The Garfield County District Attorney’s Office has dropped charges against seven former staff members accused of systemic abuse at an Enid center for people with developmental disabilities.
Eight former staffers at the Robert M. Greer Center faced felony charges including caretaker abuse and conspiracy in 2023 after police spent months investigating allegations of beatings, chokings and other abuse against residents at the center. Charges have been dropped against all but one of the former staffers as of Tuesday morning after prosecutors were “unable to locate a necessary witness,” according to court documents.
A preliminary hearing for several of the cases originally scheduled for July was postponed while state prosecutors were looking for the witness. At the July hearing, a prosecutor said the U.S. Marshals Service was looking for the person.
The Garfield County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.
The justice system often struggles handling abuse cases involving people with developmental disabilities, said RoseAnn Duplan, a policy specialist with the Oklahoma Disability Law Center. People with intellectual or developmental disabilities may not be seen as reliable witnesses to describe their own alleged abuse. People with disabilities are also more likely to be victims of abuse, according to the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
“This happens far too often that people just get away with it,” Duplan said.
There are still multiple civil cases pending against Liberty of Oklahoma, the private, for-profit company that Oklahoma contracts with to manage the Greer Center. A former staffer is suing the company for emotional damages, alleging the company dismissed her concerns about abuse and failed to protect her from harassment from coworkers. Eleven plaintiffs are part of a separate lawsuit against the company for negligence.
State investigators spent several days at the 52-bed facility last fall and found that violations at the facility placed residents in immediate jeopardy of harm or death. The center worked to address issues around how it handles allegations of abuse, but the state continued to cite Greer throughout the beginning of 2024 for delayed reports of alleged abuse and other infractions.
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