Two field workers, Mariam Coulibaly and Julius Murray, their supervisor Solomon Manamela and the founder of Multi-Ethnic Behavioral Health, Mickal Kamuvaka, have been charged with defrauding a government health agency and obstruction conspiracy. They face between 37 and 97 months if convicted. Five others already pleaded guilty.
When a child dies as sadly as did Danieal Kelly, a 14-year-old found in 2006 in her bed weighing 42 pounds, her ghost haunts everyone involved — for years to come.
Lawyers of four social workers who were in charge of Kelly’s safety but allegedly lied about their involvement with the family and then tried covering up their fraudulent use of a city contract spent much of the first day of their trial scrambling to take the emphasis off the girl’s death.
Attorney William Brennan, representing social worker Mariam Coulibaly, even described Danieal as “the elephant in the room.”
But the attorney for Mickal Kamuvaka, who founded Multi-Ethnic Behavioral Health in 2000, argued the defendants are not responsible for Danieal’s painful death in August 2006, when an autopsy found she died from heat stress, bed sores and malnutrition.
“This is not a murder case,” said William Cannon, noting that the girl’s mother pleaded guilty last year to murder. “No one ever saw this child beyond her head or shoulders. No one ever saw this child’s body or how she was deteriorating.”
Prosecutors, however, contend Danieal’s death was a consequence of an agency not living up to the $3 million contract it had with the city Department of Human Services between 2000 and 2006.
bmccrone@metro.us |