MARGATE, Fla. – Former family support counselor Treaunshae Gibbons had nothing to say to Local 10 News Tuesday, one day after Local 10 obtained court documents alleging that the 29-year-old used her knowledge of the child protection system to help coach her mother in a child torture investigation involving her 15-year-old cousin.
Gibbons, who police say acted as a “middleman” between law enforcement and her mother, Latricia Crawley, wouldn’t say whether she bore witness to portions of a decade of alleged abuse and neglect at the hands of Crawley, 46 and other members of the household: Crawley’s husband, Benjamin Lockett, 43, and the victim’s 20-year-old sister, Shankyria Clayton.
Police said she lived at the home from 2015 to 2019, during part of the period of alleged abuse.
“I don’t want to address anything, it is all allegations,” Gibbons said Tuesday, after Local 10 News visited her Coral Springs apartment seeking comment on the case.
Gibbons, who was fired from her position at Wilton Manors-based nonprofit Kids in Distress after its CEO said it learned about her connection to the alleged house of torture, is facing charges of child neglect causing great bodily harm and failing to report child abuse.
A Margate police detective said her “position provided ample opportunity to make a reasonable effort to protect the child victim.” Authorities accused her of doing the opposite.
Police first arrested Crawley and Lockett, the victim’s aunt and uncle and legal guardians, in late October after they said the 15-year-old girl reported the abuse to an online instructor. They arrested Clayton a week later.
Authorities said Crawley and Lockett, among other things, used rope to bind the girl, caged her in a closet and threw boiling water on her at the house along Northwest 79th Terrace. Clayton is accused of joining her aunt and uncle in caging and starving the teenager and not reporting the abuse.
Police later arrested arrested another person living at the home, 74-year-old Horace Crawley, on unrelated charges pertaining to his failure to re-register as a sex offender. At the time, authorities did not explicitly rule out charging him in connection with the abuse case.
Gibbons’ arrest came on Thursday.
According to police, she had experience working as a dependency case manager for two other organizations when Kids in Distress, Inc., a Wilton Manors-based nonprofit organization that aims to prevent child abuse, hired her as a family support counselor in November 2020
The victim told police that at one point, Gibbons confronted her mother and “expressed her dissatisfaction” after witnessing her strike the 15-year-old girl in the head in an argument that nearly turned physical, the warrant states. But police said Gibbons never reported what happened to authorities.
Instead of using her training and experience to help her cousin, Baer wrote that that a recorded phone call showed that Gibbons used “her understanding of investigative procedures” to give Latricia Crawley “advice on how to interact with the police during this investigation,” acting as a “middleman” between her mother and law enforcement.
Gibbons was later released on bond.
Latricia Crawley and Lockett are facing charges of child abuse causing great bodily harm and child neglect causing great bodily harm, and Clayton was charged with aggravated child abuse, child neglect causing great bodily harm, and failing to report abuse. They have also since bonded out.
Horace Crawley remained jailed in Broward County as of Tuesday.