DSS report details sex allegations

The 17-year-old who accused a Baker House administrator of forcing himself on her in a bathroom at the center told investigators that the two repeatedly had sex at the organization in the months leading up to the alleged January incident and that the administrator gave her money, according to documents obtained by the Globe that recount her version of events in detail.

Her allegations rocked the community center in the Four Corners section of Dorchester last week.

The president of the board at Baker House, the Rev. Eugene Rivers III, returned yesterday from Africa, but was unavailable for comment.

Rivers put the administrator, 32-year-old Derrick Patrick , on leave the day after the alleged encounter Jan. 5 and fired him Aug. 11. Patrick has been charged with paying for sex and encouraging the girl to engage in prostitution.

Boston police, the Suffolk district attorney's office, and the state Department of Social Services are investigating the allegations. It is unclear if Patrick will face more charges.

Patrick told the Globe last week that he is innocent and eager to prove it in court. He declined to elaborate, saying his lawyer had advised him not to say any more.

The girl's version of events, meanwhile, is recounted in documents obtained by the Globe. In an interview with investigators at the district attorney's office on Jan. 18, the girl said she started going to the Baker House in November, according to a report compiled by a DSS investigator who was present. She said she met Patrick her first day there, and a few days later allowed him to give her a ride home.

She said she refused to have sex with him the first time he asked, but a few days later, she said she agreed after he offered her money and rides in his car, the report says. She said they had consensual sex at the Baker House at least three times, the report says: once in the basement, another time in a third-floor bathroom, and the third time in a first-floor hallway.

Patrick gave her money at various times, she said, including $30 after the second encounter and $60 after the third, the report says. They had a signal arrangement, the girl alleged. Whenever Patrick wanted to have sex, she said, he would approach her at the center and give her ``the cue" -- tell her that a supervisor needed her to do something.

During her three days at the Baker House each week, she had been doing filing, answering phones, and completing other requested administrative tasks, according to an interview with a Department of Youth Services worker that was contained in the report.

In addition, she attended some groups and was getting assistance with compiling a resume.

On the afternoon of Jan. 5, the girl told prosecutors, she was in the basement playing cards when Patrick gave her ``the cue," and she met him upstairs, where he asked her to go to a bathroom. She said he then offered her $40 to have anal sex.

The teenager ``stated that she told him `no' several times, but he wasn't listening to her; he covered her mouth and did what he wanted anyway," the report says.

She reported the alleged episode to Baker House managers, including Rivers, who went to her house that night to pray with the girl and her mother and discuss what had happened, according to the DSS report and another document written by Baker House executive director Jeanette Boone. Before Rivers arrived, the girl left for the hospital because she said she felt sick to her stomach and was in ``a lot of pain."

Medical staff conducted a rape test and called police. Baker House staff secured paper towels that she alleged Patrick used to ``clean up" and turned them over to police, the report says.

That night she told her DYS case manager that she was not going back to the Baker House, but did not elaborate until a meeting the next morning, when the case manager joined the girl and her mother at a meeting with Rivers, Boone, and another Baker House staff member to discuss what happened.

The DYS case manager later reported she was uncomfortable with the way staff members aggressively questioned the girl, saying she ``basically had to reenact the [encounter], including her positioning," and ``throughout the narration, inconsistencies were brought out and the child was confronted on them," the DSS report says.

Boone said in an interview Friday that neither the girl nor the case worker mentioned being uncomfortable during questioning about the encounter.

DYS officials said Friday that they have severed the agency's nearly 10-year relationship with the Baker House because of concerns about safety and supervision at the community center.

Neither DYS nor DSS had received complaints before about mistreatment of children at the center, officials at both agencies have said.

A Baker House attorney said the organization has completed thorough background checks on its employees and has enhanced supervision of interactions between staff members and children at the center.

He said he hopes the state will consider resuming referrals to Baker House.

The 17-year-old girl was with her parents yesterday afternoon in their Dorchester home. She said she has been taken aback by the intense media coverage of her allegations in recent days.

She said she could not comment further because her parents wouldn't let her.

Founded by Rivers in 1995, the Ella J. Baker House is a community and drop-in center. The organization also does street outreach and ministry.

Fred Dashiell, the attorney for Baker House, said some 500 children pass through the doors each year and the organization influences the lives of thousands more. It is a faith-based nonprofit, funded publicly and privately, that frequently hires former offenders to work with at-risk youths.

Patrick, who had worked at the center for five years, had served time in the early 1990s for armed robbery and assault and battery. He had been in charge of a Baker House program for preadolescent boys.

Globe correspondent LeMont Calloway and Maria Cramer of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.