I Cogitate

TYC shake-up comes 2 years after probe
Agency's leader ousted; 'cover-up' of abuse alleged

By R.G. RATCLIFFE and LISA SANDBERG
Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
March 1, 2007

AUSTIN ­ Gov. Rick Perry's staff learned last fall of a Texas Rangers investigation into allegations of sexual abuse in 2005 at a West Texas state juvenile facility, but the governor took no major action to reform the Texas Youth Commission until after the report became public last week.

On Wednesday, Perry removed the agency's board chairman, Pete Alfaro, of Baytown, and appointed Don Bethel, of Lamesa, as Alfaro's replacement.

Perry also recommended that at its meeting Tuesday, the board hire Ed Owens, the deputy executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, as the acting TYC director and set up an inspector general who answers directly to the board.

And late Wednesday, the Senate voted to ask the legislative audit committee to recommend the entire state agency be put into a conservatorship. Perry would have the final say on whether a conservatorship is adopted.

Legislative committees held hearings last year in which former TYC employees and the parents of youth offenders testified that there was widespread physical and sexual abuse of those incarcerated in the system.

But Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Sens. John Whitmire, D-Houston, and Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, said they didn't find out until last week about the Texas Rangers' report on the possible sexual assault of boys by TYC administrators at the West Texas State School in Pyote.

They said there appeared to be a cover-up by high-ranking TYC officials.

"Two or three years ago a Ranger report went to the Youth Commission, and we're just finding out about it in the Legislature in the last few days," Dewhurst said. "Who was on the distribution? That Texas Ranger report, did it just go to the Youth Commission or did it go to other offices?"

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