Pubdate: Mon, 06 Dec 1999 Source: Newsday (NY) Edition: Nassau and Suffolk Page: A26 Copyright: 1999, Newsday Inc. Contact: (516)843-2986 Website: http://www.newsday.com/ Author: Brian Donovan OKD AS PROVIDER, DESPITE DRUG RECORD When Felicia Bellamy of Westbury applied to become a day-care provider in 1996, she disclosed that she'd been convicted of marijuana possession and attempted resisting arrest. She minimized the circumstances that led to the convictions. "At the time [of the pot charge] I was very young," she wrote, giving no details. Of the incident that led to her second conviction, she said she and a co-defendant "didn't do anything wrong." Her case shows how checking public records, rather than relying only on information furnished by applicants, could give state officials significant additional information before they grant approval for day-care homes. The state regulatory agency for day care, the Bureau of Early Childhood Services, didn't check court records on Bellamy's convictions, which would have shown that there was more to those crimes than she told the state. And like all home day-care applicants, Bellamy was approved without BECS checking her address against state data on addresses given by people convicted of crimes. If state officials had done that, they'd have learned that two of her brothers with criminal records, which include convictions for assault and selling crack, repeatedly have given their address as her day-care home. In 1987, when Bellamy was 22, Port Authority Police Officer Eugene Schroeder arrested her at Kennedy Airport on a felony marijuana possession charge. He said she'd tried to smuggle a carton of marijuana into the country from Jamaica, West Indies. He said there were 15 to 20 pounds; court records say only that she had more than 10 pounds, enough for a felony charge. Schroeder described her, using police slang for low-level drug traffickers. "She would fit in the category of a mule," he said in an interview. "They get a free trip down, a couple days in a hotel and they bring the package back up, and they get X amount of dollars for bringing it up." Bellamy's second arrest occurred at 3:30 a.m. on Hempstead Turnpike one night in 1995. Bellamy and a male companion were charged with interfering with a Nassau police officer who'd stopped a motorist. A court document quotes Bellamy as shouting at the cop: "I'm going to kill you. I'll get you. I'll get your family. I'll kill your wife and kids." Her companion was convicted of marijuana possession. In both cases, Bellamy pleaded guilty to reduced charges, paid fines and did not go to jail. She declined to discuss the cases. The director of BECS, Suzanne Zafonte Sennett, said in a statement: "We continue to investigate the circumstances around this case. In particular, I am hoping that we can draw from it a very clear lesson on the level of investigation and documentation that is more appropriate." Between 1984 and 1997, one of Bellamy's brothers, Leo, listed the day-care house as his address nine times as he was being locked up in the Nassau County jail. His driver's license has the same address. He has convictions for assault-cutting a man with a bottle - and other offenses. Felicia Bellamy's filings with the state have never listed him as a household member. She did list her brother Shawn as a household member in 1996. But after he pleaded guilty in 1997 to selling crack and served 3 months in jail, he didn't appear on her subsequent state filings. Court records and his driver's license give his address as the day-care house. This year, Bellamy's day-care program was cited by the state for child abuse. On July 7 the children were wading at the Cantiague Park pool in Hicksville when one of Bellamy's assistants began yelling at two 4-year-olds, a state report says. "This attendant was verbally abusive and when children were slow to respond to her commands, she dragged them across the cement walk and forced them to sit down." Teachers and kids from another program "observed this attendant slap a girl across the legs and buttocks while screaming at her abusively." The other children "were so frightened by this behavior that they got out of the pool and clung to their teachers. The attendant saw that she was being watched by teachers and children but continued in her actions." The pool incident came a week after a BECS inspector wrote a highly critical report on Bellamy's "chaotic and unorganized" program: "Neither you nor your assistant seem to have control over the children in care," the inspector wrote. "You threatened not to let a child participate in snack time if he continued to misbehave ... There seemed to be a lack of ... activities to keep the children focused and engaged in constructive play." Although BECS concluded that the child-abuse charge was substantiated by the evidence, no fine or license suspension was imposed. State officials said Bellamy corrected the problem by promptly firing the assistant. But in a brief interview with Newsday, before declining to comment further, Bellamy defended the assistant's conduct. "... that was people stating certain things, it wasn't found to be true," she said. - --- MAP posted-by: allan wilkinson