Cape Coral resident Denny Kern, 53, was sentenced to four years’ probation for the crime.
Kern was arrested in November after an Office of the Inspector General investigation determined he had falsified records. Kern was a case manager, required to make regular health and welfare checks on children under the supervision of the Department of Children and Families.
Kern is by no means the only child welfare worker to file fake paperwork. His was one of 25 cases involving falsification of case management records investigated in the past seven years; of those, 20 ended in employees being fired or quitting. There was one suspension and four cases that were unsubstantiated or had no action taken.
While working for Lutheran Services, which has a contract with Children’s Network, the private company that provides services to the state’s Department of Children and Families, Kern reported he’d visited the toddler girl in Cape Coral. Although Kern knew the child had been moved to West Palm Beach because her mother was in jail, he filed a log detailing visits to the child in March, April and May.
The falsified documents came to light only after Kern was fired in May 2015 for poor job performance. When Lutheran Services supervisor Gwen Doyle took over Kern's 38-child caseload, she started hearing from family members and caregivers that he hadn't been doing his job.
According to the investigative report, “When Mr. Kern visited (Caregiver 1’s) home, Mr. Kern would come to the door, have a blank piece of paper, and ask Caregiver 1 to sign it. Mr. Kern never came inside the home. ... He indicated that Mr. Kern was aware that Child 1 was not present in the home and did not need to see (her).”
In another case, Kern admitted another child he was supposed to visit regularly was sometimes "probably not" at home when he said she was, though "Kern believed 90 percent of the case notes were accurate and 10 percent of the case notes ... were false, but could not recall which case notes were false."
http://www.news-press.com/story/news/2017/02/24/ex-dcf-subcontractor-pleads-guilty-falsifying-records/98302196/
