Rilya Wilson caseworker gets 5 years' probation in new case

Rilya Wilson caseworker gets 5 years' probation in new case

The caseworker once assigned to missing girl Rilya Wilson pleads
guilty to unrelated official misconduct and theft charges and receives
five years' probation.

BY LISA ARTHUR


The caseworker assigned to monitor Rilya Wilson -- the foster child
who vanished while in the custody of the state Department of Children
& Families -- will serve five years' probation after pleading guilty
to two felonies unrelated to the girl's disappearance.

Prosecutors charged Deborah Muskelly with official misconduct and
grand theft for falsifying her time sheets while working for the DCF.
Muskelly taught as a substitute in Miami-Dade schools during some of
the hours she claimed to have been working for the DCF.

In addition to the probation, Muskelly must serve 125 hours of
community service and complete a values education course. She is also
banned from working for any government agency and from working with
children while she is on probation. The state could also seek
restitution of up to $5,000 from Muskelly.

Rilya, 5 when she vanished, was last seen in January 2001. DCF workers
didn't realize she was gone for more than a year. Muskelly and other
DCF workers were not making required visits to the home of Geralyn and
Pamela Graham, the two women who served as Rilya's foster family.

Geralyn Graham says she is Rilya's grandmother, but that has been
disputed by the child's biological mother.

Geralyn Graham has said state workers picked Rilya up for testing
around January 2001 and never returned her. The state realized she was
gone in April 2002 when a judge demanded to see the child in court.

No one has been charged in the child's disappearance.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Kevin Emas approved the Muskelly plea deal on
Tuesday. Muskelly will have a felony conviction on her record for the
official misconduct charge. The grand theft conviction will not appear
-- a practice known as withholding adjudication.

Muskelly's attorney, George T. Pallas, said the former caseworker is
glad to put the case behind her.

''This is a concession on the part of the state of Florida that
Deborah Muskelly had nothing to do with the disappearance of Rilya
Wilson,'' Pallas said. ``The prosecution was a diversionary tactic.
The real tragedy is that after a year and a half of wasting resources
prosecuting my client, they are still apparently no closer to finding
Rilya.''

The state had initially believed that Muskelly had falsified logs
showing she had made visits to check on Rilya during the time the girl
was missing. But prosecutor Sandra Miller Batiste said Friday that the
state could find no documentation of falsified logs of visits to
Rilya.

Muskelly was first charged with 40 counts of official misconduct and
theft, but the separate counts were rolled into one count for each
charge, said Miller Batiste.

Muskelly's plea deal brings closure to the last outstanding tangential
case that grew out of the investigation into Rilya's disappearance,
said Miller Batiste.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...al/8343822.htm

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