A former psychiatric care technician at the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents in Staunton pleaded guilty in Staunton Circuit Court on Tuesday to a charge of taking indecent liberties with a child by a custodian.
Faniel Gerensea, 21, of Harrisonburg, was sentenced to five years in prison, with three years and eight months suspended, meaning, he will serve a year and four months, with five years of supervised probation.
We were the first to report on the case, which dates to this past December with the news of Gerensea’s arrest.
ICYMI
The reason we had the news is, we were tipped off by employees at CCCA, a 48-bed state-operated acute psychiatric care facility that is in place to provide short-term crisis stabilization, psychiatric evaluation, and intensive treatment for children and adolescents experiencing acute mental health crises.
The tips from the inside included details requesting that I look more in-depth into what the was alleged to be more widespread malfeasance in the day-to-day operations at the Commonwealth Center.
The timing of our initial inquiry – December was the final full month of the term of Glenn Youngkin as governor – seemed to factor into me not getting any response from CCCA or the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, which oversees the center’s operations.
After the gubernatorial transition, a Commonwealth Center employee forwarded me an email that had gone out four hours after our initial report on the Gerensea arrest from a Jennifer Maddox, whose email signature identified her as the “chief quality officer” at CCCA.
ICYMI
“This is a reminder that staff members are not permitted to speak with media reporters or the press concerning CCCA or DBHDS,” Maddox wrote in the Dec. 22 email. “This includes interviews, informal conversations, social media messages, or any requests for comment, whether in person, by phone, or online.”
The email was forwarded to me on Jan. 27; I saw this as an opening to try to get insight into the matter from the new administration.
I emailed the office of Gov. Abigail Spanberger that day to begin an inquiry into the policy of the administration vis-à-vis this kind of whistleblower situation, and to try to revisit my original queries into what was going on at the Commonwealth Center.
I got somebody in the governor’s office on the phone on Feb. 4 and formally made that verbal ask.
Never heard back.
The governor’s office has a lot going on – so many vetoes, so little time.
Per reporting from Brad Zinn at the News Leader, the teenage victim in the Gerensea case told authorities that the perp fondled her on top and underneath her clothing and kissed her, and grabbed the girl’s hand and placed it inside his pants before exposing himself.
The victim “kept telling him to stop,” Zinn quoted John Baber, the Staunton Commonwealth’s Attorney.
From what I was told, we can’t just dismiss this as one rogue employee.
The operations at the Commonwealth Center deserve a deeper inquiry.
If only we can get the people in charge – ultimately, that would be the governor’s office – to put some attention to it.
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Chris Graham
