Tampa Bay Academy Fights Licence Suspension

Adam Emerson

Tampa Bay Online

Tampa Bay Academy officials are trying to stop the state from suspending their license, despite accusations that they exposed their workers and the children in their care to danger.

Rich Warden, the academy's chief executive, also said he wants to stop the state from removing children from his residential treatment center. State officials ordered 54 children and teenagers removed from the center after finding inadequate and incompetent staffing and evidence of sexual assaults on workers.

"It's our position that we've been in compliance with state regulations," Warden said, adding he knows "there are things we can do better," but he didn't elaborate.

About 20 of the children have been moved, Warden said. Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration also prohibited the center from admitting more residents.

The academy, a for-profit company in Riverview, is appealing the emergency suspension of its license with the Second District Court of Appeals, hoping to hold off the suspension when it takes effect Jan. 9.

Its residential treatment center houses children and teenagers who suffer from severe psychological disorders and sexual trauma. It is the only residential treatment program of its kind in Hillsborough County.

State investigators inspected the academy this month and found workers behind closed doors and secluded from the teens' activities. They also found evidence that some residents sexually preyed on workers - one of whom was sexually assaulted - and that the academy failed to protect the rest of the residents or notify law enforcement of the abuse.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office has opened a criminal investigation at the academy, but deputies won't discuss their investigation.

State officials say they have given the academy a chance to increase the quality and size of its staff, and it has failed. And the academy "has taken no action to protect its clients from the sexually assertive or assaultive behaviors of other clients," according to a Leon County court filing