He was wanted for nearly a year in an incident involving a 16-year-old girl at the Florida Youth Academy in Largo, where he had been fired.
By CHRIS TISCH
Published April 28, 2004
LARGO - A former youth counselor who has been wanted for almost a year in connection with a child abuse case was arrested this week.
DequicertisCollins, 31, was taken into custody by Treasure Island police on Sunday after they discovered he had an active warrant for his arrest.
The warrant was issued last summer based on suspicions that Collins, then a staffer at Florida Youth Academy in Largo, helped beat a 16-year-old girl staying there. Two other academy employees also have been arrested in connection with that incident.
Collins, who now lists his employer as a tiling company, was released from the Pinellas County Jail on Sunday after he posted $5,000 bail.
Largo police began investigating the incident at the academy, 12895 Seminole Blvd., last year after the 16-year-old girl's grandmother complained that the teen was bruised and beaten there.
The Florida Youth Academy is a residential treatment program for juvenile delinquents. The facility can house up to 132 youths at a time. The youngsters, ages 10 to 18, are referred there by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
Police found that the child had been the subject of a take-down on March 6, 2003, because she would not stop talking after lights-out. Collins and another staffer, Betherea Stokes, then took the girl to a timeout room, which was out of range of the facility's 72 surveillance cameras.
Collins and Stokes then began a "beat out" in which they punched the girl in the arms, legs and torso, arrest reports state. The girl told police that a "beat out" was a rite of passage for those who are about to be released from the facility.
A doctor's report later showed the girl suffered deep tissue bruising.
Stokes, 37, was arrested in March 2003 on a child abuse charge. He pleaded guilty to the charge in August and was sentenced to three years of probation.
Another staffer, Andy M. Lewis, 27, was charged with child neglect because, authorities say, he saw the abuse and did nothing to stop it. Lewis has pleaded not guilty to the charge and is still awaiting trial.
Police sought to interview Collins, but could not find him in the weeks after the incident. A warrant for his arrest was issued on Aug. 14.
All three men were fired from the academy.
Both Collins and Stokes have arrest histories, though their criminal records at the time they were hired did not automatically disqualify them from employment at the academy.
The alleged beating wasn't the first troubling activity at the academy, however.
In December 2000, Largo police arrested a program technician, Freddie Crayton, on charges he had sex with two teens at the facility.
A jury later convicted Crayton of two felony charges: sexual activity and sexual misconduct with teens in his custodial care. He was sentenced to five years in prison to be followed by 10 years of probation.
One of the abused teens has since sued the facility. Another teen sued last fall, claiming a staffer broke her arm while trying to discipline her.
Nainan Desai, the academy's chief financial officer, said the facility has taken steps recently to ensure children staying there are safe. The cameras were put in after the Crayton incident. He said hiring standards also have become stricter recently.
"More and more things are unacceptable," he said.
Desai said there was never a rite of passage for children leaving the facility to be beaten.
"There is no such thing," he said. "Isolated incidents can happen everywhere."
