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Defense: Horror of death swayed jury; 4 social workers guilty

After deliberating for a day, a jury yesterday convicted four employees of an agency implicated in the 2006 death of Danieal Kelly - a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy - of wire fraud, health-care fraud, obstructing a federal investigation and related offenses.

After deliberating for a day, a jury yesterday convicted four employees of an agency implicated in the 2006 death of Danieal Kelly - a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy - of wire fraud, health-care fraud, obstructing a federal investigation and related offenses.

The defendants worked for MultiEthnic Behavioral Health, which was paid $3.7 million by the city's Department of Human Services to provide in-home social services for at-risk children.

Those convicted included two managers, Mickal Kamuvaka, 60, and Solomon Manamela, 52, and two caseworkers, Julius Murray, 52, and Mariam Coulibaly, 42. Coulibaly, who was the only defendant to testify in her own defense, was also convicted of lying to federal agents. (Five others charged in the case pleaded guilty last year.)

The defendants stood stoically as the verdicts were read and showed no emotion. Murray and Coulibaly were each acquitted of three counts of health-care fraud.

U.S. District Judge Stewart M. Dalzell set sentencing for June.

Kamuvaka and Manamela could face more than nine and eight years behind bars, respectively, under preliminary advisory guidelines, prosecutors said, while Murray and Coulibaly could face more than four and six years, respectively.

Kamuvaka, Manamela and Coulibaly were permitted to remain free on bail with electronic monitoring pending sentencing. Murray has been in federal custody since last year.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea Witzleben said jurors found that MultiEthnic had engaged in "systemic fraud" and had "conspired to fool" auditors from DHS and federal authorities by fabricating and destroying records .

Prosecutors alleged that MultiEthnic had billed the city for some visits that never took place and falsified reports to indicate that visits had taken place.

Witzleben said the fraud had a more profound effect by "putting at risk hundreds of children" and contributed to Danieal Kelly's death.

"Danieal Kelly paid the ultimate price for these defendants' fraud, and we hope that this is some measure of justice for her and the other children who were the victims," the prosecutor said.

Defense attorneys said her death weighed heavily on the jury.

Kamuvaka's attorney, William T. Cannon, said "renegade workers" had undermined Kamuvaka, but the jury concluded that she had been the "captain of the ship" and therefore was accountable.

Coulibaly's attorney, William J. Brennan, maintained that Danieal's death "hung over the trial like a black cloud," an opinion shared by Manamela's attorney, Paul J. Hetznecker.

"[Manamela] had nothing to do with [Danieal's death], he wasn't supervising the social worker" monitoring the child, Hetznecker said, adding that he thought Manamela was "held responsible" by the jury because he was a manager.

After Danieal was found dead in her home on Aug. 4, 2006, authorities alleged that Kamuvaka, Murray and others falsified records to place in her file. (Murray was supposed to make twice-weekly visits to the home, but the feds said fewer visits were actually made.)

During the trial, jurors heard from two pediatricians and the city's assistant medical examiner that Danieal's bed sores were among the worst they had ever seen, and that she weighed only 42 pounds when she died.

Murray told police on Aug. 18, 2006, that he had last visited the Kelly home on July 24 and didn't notice any unusual smells. But doctors who reviewed Danieal's medical records testified that the smell from her rotting flesh would have been overpowering by then.

Authorities said Danieal died from neglect, bed sores and heat stress. (Danieal's mother, Andrea, pleaded guilty last year in Common Pleas Court to third-degree murder and child endangerment, and is serving 20 to 40 years in state prison.)

Jurors were shown three autopsy photos of Danieal. Some of the images, displayed briefly on computer screens for jurors, were so heartbreaking that some jurors were moved to tears.

Referring to the girl's death, Murray's attorney, William Spade, said: "I think it was very, very difficult once the jury saw the [autopsy photos] of Danieal . . . to take your mind away from that."

The defense argued unsuccessfully before trial to prevent the images from being seen by jurors.