After sexual-assault reports, state transfers girls out of group home

All four residents at a Leesburg group home where reports of sexual battery emerged last week have been moved, according to state Department of Children and Families spokeswoman Kristin Gray.

After reports that three underage girls living in the for-profit group home may have been sexually assaulted by neighborhood boys, DCF began investigating “allegations of inadequate supervision” in the home.

“When we were in the home conducting the assessment … and gathering information, concerns regarding the level of supervision came up,” Gray wrote in an email. “The details about what information led us to those concerns aren’t releasable.”

The group home, W.I.N. for Kids, is licensed by DCF and has served girls between ages 6 and 17 since 2007, according to its website. It receives between $92 and $184 for each bed it occupies with a child in state care. Children in state custody have been abused, neglected or abandoned.

On Jan. 20, a 17-year-old resident at W.I.N. for Kids told police she was gangraped by a group of three to seven men. Two other residents at W.I.N. for Kids home, ages 12 and 15, told police that same week that they had participated in sex acts with boys in vacant houses.

Gray said that children are relocated from their current living situation during an active investigation when a request is made by an involved party.

The request can come from the group home provider, DCF or a case manager, but she said she cannot disclose who asked for the change.

“If its kids are unsafe then we would move them, but in this particular situation that wasn’t necessarily the case,” Gray said.

Kids Central, which arranges placements for children in state custody, reported that the group home was in good standing and did not have a history of founded abuse or neglect.

Police have not made any arrests but have identified a person of interest in the gang rape, said Lt. Joe Iozzi.