HAMILTON — Two workers entrusted with helping people with developmental disabilities are accused of abusing and assaulting them — charges brought to light by a former co-worker.

        Timothy Lee Ivers, 38, of Fairfield, and Jamie Ray Puckett, 27, of Hamilton were arrested Thursday morning at their homes after a Butler County grand jury indicted them. Mr. Ivers is charged with patient abuse and assault; Mr. Puckett, with two counts of each charge.

        The men were being held in the county jail pending a March 16 Common Pleas Court hearing.

Ivers

Puckett

        Both were employed as trainers in the Hamilton Center, a Symmes Road sheltered workshop that serves 220 adults of the county's Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (MRDD).

        Three other unidentified employees of the Hamilton Center remain on administrative leave, but so far no charges have been filed against them and officials wouldn't say whether they are under investigation.

        As a result of the probe, which Hamilton police launched in November, the Butler MRDD board has asked the state MRDD agency to conduct an administrative review to see whether anything could have been done differently to detect or prevent the alleged abuse.

        Pam Long, Butler MRDD spokeswoman, said the situation has been disturbing but MRDD families seem confident that it is being handled appropriately.

        “People send their adult sons and daughters to this program every day,” she said. “That is probably the greatest witness to their confidence in us.”

        The incidents allegedly occurred between June 1996 and January 2001 and involved three male MRDD clients in their 30s, court records say. Officials wouldn't describe how the clients were allegedly abused, but said no sexual conduct, serious physical harm or foreign objects were involved.

        Robin Piper, county prosecutor, said the very nature of the alleged crimes makes them alarming.

        “It is extremely heinous to victimize people who cannot defend themselves and cannot report the injury inflicted upon them,” he said.

        Because of the MRDD clients' special needs, the law allows the alleged perpetrators to face more severe penalties, Mr. Piper said.

        Assault is a first-degree misdemeanor carrying a six-month maximum sentence and a $1,000 fine; patient abuse is a fourth-degree felony carrying a sentence of up to 18 months and a maximum fine of $5,000.

        Mr. Piper confirmed that an ex-employee came forward with allegations of abuse at the Hamilton Center. The ex-employee realized in hindsight that “some things weren't right,” Mr. Piper said.

        Even without that person's observations, the alleged wrongdoing probably would have surfaced anyway, Mr. Piper said.

        “MRDD has safety checks within its monitoring of its employees, and this type of conduct would have been discovered eventually,” he said. “In this case, it was just discovered a little bit sooner than it might have been normally.”

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