After a civil lawsuit was filed against a North Texas mental health center, a director has been arrested and police are searching for an employee wanted in connection with the alleged attack of a non-speaking autistic child.
The North Richland Hills Police Department announced Wednesday that 34-year-old Kiara Henry, the director and owner of the ABA Interactive Therapy Center, was taken into custody and charged with failure to report, a felony punishable by prison time.
Tarrant County Jail
On July 24, police also issued an arrest warrant for 31-year-old Ashley Moreno, who is wanted for assault on a child, a second-degree felony.
According to police, two parents called them on Thursday, June 27, to talk about an alleged assault on a seven-year-old boy that had occurred a week earlier at the ABA Interactive Therapy Center.
The child’s parents, Prabesh Poudel and Ramila Chalise, informed authorities that their son, a patient at the facility, had been brutally attacked by a therapist.
The new North Richland Hills police news release and civil lawsuit state that one of the parents went to pick up the child from the center on June 20 and upon arrival discovered a large scratch on the child’s face.
The parent was then asked to sign an incident report stating that the child “exhibited inappropriate behavior which resulted in him throwing a tantrum and scratching the right side of his face,” the lawsuit continues.
Poudel and Chalise expressed deep concern about their son’s self-harm, as it was an unprecedented occurrence, and were disappointed that the centre had not informed them of the incident. They wanted to know more details.
The lawsuit states that after the parents received no concrete answers from Henry, they were contacted by a center employee who claimed Henry had hidden the video.
A few days later, another staff member obtained a copy of the video and showed it to the parents. The video allegedly shows Moreno, a therapist, grabbing the autistic child by his shirt and pinning him against a wall with her hands around his neck.
After further investigation, North Richland Hills police learned that several complaints against Moreno had gone unreported. Police are asking anyone with additional information about the incident to call them at 817-427-7030.
Chalise and Poudel are seeking damages for their son’s physical pain, suffering and emotional anguish and are suing the therapy center for vicarious liability, negligence, negligent hiring, training, supervision, retention and gross negligence.
NBC 5 reached out to ABA Interactive for comment on the incident and the lawsuit, but we had not received a response as of Wednesday.
