How Could You? Hall of Shame-Daron Lamar Whitworth and Jacory C. & Charmaine Williams UPDATED

In August, Riverside County Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force Officers arrested a juvenile who reportedly had been prostituting in Hemet, officials said.

While investigating the case, members of RCAHT learned Whitworth was allegedly involved in human trafficking and child prostitution. He was also identified as a family specialist employed with EMQ FamiliesFirst where he was responsible for providing guidance, services and support to children and their families and caregivers.

Through Program Uplift San Bernardino, EMQ FamiliesFirst receives referrals from various agencies including the Department of Behavioral Health, Department of Children’s services, San Bernardino County Probation Department and the Inland Regional Center which services developmentally disabled teens and adults.

Investigators believe there may be more victims related to this case. Anyone with additional information or who believes they have been a victim to contact Sgt. John Sawyer at 951-544-7000.”

San Bernardino counselor charged with child prosititution, human trafficking

[San Bernardino Sun 11/15/12 by Beatriz E. Valenzuela]

REFORM Puzzle Pieces

 

Update:”The allegation that two teenage boys raped an 11-year-old girl who lives at a Davis group home with them is only the latest in a series of incidents that have been investigated by state inspectors..

KCRA 3 has learned that other branches of the same group home company, called EMQ Families First, are facing allegations that their own employees have molested residents, and in one case, pimped a 15-year-old girl.

In two counties — Santa Clara and San Bernardino — former employees of EMQ Families First are being prosecuted for sex crimes against minor girls.

The Davis facility has been investigated multiple times and state inspectors have determined the children there lack supervision, according to licensing records released by the Department of Social Services on Friday.

“Multiple clients are ‘AWOL’ing and physically acting out at a significant rate, causing concern for staff, other residents and the community at large,” an inspector wrote after a visit to the facility Thursday, following allegations of rape.

But the licensing records also detail manhandling of youngsters.

During a visit in January, an investigator found that in restraining a child, the facility’s staff broke the child’s arm in two places.

That investigator also found that the child’s behavior did not warrant the restraint.

In November in San Bernardino County, Daron Whitworth, who was a counselor at a Families First facility there, was charged with more than 40 counts of human trafficking, pimping and crimes related to coercing a 15-year-old girl into prostitution.

In Santa Clara County last year, prosecutors charged Waking Bailey, 33, with molesting minor girls at a Los Gatos facility called Eastfield Ming Quong, or EMQ.

(It was unclear Friday why some of the facilities connected to the EMQ group bear the name “Families First” and others don’t).

An attorney for the girls told KCRA 3 on Friday that one girl was molested in her room, at the facility. Another was taken off campus, he said.

“And one of them he molested quite frequently, over the course of a year,” said attorney Robert Allard. “[He’d] taken her off campus to places like drug stores and the mall and he would molest her during those trips.”

Allard said the Los Gatos facility did not appear to keep written records of the comings and goings of staff members and children.

“In our case, there was seemingly no regulation at all, no log-in, no log-out times,” Allard said. “No one monitoring where they’re going, for what purpose.”

A spokeswoman for EMQ Families First, which is based in Campbell, would not answer direct questions about either of the company’s facilities.

However, the company released a written statement saying it has increased staffing to address the issues being investigated in Davis.

“We’ve also revised our plan for responding to children who attempt to leave the facility without permission,” the statement read.

The company’s website says it provides psychological counseling to minors, as well as foster care and other social services.

In Davis, a police lieutenant said Friday that a total of four residents of Families First are under arrest.

Two others are under arrest as part of an investigation that police say has uncovered other illegal sexual activity, as well as shoplifting and theft.

“It appears as though the root cause of the issues that we’ve uncovered has to do with a lack of supervision,” said Lt. Glen Glasgow.

Officers are in the process of removing close to a dozen minors from the facility because they need extra supervision and investigators don’t believe they will receive it at the Davis facility, Glasgow said.

Davis police have logged 500 separate calls for service to that facility over a one-year period, he said, with 100 of them being reports of runaways.

“We’re hoping that this incident is going to spur change within the organization,” Glasgow said. “Not only to better the welfare of the children being housed over there, but also to minimize the impact on our resources.””

 

Davis youth group home subject of multiple investigations
[KCRA 6/8/13 by Sharokina Shams]

”

A Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that a San Bernardino man will be held to answer to 44 felony counts, including child prostitution and human trafficking.

Daron Lamar Whitworth, 43, was arrested and charged in November. He is accused of using websites to sell sexual services and coercing a 15-year-old girl into prostitution.

The charges against him include felony counts of human trafficking, pimping a minor, pandering by procuring a minor, child abuse, procuring a child to engage in a lewd act, contact and communicating with a minor for a sexual offense, unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, corporal injury to a cohabitant, false imprisonment by violence and sodomy of a person under 18.

 

 

Two other people have been charged in the same case: Charmaine Williams pleaded guilty to one count of paying for prostitution and Jacory Williams is still at-large.

Whitworth worked as a counselor for EMQ FamiliesFirst, a nonprofit agency that provides mental-health, foster care and social services to young children and families in San Bernardino County. He regularly dealt with at-risk youths, officials said.

The alleged victim in the case, referred to as Jane Doe, testified at Tuesday’s hearing. She is now 18 years old.

 

 

She started her testimony by saying she was arrested Sunday for prostitution and had been taken into custody more than 50 times for the crime.

Jane Doe said she met Whitworth in December 2010, when she was 15, at an EMQ Christmas party. She went there with her sister, who was in the counseling program.

The day after the Christmas party, she called Whitworth and he picked her up near her mom’s house in Colton. They watched movies at his home in San Bernardino, went to dinner, had sex and drank, Jane doe testified.

 

She said she knew the defendant was an older man and what while she originally told him she was 18 years old, he found out later that she a minor.

The next time she saw Whitworth, he took her to Los Angeles for the weekend. He got her a fake ID and they partied at clubs, Jane Doe said.

She then moved in with Whitworth.

About a month after they met, Whitworth took Jane Doe to a bachelor party in LA, she testified. That night, with encouragement from the defendant, she had sex with four or five men, who each paid her $200.

 

 

“Why did you do that – have sex with other men?” Deputy District Attorney Melissa Rodriguez asked Jane Doe.

“I didn’t want to disappoint him,” she testified. “Being young, I was in love. I felt like I had somebody there for me.”

Jane Doe said after that night, prostitution “kind of became what I did for him.”

She started posting sex advertisements on escort web sites and working on the street, Jane Doe testified. All the money earned was given to Whitworth.

Jane Doe said she worked for the defendant for about a year – from 15 to 16 years old.

During their relationship, the two would get into fights if she didn’t want to work, she testified. Whitworth hit her a few times and locked her in his garage, with no clothes on, while he was at work.

Jane Doe testified that she left Whitworth in February 2012. Six months later, she reported him, sparking an investigation that led to his arrest.

Rodriguez said her office plans to file more charges based on information from a second alleged victim that came forward after Whitworth was arrested. The woman said she had a three-month relationship with the defendant in 2001, when she was 15 years old, which resulted in her getting pregnant.

Whitworth has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Defense attorney Bill Behrndt said his client has been wrongfully charged.

“We believe that when we get to trial we are going to be able to show that other people are actually the probable cause of these alleged crimes,” he said.

Whitworth is due back in court Aug. 27.”

San Bernardino man will stand trial in child prostitution case[San Bernadino Sun 8/20/13 by Lori Fowler]