2 migrant-shelter staffers accused in child sex cases
Federal authorities allege that a former youth care worker at a Phoenix-area facility for migrant youths sexually abused eight teenage boys, one of several cases brought to light in recent weeks as thousands of migrant children have been detained around the country.
Court documents show that Levian Pacheco faces several charges stemming from incidents that allegedly took place between August 2016 and July 2017 at a Southwest Key facility in Mesa, Ariz. The case was first reported by ProPublica.
Authorities say Pacheco performed sex acts on two boys and touched six others, all between ages 15 to 17 at the time. Court documents also state that Pacheco is HIV-positive and that some of the teens opted to be tested for the virus.
Pacheco has pleaded innocent and denied the allegations. His federal public defender has said in court documents that the government’s allegations of the crimes committed by Pacheco include an “extraordinarily broad range of dates and lack of specificity.”
“We are looking forward to defending Mr. Pacheco in court,” attorney Benjamin Good said in an email.
The victims in the case against Pacheco were all unaccompanied minors, and it’s not clear if they had been separated from their parents or traveled to the U.S. alone, although the government was not widely separating families at the time of the incidents.
Southwest Key spokesman Jeff Eller said in an email that Pacheco was immediately suspended and police were called when allegations surfaced.
He said Southwest Key and the Health and Human Services Department, which is in charge of caring for migrant youths, take every incident seriously “and there is a never-ending process to improve care and standards.”
The revelations Thursday came one day after police said another worker at a different Southwest Key facility, Fernando Magaz Negrete, is suspected of molesting a 14-yearold migrant girl.
Magaz Negrete is accused of slipping into the girl’s room late at night and forcibly kissing and inappropriately touching her, according to court documents. He was arrested and charged Tuesday with molestation of a child, sexual abuse and aggravated assault.
Eller said the employee has been fired.
It was not clear whether the girl was previously separated from her parents at the border. The Arizona Republic reported that the specific facility where she was held — which is not specified in court documents — is intended to house children separated from their parents. Police documents in Magaz Negrete’s case describe it as a “juvenile facility for refugee children.”
According to a probable cause statement, a teenage girl sharing the room with the
14-year-old victim witnessed the alleged June 27 incident and sparked the investigation when she reported it to authorities July 25. In interviews with investigators, the 14-year-old girl said Magaz Negrete entered her room and began kissing her on the lips. She then “pushed him away,” got away from him and “went to her bed angry,” police said in the probable cause statement.
The two teenage witnesses sharing the bedroom with her told authorities they observed Magaz Negrete touching the 14-year-old’s breasts and crotch over her clothes.
Surveillance footage captured Magaz Negrete approaching the girls’ bedroom several times between 9 and 10:30 on the night of June 27, according to the probable cause statement. The girls’ doorway and bedroom, however, were out of the camera’s view.
Police said Magaz Negrete admitted to kissing the girl and touching her vagina over her clothing when police questioned him at his residence.
Since President Donald Trump’s administration ended its policy of family separations at the border in response to a bipartisan outcry, the government has scrambled to reunite the families, including more than 2,500 children, under court-ordered deadlines.
While the federal government said last week that it had reunited most of the families, more than 700 children remained in shelters for various reasons, including because their parents have criminal records or are no longer in the United States, as The Washington Post reported then. Thousands of other children are in shelters after arriving as unaccompanied minors.
Complaints of sexual abuse at shelters for children, which are overseen by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement and operated by contractors, are not uncommon. A recent ProPublica investigation found that police responded to at least 125 calls reporting sex offenses in the past five years at shelters primarily housing migrant children. The investigation had analyzed incidents at more than 70 out of approximately 100 such shelters nationwide.