Altered Protection

February 8, 2012 permalink

Candice Lassiter
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What do social workers do when a child on their watch dies? They falsify records. Here's a case in which they did not get away with it. Aubrey Littlejohn was in the care of her great-aunt while her mother was in jail. Craig Smith was watching the family and made at least one home visit. After the girl died, Smith and his supervisor Candice Lassiter altered their records.

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Swain DSS officials arrested

Charges result from toddler's death

9:50 PM, Feb. 7, 2012 | Written by Jon Ostendorff

BRYSON CITY — A supervisor and social worker at the Swain County Department of Social Services were charged with felonies Tuesday in connection with the agency’s oversight of a 15-month-old girl whose death came amid evidence of abuse.

A grand jury indicted supervisor Candice Lassiter on three felony counts of forgery and three felony counts of obstruction of justice after a State Bureau of Investigation inquiry.

She is on administrative leave, said agency attorney Justin Greene, and could not immediately be reached for comment.

The same grand jury indicted social worker Craig Smith on three counts of obstruction of justice, according to court records.

Smith no longer works for the agency. He also could not immediately be reached.

SBI agents a year ago searched the county’s DSS office as part of an investigation into the events surrounding the death of Aubrey Littlejohn.

The toddler died Jan. 10, 2011, at the Cherokee Indian Hospital about 15 minutes after being brought in by her great-aunt, Lady Bird Powell.

Powell was charged last week with the child’s second-degree murder, felony child abuse, first-degree kidnapping, extortion and possession of methamphetamine.

The child was left in a car seat for 12 hours the day before and given only few bites of a hot dog and sips of soda, according to court papers.

She was wrapped in a blanket and wearing only a diaper soaked in urine and feces and a T-shirt when she arrived at the hospital, according to an investigator’s statement in a search warrant.

Officials said the child’s body temperature was 84 degrees when she was brought in.

Powell had been caring for the child while the girl’s mother was in jail. An autopsy report said the cause of death was undetermined.

Smith visited her home five months before she died but found no evidence of abuse despite a complaint the girl had fallen from an unbuckled car seat down a set of stairs, according to an SBI search warrant.

Smith later falsified his records after Aubrey Littlejohn died to show he had called the hospital to make sure she was examined for injuries from the fall, investigators said in the search warrant.

Lassiter was his supervisor.

Source: Ashville Citizen-Times

The offending supervisor Candice Lassiter is back on the job. This continues the pattern that social workers who fail to remove a child from parents are punished after the parents harm the child. Those who place children in fatal foster homes are protected.

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Dead Swain child's DSS worker back on the job

9:01 PM, Jun. 14, 2012, Written by, Mitch Weiss, The Associated Press

Aubrey Littlejohn

CHARLOTTE — A Swain County social worker accused of failing to take action on complaints that could have saved a 15-month-old girl’s life has returned to her job even though she’s still facing criminal charges in the case.

Candice Lassiter, 28, returned to her job Monday. She was charged in February with three counts each of obstruction of justice and forgery related to the investigation of Aubrey Kina-Marie Littlejohn’s death.

Lassiter answered a call at the Swain County Department of Social Services office in Bryson City on Thursday but declined to discuss the circumstances surrounding her return.

“I just can’t talk about it,” she said.

Repeated telephone messages left for the agency’s interim director, Jerry Smith, were not immediately returned Thursday. DSS board members refused to comment, referring all calls to DSS attorney Justin Green.

Green confirmed that Lassiter returned after an agency investigation. But he said by law he couldn’t disclose details about the investigation or why officials allowed her to return while her case is pending.

Littlejohn’s great-aunt, Ruth McCoy, has repeatedly pushed for justice in the case along with the little girl’s mother, Jasmine Littlejohn.

McCoy, a realty officer for the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs who works in a building that also houses several DSS officials, said she discovered this week that Lassiter had returned to work when she picked up a copy of a DSS newsletter from a table in the hallway.

“Social Worker Candice Lassiter will return to work today in the Adult and Children Services Unit,” the newsletter announcement says. “We all welcome her back to the Agency.”

McCoy said Aubrey’s family is outraged.

“That was like a slap in the face to the family,” she said. “Aubrey is already gone. She will never return, and then they bring this woman who was involved in her death back to work in front of us? It’s wrong.”

This is the latest development in a case that has stunned and polarized Western North Carolina, and sparked anger in the Native American community. Aubrey was a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, some of whom claim that the Swain County DSS did not do enough to protect Aubrey and other Native American children. Part of the Cherokees’ sprawling reservation lies in Swain County.

Another great-aunt of Aubrey, Ladybird Powell, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in January — a year after the toddler’s death. Powell had begun taking care of Aubrey shortly before Jasmine Littlejohn reported to jail in April 2010 to await trial in a marijuana trafficking case. Littlejohn was in jail when her daughter died.

An Associated Press investigation found that police and social workers had been aware of reports Aubrey was being mistreated while she was staying with Powell.

McCoy alleges Lassiter was one of the social workers whom police escorted to Powell’s home on the night of Nov. 9, 2010, to investigate a complaint that an 11-year-old boy was living in a trailer with drugs and no heat.

They removed the boy, placing him in McCoy’s custody, but let Aubrey stay. The heat was off because the power bill wasn’t paid.

“I begged her (Lassiter) to take Aubrey, but she wouldn’t listen,” McCoy said.

The girl died Jan. 10, 2011, after Powell rushed her to the emergency room. When Swain County investigators looked into the case, they discovered the agency had at least three reports of neglect or abuse regarding Aubrey.

Investigators later found pages missing from written reports on the case.

Prosecutors say that after Aubrey’s death, Lassiter ordered a subordinate, Craig Smith, to falsify records to make it appear that the department had done a thorough job investigating allegations that Aubrey was being abused.

Smith, also charged with obstruction of justice, resigned from the agency last year. Lassiter and three other DSS workers were suspended with pay. Tammy Cagle, the agency’s director at the time, was fired for what county officials said were unrelated reasons.

David Wijewickrama, a lawyer representing Aubrey’s estate, has filed two lawsuits in connection with her death, at least one of which names the county DSS as a defendant along with Lassiter and six other current and former social workers.

The lawsuit asks for more than $10,000 in damages, and accuses Swain County of not doing enough to protect Native American children.

That has resonated with the Cherokees. McCoy said they have formed a committee, of which she is a member, to create a Cherokee-run DSS system for the reservation.

“We need to make a change for our children’s safety,” she said.

Source: Ashville Citizen-Times

Social Services uses an internal investigation to clear its employee Candice Lassiter. She has not lost a day's pay, even while suspended for four months.

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Swain DSS: No evidence employee is guilty

Lassiter faces several charges related to Littlejohn death

10:11 PM, Jul 1, 2012 | Written by Jon Ostendorff

BRYSON CITY — The leader of the Swain County Department of Social Services board says an internal review found no evidence that a social worker falsified reports or misled police in an investigation related to a child’s death.

The agency had to put Candice Lassiter, 28, back to work, DSS board chairman Robert White said in a statement last week.

She is charged with three counts each of obstruction of justice and forgery related to the investigation of 15-month-old Aubrey Kina-Marie Littlejohn’s death.

Lassiter had been suspended with pay for four months while the agency investigated her actions, White said.

“We have determined that there is no credible evidence available to us at this time which indicates Ms. Lassiter falsified or directed the falsification of any reports, or that she attempted to mislead the Swain County Sheriff’s Department or State Bureau of Investigation in any way,” he said.

“We have made repeated attempts to receive information these officials have in their possession but have not been able to secure either.”

Littlejohn died Jan. 10, 2011, at the Cherokee Indian Hospital about 15 minutes after being brought in by her great-aunt, Lady Bird Powell.

She was left in a car seat for 12 hours the day before and given only a few bites of a hot dog and sips of soda, according to court papers.

She was wrapped in a blanket and wearing only a diaper soaked in urine and feces and a T-shirt when she arrived at the hospital, according to an investigator’s statement in a search warrant.

Officials said the child’s body temperature was 84 degrees when she was brought in.

Powell faces second-degree murder charges.

Attorneys David Wijewickrama and Frederick Barbour said in the legal complaint that DSS officials knew the child was being abused but failed to take action to protect her.

A grand jury indicted Lassiter and social worker Craig Smith. He faces three counts of obstruction of justice, according to court records.

Smith visited Littlejohn’s home five months before she died but found no evidence of abuse despite a complaint the girl had fallen from an unbuckled car seat down a set of stairs, according to an SBI search warrant.

Smith later falsified his records after Littlejohn died to show he had called the hospital to make sure she was examined for injuries from the fall, investigators said in the search warrant.

Lassiter was his supervisor.

White said state law prohibits using a criminal or civil charge to delay an administrative ruling on whether to put an employee back to work.

Source: Ashville Citizen-Times