Cylenthia Clark pleads guilty to child cruelty charge; job now in doubt

DFCS official Cylenthia Clark Tuesday pled guilty to child cruelty and received a 10-year probated sentence in Fayette Superior Court.

A condition of her plea also seems to mean her career in child welfare cases is over.

The trial in which Clark, the former Fulton County Department of Family and Children’s Services (DFCS) assistant director, had been indicted for first-degree cruelty to children was halted after only a few prosecution witnesses had been called.

Clark was arrested in March 2007 on a charge of one count of felony cruelty to children relating to a Feb. 7, 2007 incident involving marks and bruises found on her then-8-year-old daughter by Hood Avenue Elementary School personnel.

A subsequent investigation three weeks later by Fayetteville Police led to Clark’s March 10, 2007 arrest on cruelty charges.

A guilty plea was in the works and up for discussion at the proceedings prior to the jury being seated Monday afternoon. Intermittent talks continued until just before lunch Tuesday, with Clark agreeing to the terms and wording of the plea.

Clark was sentenced by Judge Chris Edwards to a full 10 years probation with the conditions that she not engage in corporal punishment and that she not work for an employer with supervisory authority of children or one responsible for the welfare of children. Clark was also granted first offender status.

It appeared at first that the trial would not take place, as Assistant District Attorney Warren Sellers and defense attorney Manny Arora both agreed to a negotiated guilty plea by Clark to first degree cruelty to children and that her actions had been cruel and excessive along with 10 years probation as a first offender.

Judge Edwards insisted on the verbiage “cruel and excessive” since those terms were listed on the indictment.

Arora and Sellers also agreed that she not engage in corporal punishment while on probation and that she would not be employed in a job in a supervisory capacity with children or with the welfare of children.

Arora said Clark would agree to the plea and the conditions.

Prior to the jury being seated, Judge Edwards then addressed Clark, beginning what was to be a review of the incident and the admissions contained in the guilty plea.

At one point early in his questioning Monday, Judge Edwards asked Clark if the way she engaged in spanking her daughter had been done maliciously. Clark answered, “No.” Arora immediately leaned over to say something to Clark and, seconds later, Judge Edwards told the bailiff to bring in the jury so the trial could begin.

In statements Tuesday morning, Judge Edwards noted that the indictment contained the phrase that Clark had “maliciously” caused cruel and excessive physical pain when striking her child with a belt, a stipulation that Clark would have been required to acknowledge for her guilty plea to be accepted. Without that acknowledgment the trial would have to proceed.

On Tuesday morning, Judge Edwards suggested, the defense and prosecution agreed and Clark admitted in her plea that malice could be expressed, not as ill-will or hatred, but with the awareness that the use of a belt to strike her child carried the likelihood that it would result in cruel and excessive physical pain. Clark was sentenced to probation minutes later.

Sellers in his opening statement Monday afternoon told jurors Clark’s daughter was crying at school and complaining that her back hurt. School personnel soon found a number of bruises and marks on the child.

The incident was referred to Fayette County DFCS and later to Fayetteville Police. Clark was arrested on March 10 on charges of cruelty to children.

Sellers said the Feb. 7 incident came after the girl had been in a physical altercation with a boy at her day care center and had hit one of the staff. He said later that day the girl was beaten with a large thick belt clad in her underwear and was struck on various areas of her body while standing, lying on the bed and floor and on her knees. Sellers said the girl later reported being hit by her mother more than 30 times.

Arora told jurors in his opening statements that the girl was on behavior-controlling medication and had, on occasion, been removed from school due to behavioral problems. He acknowledged that the 8-year-old had hit a boy at school and slugged a day care worker in the face earlier in the day.

Arora said that Clark had spanked her daughter with a belt on Feb. 7, striking her five to 10 times. Arora added that the child expressed issues of being without her father in Chicago since she and her three younger sisters had moved with their mother to Fayette County six months earlier.

Hood Avenue Elementary nurse Cindy Hill said she examined the young girl after she had been crying in class. Hill described several bruises or marks on the girl’s left arm, right thigh, lower back, upper right arm and below a shoulder blade. Hill said she did not see any marks or bruises on the girl’s face or neck.

A Hood Avenue teacher who had contact with Clark described her as a concerned mother, adding that the girl had good grades prior to and after the incident.

Clark said in a video-taped interview with Fayetteville Police Det. Debbie Chambers that her daughter suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), is strong-willed and can be manipulative and is difficult to re-direct when manifesting behavior episodes.

Clark told Chambers in the interview that she usually uses a belt for spankings, but on this occasion inadvertently picked up a different belt, one described by Sellers earlier as being thicker.

Clark said that while spanking the child, the girl began jumping around and scuffling with her, attempting to grab the belt. Chambers in the interview with Clark reminded her that when a child is squirming around in such a manner it is easy to hit another part of the body and that she should be wary of continuing the spanking.

Subsequent prosecution witnesses were from Children’s Health Care of Atlanta. Forensic interviewer Kelly Wood and Dr. Jordan Greenbaum described what they believed to be testimony and physical evidence of physical abuse.

Wood, in the interview with Clark’s daughter using an anatomical diagram of a girl, reported that she indicated a total of 34 marks or bruises inflicted on her. Arora called some of those marks and bruises into question, both with Wood and Greenbaum.

Also before the jury was seated, a facet of the proceedings that remained unexplained throughout the proceedings involved a question by Judge Edwards about the lapse in time between the school’s notification to Fayette County DFCS on Feb. 8, 2008 and the involvement of Fayetteville Police three weeks later on Feb. 27.

“What happened in three weeks to make it a crime?” Judge Edwards asked.

Responding to the question, Chambers said that police are usually contacted when marks are found on a child.

“For whatever reasons, we didn’t get the call for three weeks,” Chambers said.

Judge Edwards followed his question with another to Sellers, asking who makes the decision not to call, then three weeks later decides to contact police.

Sellers said that information might be included in a Georgia Bureau of Investigation report on DFCS that found no wrongdoing on the part of the agency. Arora made no comment.