A former Child Protective Investigator has been arrested for falsifying records while employed with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
Steven Urban was a CPI for six years prior to the arrest. Pinellas County is one of the counties where the Sheriff's Office does child checks and DCF doesn't.
An investigator went in to a home to look into a domestic situation at the house.
That CPI learned a prior allegation was investigated in November.
Upon looking at that report, the investigator found that some of the witnesses from the November incident, which Urban was investigating, had not been interviewed.
Sherif Gualtieri said it appears Urban fabricated the case file.
He says the woman Urban claimed to have interviewed died.
When other investigators started talking to Urban, he resigned.
The Pinellas County Sheriff's office has implemented a policy that requires CPI Supervisors to randomly review five case files on a weekly basis. The CPI Supervisors will contact family members and witnesses to confirm contact was made by the investigators.
"When it comes to child welfare and making sure the kids are safe, you have to do absolutely everything possible," stated Sheriff Gualtieri.
The Sheriff's Office began reviewing all the cases he was investigating, and found 52% of the 142 cases had been falsified.
In 44 of 75 falsified cases, Urban documented that he personally saw children that were victims of abuse, abandonment, or neglect, and verified their well-being when he never saw them and did not know the condition they were currently in.
In 29 of those cases, Urban either never interviewed anyone or did nothing.
Two cases warranted the removal of children because of present risk to the children.
He is charged with ten felony counts of falsifying records.
