WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — The former director of Luzerne County Children and Youth Services is facing criminal charges.
The Pennsylvania attorney general's office says the former director told employees to delete hundreds of reports of child abuse.
Joanne Van Saun, 58, resigned from her position with Luzerne County amid the attorney general's investigation.
Investigators claim that in May 2017, Van Saun directed employees to terminate at least 217 reports of child abuse and neglect received from the state ChildLine system. These cases were part of a backlog that was initially reported by the press in May 2017. Luzerne County had 1,388 outstanding referrals, which accounted for 75 percent of the Commonwealth's outstanding ChildLine referrals.
The attorney general states that instead of taking the proper time to evaluate or investigate each Childline referral, she directed her employees to eradicate the backlog.
ChildLine is part of a mandated statewide child protective services program. It is designed to receive reports of child abuse and well-being concerns, which are then transmitted to an appropriate agency for investigation, typically county-level Children and Youth Services agencies.
She faces misdemeanor charges of endangering the welfare of children and obstruction in child abuse cases.
"We don't know where they are. We don't know what's happened to them because there's nothing documented. There's nothing that we can see that they've done in an investigation to show us that these kids are OK," said Wilkes-Barre resident Sabrina Smith.
"Children that reported serious abuse and neglect were let down by Luzerne county because of Ms. Van Saun's intentional and reckless disregard," said Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
According to court papers, some of the unchecked reports involved children who went to school unfed, dirty, and covered in lice, children observed living in filthy conditions, children describing unwanted sexual contact from family members, and children who were pleading with strangers in public to kidnap them because they didn't want to return home,
Newswatch 16 went to the Luzerne County manager's office for comment, and we were given this statement from Romilda Crocamo, Luzerne County chief county solicitor.
"Nothing is more important than the health and safety of the children entrusted in our county Children & Youth Services department's care. Today's news is shocking. We pledge to continue cooperating fully with the Pennsylvania attorney general and any additional law enforcement authorities investigating this heartbreaking matter."
Sabrina Smith of Wilkes-Barre has her own concerns about CYS. We found her protesting outside the Luzerne County Courthouse. She says she's grateful someone is finally looking into this agency.
"The attorney general needs to make sure that he digs in and gets all the facts because there's a lot of us out here that have information, and we would be very willing to present it."