A former child-welfare worker was arrested yesterday for playing hooky when she was supposed to be checking on truant schoolchildren.
Former ACS employee Stephanie Sabouni, 27, never even once visited several of the households assigned to her to investigate why children were skipping school, a criminal complaint charges. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” an upset Sabouni said at her Flatlands, Brooklyn, home after being released on $1,500 bail following arraignment on 14 felony charges.
“If I were to go on national TV, I wouldn’t answer every question, but I’d talk about the corruption of the agency,” said the brunette, who in February was fired from her public-school teaching job after the Department of Education learned of the allegations.
The John Jay College grad, who holds a master’s degree from Touro College, was hired by the city Administration for Children’s Services in October 2005.
Between April and June 2007, after Sabouni was assigned to visit three families whose children were missing school, she made several entries on ACS computers indicating she had seen each family, a criminal complaint said.
After Sabouni resigned in late June 2007 amid claims that she was not doing her job as required, ACS learned from parents of the kids that Sabouni had never been to their homes, the complaint says.
In one case, Sabouni later admitted to another employee that she had never met one of the families, the complaint said.
ACS spokeswoman Sharma Stein would not disclose how many other families Sabouni never visited or failed on occasion to visit as required.
ACS referred its findings to the city Department of Investigation, which opened a probe.
“For any ACS employee to fabricate case reports is reprehensible and jeopardizes the safety of the children involved,” said DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn after Sabouni’s arrest yesterday.
Following Sabouni’s arraignment, her lawyer, Arnold Keith, said no child “was injured, nobody was hurt because of this.”
“She may be wrongly accused,” Keith said. “Her life is forever changed. She’s distraught over these allegations.”
Additional reporting by Murray Weiss and Douglas Montero