Worker at juvenile facility charged with sexual assault
By Eva Ruth Moravec - Express-News Posted: 11/04/2009 8:01 CST[/size]
San Antonio police Tuesday night arrested a 29-year-old juvenile treatment center employee suspected of having sex with a 14-year-old boy who had escaped from the facility last week.
Thelma Nicole Miles was being held in Bexar County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bail. She is charged with sexual assault.
Miles was a medical technician at the Hector Garza Treatment Center, a medium-level security facility operated by Abraxas, a Texas Youth Commission contractor, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
She reportedly told officials she picked up the teen at a cell phone store Oct. 28 after he escaped from the Abraxas facility in the 600 block of East Afton Oaks, then was sexually intimate with him at two different hotels and her own apartment.
On Monday, she took the teen to a Bell County home, and the teen's father told Abraxas staff about the allegations.
“This isn't something that we tolerate,
and they're trained not to do that (have relationships with teens),” Abraxas spokesman Charles Seigel said. “Employees are clearly informed as to what is inappropriate conduct. Absolutely, this is something that concerns us.”
Staff reported the incidents to TYC investigators, who interviewed both the teen and Miles. She was terminated Tuesday and arrested around 8 p.m., officials said.
Miles, like all employees at the facility, went through an extensive background check when she was hired in May, Seigel said. She also spent two weeks in training, which included ethics and boundaries training, he said.
Although Miles was a contract employee, TYC standards still apply, agency spokesman Jim Hurley said.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy for this kind of thing,” Hurley said. “We would prosecute something like this to the very fullest extent of the law.”
