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.