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Ex-social worker faces more criminal charges

Deborah Yetter
Louisville Courier Journal

A former state social worker charged with making false child abuse complaints against her Elizabethtown neighbors now faces additional charges she made false abuse complaints against two people in Grayson County — one the husband of her longtime best friend and the other the pastor at the local Baptist church she attended.

Beth Bond (left) with her former friend, Shawna Beauchamp

Beth Bond, who quit her social work job with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services on June 1 after she was charged in Elizabethtown, was arrested last week on new charges that she made four false child abuse reports to the cabinet's anonymous abuse hotline between October 2014 and April.

Two calls between Oct. 29, 2014, and April 21 falsely alleged abuse by Jerry Beauchamp, the husband of Shawna Beauchamp, according to an arrest complaint by Kentucky State Police Detective Scotty Sharp. The other two calls, between Nov. 3, 2014, and April 21, falsely alleged abuse by Roger Allen, the complaint said.

All four allegations were determined to be unfounded by the cabinet, Sharp's complaint said.

Social worker had troubled career before arrest

Shawna Beauchamp told The Courier-Journal she and Bond had been best friends since they met in college in 1995.  Allen is the pastor of  Falls of Rough Baptist Church, which Bond attended and where Shawna Beauchamp is a member.

Allen and the Beauchamps were former neighbors in their rural, Grayson County community. The charges have left them stunned and outraged, saying the abuse complaints disrupted their lives with late-night visits by social workers and police, forcing them repeatedly to try to convince officials of their innocence.

"They make you feel like you're guilty and nothing you say makes any difference," said Allen, 63, who was accused of abusing his two grandchildren. "I just felt so humiliated."

Shawna Beauchamp, 38, a teacher's aide in the Breckinridge County school system, said Bond cut off contact with her around April when she moved from Grayson County to Elizabethtown. The move came after Bond was suspended from her job and transferred to Hardin County over findings she had violated confidentiality and mishandled information on cases she worked on in Breckinridge County, her former work station.

Beauchamp said she can't grasp that her former friend is charged with making  false complaints about her family involving lurid allegations of sexual abuse of children, illicit drug activity and violence.

"Why would your best friend of 20 years do you that way?" asked Shawna Beauchamp. "It's beyond me."

E�town couple shaken by false child-abuse calls

And neither the Beauchamps nor Allen can think of any motive for the false accusations.

"I don't have a clue why she would call social services on me," Allen said. "It's kind of crazy."

Bond is scheduled to appear Thursday on the new charges in Grayson District Court.

Adam Cart, her lawyer, said Bond plans to plead not guilty to the charges and that he is continuing to gather information on the charges from Hardin and Grayson counties.

Bond already is charged in Hardin District Court with six counts of complicity to call in false complaints about her former neighbors at an Elizabethtown apartment complex, a young couple with an infant daughter, that alleged domestic violence, drug abuse and child abuse. The calls were made between April 1 and May 23, according to court records.

All were determined to be unfounded, but the couple, April Rodgers and Corey Chaney, told The Courier-Journal this year that the ordeal was terrifying, repeatedly bringing police and social workers to their door in the middle of the night and leaving them fearful the state might try to take custody of their child.

Barry Sullivan, a lawyer for the Elizabethtown couple, on Monday called the new charges against Bond "scary."

"It's happening more and more, and there doesn't seem to be any contingency plan in place to protect families' interests," Sullivan said.

Cabinet spokeswoman Jill Midkiff said officials have cooperated with law enforcement since the allegations against Bond and are disappointed by the latest charges.

"False reporting is reckless, criminal and takes away time that our staff could be helping other children and families," she said.

Neither Rodgers nor Chaney had any idea why Bond would allegedly file false reports and said they barely knew her and her fiance, Joseph Applegate, who lived with her and also is charged in the Elizabethtown case. Both Bond and Applegate have pleaded not guilty.

Beauchamp said her family's ordeal was similar to that of the Elizabethtown couple.

Her family had a total of six calls between Sept. 2 and April 21, she said,  though the police filed charges in only two of them. In most cases, police showed up with social workers after Jerry and Shawna Beauchamp and their teenage daughter were asleep, knocking on the door and demanding to interview the family about an anonymous call alleging abuse.

"It disrupted our lives," she said. "Every night we'd go to bed wondering 'What time are they going to come tonight?' "

Shawna Beauchamp, also accused of abuse or neglect in some of the calls, said the repeated investigations and interviews by police and  social workers were traumatic to the family, especially to her teenage daughter, whom they were accused of mistreating.

"It worried her to death," she said.

Jerry Beauchamp said police were pursuing a criminal abuse charge against him over one allegation but dropped it after he took and passed a lie detector test. Both Jerry and Shawna Beauchamp took and passed drug tests to disprove allegations of methamphetamine and prescription pill abuse.

"We had to go down to the jail and let someone watch us pee in a cup," said Shawna Beauchamp, recalling the drug test.

It also could have cost Shawna Beauchamp her job working in a middle school if a child abuse or neglect complaint had  been substantiated against her, she said.

"I love my job," she said.

Moving to Falls of Rough

Shawna Beauchamp said she first met Bond while they were students at Sullivan University in Louisville and were roommates for a while. Bond served as the maid of honor at her wedding, Shawna Beauchamp said.

They stayed in touch though Bond moved out of state, later returning to Kentucky to obtain a social work degree at Morehead University.

Around 2012, Bond contacted her friend and said she was moving to the Grayson County area for a social service job with the state Department for Community Based Services, Shawna Beauchamp said. She asked Beauchamp for help finding a place to live and settling in.

Beauchamp said she agreed to help and enlisted others, including Allen, the pastor of her church, where Beauchamp serves as director of youth activities.

Allen remembers the day Bond arrived to move into a house with her furniture in a rental truck.

"When the U-Haul pulled up in the driveway, we had a whole crew from the church show up and helped her unload," Allen recalled.

Shawna Beauchamp said she and Bond resumed their close friendship, visiting each other regularly, talking or texting by phone and shopping or running errands together. Beauchamp often baby-sat for Bond, a single mother with a young daughter.

Bond began attending the church and this year asked Allen to baptize her, which he did.

"She said she realized she hadn't been saved and wanted to be saved," Allen said.

After the anonymous calls alleging abuse started, both Allen and Shawna Beauchamp said Bond expressed her concern and offered to check confidential social service records to try to learn more about the investigations.

"I remember asking her what kind of sick and twisted person makes up these things," Beauchamp said. "She agreed."

Allen said he believes the state needs some way to hold people accountable when they make false reports to the abuse hotline, which accepts anonymous calls.

State officials have said they must accept anonymous calls because some people fear retaliation for reporting child abuse or neglect.

Allen said he also is disappointed the offense of making a false report is only a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail.

"Ultimately nothing will be  done about it, maybe just a slap on the hand," he said. "It won't be nearly as severe as what we went through."

Reporter Deborah Yetter can be reached at (502) 582-4228 or dyetter@courier-journal.com