Deliberations to start in trial of Kelly caseworkers

The alleged crimes at the root of the health care fraud trial sparked by the 2006 death of Danieal Kelly were caused by rogue employees, a conspiracy by top managers, or maybe just sloppiness, jurors at the federal trial were told today.

Deliberations to decide which of those competing arguments is true will start tomorrow after nearly a month of testimony into fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges stemming from the federal investigation launched by the 14-year-old West Philadelphia girl's death.

Two managers and two caseworkers from the now-defunct MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc. are accused of failing to provide services paid for with federal funds, fabricating reports to falsely claim caseworkers provided in-home visits to at-risk children, and with conspiring to obstruct the FBI investigation.

The competing narratives in U.S. District Court were offered in closing arguments by the lead federal prosecutor and the four defense attorneys, each of whom represent a different client charged with a different variety of criminal acts.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea Witzleben said defendants Mickal Kamuvaka and Solomon Manamela, both MultiEthnic co-founders, promised Philadelphia their agency would "be the safety net . . . protecting children at-risk."

"Instead, they pocketed the money" and knowingly ran an agency where dozens of employees habitually failed to make required visits to troubled homes, Witzleben said. Then, he added, the workers fabricated reports to hide that fact, all with the knowledge and support of Kamuvaka and Manamela.

"If you don't do the job, children can die in terrible ways," she said in a reference to Danieal, who suffered from cerebral palsy. Danieal's death from malnutrition and bedsores sparked local and federal investigations into the agency, the girl's mother, who is now in state prison, and the city's Department of Human Services.

The city had retained MultiEthnic from 2000 through 2006 to serve some 500 families for $3.7 million.

Kamuvaka, who effectively ran the agency on a day-to-day basis, "was in it from the ground floor," the prosecutor said.

Witzleben and Assistant U.S. Attorney Vineet Gauri put a dozen former MultiEthnic employees on the stand to testify that faking reports and skipping home visits was widely known, tolerated and abetted by the managers.

But defense attorneys for Kamuvaka and Manamela argued that they were victims of "renegade" employees, and that Kamuvaka and Manamela actually tried to stop rampant fraud.

Key prosecution witnesses committed those crimes. In order to obtain lenient sentences, they pleaded guilty and "now want to shift the responsibility to management," said Kamuvaka's attorney, William Cannon.

"Management was doing its best to keep its head above water, while they were trying push it down," said Cannon.

Kamuvaka was charged with obstruction after agents found telephone logs from the day of Danieal's death shredded in the trash, but Cannon said it was an example of prosecutors turning an innocent act into a crime.

Staffers were "throwing out the trash because we're getting thrown out of the building," said Cannon, who noted the logs and other documents were found months after Kelly's death and long after the agency's contact was pulled by the city. "That wasn't some secret document."

Manamela's attorney, Paul J. Hetznecker, cited memos his client wrote warning MultiEthnic employees to "not fabricate" required reports. Hetznecker hammered at witness claims that Manamela knowingly allowed, or encouraged, such fabrications.

Caseworkers were supposed to visit families up to twice a week to ensure they had medical care, food, were attending school, and not being abused.

"Its a group of employees who went out of cheat their own company," he said.

Defendant Julius Juma Murray was the caseworker assigned the Kelly family, and prosecutors argued that if Murray was visiting the family twice a week, as his reports claimed, he could not have missed evidence that the teen was not being fed and was dying from giant bedsores.

Not necessarily, said his attorney, William R. Spade Jr. "Did Danieal Kelly die because Julius Murray did not make the visits," Spade asked, "or because Mr. Murray missed things?"

He cited testimony that the girl's mother, Andrea Kelly, kept her daughter covered with bedclothes, and that as late as six weeks before her death other visitors to the West Philadelphia home did not raise any alarms.

Murray's MultiEthnic records claim he was at the home less than a week before Kelly died, when Witzleben said he could not have failed to notice the smell of "rotting flesh" from the bedsores covering her back and on her collar bone. At least one penetrated to the bone.

Mariam Coulibaly, who had no role in the Kelly case, is charged with fabricating reports and lying to a federal agent. Defense attorney William Brennan said that at worst, she was guilty of confusing dates while working two jobs.

As for the charge of lying, he said the alleged statement was made when agents arrived unannounced as she was ill, pregnant, and making supper for her children.

"When the sick, pregnant lady starts crying, that's when the interview ends. He carried on," Brennan said of a federal agent.