The former Administration for Children's Services supervisor who was charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of 4-year-old Marchella Brett-Pierce is speaking out about the troubled agency. Chereece Bell claims that, before the child died from malnourishment, she told her supervisors to move social worker Damon Adams out of her unit, noting that he couldn't handle his caseload. The Wall Street Journal reports, "She said every time she spoke with Mr. Adams about the Brett-Pierce family, he told her, 'The children are fine.'"
Marchella's mother, Carlotta Brett-Pierce, had been under ACS monitoring since 2009 when she failed a drug test after having her son. When Marchella died last fall, she was just 18 pounds and severely bruised. ACS, which admitted that there were missteps, revealed that Brett-Piece would beat Marchella with a VHS tape and keep her tied to a bed.
Adams, who was also charged with criminally negligent homicide, is accused of failing to make nearly all of the mandated biweekly visits to the Brett-Pierce home in Brooklyn, and falsifying ACS records to show he did, while Bell is accused of failing to properly oversee and monitor Adams' work. Bell says she had weekly meetings with Adams, but requested that he be transferred because he couldn't keep up with the work. Bell's lawyer also told the WSJ, "Ms. Bell was only able to rely on the information about the family that she got from Mr. Adams. She never visited the family, nor was she supposed to."
As for problems at ACS, Bell said, "We're always understaffed. The amount of cases that we're getting with the amount of requirements needed on each case, it's impossible to get it done."
