Hanemann had too many children in her care and sometimes left her assistant alone with them.
A BECS licensing inspector interviewed Hanemann, who "stated these allegations are bogus and lies," motivated by a disagreement with Ackley over money, the BECS report said. The agency dismissed the complaint as unsubstantiated. The report does not say that BECS spoke with the assistant, parents or anyone except Hanemann. Although investigators are authorized to check providers' records on how many children are enrolled, the report does not say that was done.
In December, 1995, a mother and CPS reported to BECS that a 5-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, brother and sister, were injured at Hanemann's house. A state report says: "CPS reports that [the girl] has a laceration on her nose and a laceration in the corner of her right eye as well as a black eye. [The boy] had a cut inside his mouth caused by Holly pushing him into a table on 12-21-95. Holly reports that [the girl's] injury … was caused by another child throwing a wooden block … Both children are afraid of Holly."
The children gave inconsistent accounts, however, sometimes blaming Hanemann, sometimes another child. The CPS investigation found that another child also was hurt, but conflicting accounts complicated the inquiry.
One CPS report said: "There have been at least four instances of children getting hurt while in Holly Hanemann's care. Mrs. Hanemann does not seem to recognize her responsibility to protect the children … This worker has serious concerns about the safety of children in day care with Mrs. Hanemann."
CPS concluded that Hanemann had provided "inadequate guardianship." But she appealed, and a hearing officer ruled that CPS had not presented credible evidence "to prove the maltreatment alleged” or to list Hanemann in the state's registry of child abusers.
Despite all of these controversies and investigations, BECS concluded that Hanemann was doing a good job.
In a letter to her Dec. 5, 1996, the agency said, "As a result of an investigation … all allegations have been unsubstantiated … Your home has been visited several times unannounced by … licensing representatives. You have never been found out of compliance. You have always informed rep of all changes and concerns in your program. Your program appears to be well run."
Just a month later, however, BECS finally learned that Hanemann had a serious drinking problem. CPS notified the state agency that Hanemann had been passing out drunk with day-care children in her house, and that was the beginning of the end for her day-care career.
On some afternoons when she was too drunk to function, CPS said, she would turn the operation over to her young assistants. "During those times the provider goes into another part of the house to continue to drink and sleep … The other helpers are aware of Holly's actions but fail to take action."
On Jan. 2, 1997, Hanemann was hospitalized overnight for acute intoxication. Records say her blood-alcohol level was .40 percent. (The legal threshold for driving while impaired is .07.) A CPS report said "after being released from the hospital she had 15-20 children in her care and was still intoxicated."
Six days later, BECS made its first visit to Hanemann's home and on Jan. 14 sent her a letter suspending her day-care license. Hanemann, however, continued caring for day-care children, records say. One state document says she advertised for new customers in a shoppers guide. She told BECS she had only two children in her care; under state law, providers who care for only one or two children are exempt from state oversight.
After a hearing, the state ruled that she had maltreated children by getting drunk while she was responsible for their care, and it refused to restore her license.
The hearing decision said Hanemann "continues to minimize her drinking and fails to accept responsibility for it," blaming it on stress. "Unfortunately stress is present in any life …"
The same week that decision was issued in August, 1997, she was rushed to an emergency room on two consecutive nights with blood-alcohol levels of .30 and .45 percent.
Hanemann lives in New Jersey now. Her ex-husband said she's continued to have periodic drinking bouts.
Sennett said in recent years her agency has taken various steps to tighten enforcement and application procedures. A revised procedure on screening applicants who disclose criminal records emphasizes that staff should find out the details of what happened by checking records. A computerized system for enforcement records will help staff keep a closer watch on providers who are the subject of repeated complaints, she said.
In a letter to Newsday, Sennett said "the issues Newsday raises about how this case was handled … and the need to act more aggressively in cases such as this, are exactly the issues that have driven this office to develop more consistent and reliable systems for tracking such cases and helping to ensure that all staff have clear information about policies and procedures."
