A Critical Examination of State Agency Investigations into ...

focuses. “We did it at the same time, but they’re two separate activities. It was morethan what was required to do the child abuse investigation,” he said. He added that thesecond investigation had its own case file (albeit, the progress notes and docket sheet areblank as depicted earlier) and case number and generated a separate findings letter.However, he acknowledged that the second investigation consisted of the very sameinformation, interviews, and site visit as CQC’s child abuse investigation.As for the scope of the purported second investigation, or care and treatmentreview, Chairman O’Brien initially characterized it to the Inspector General’s Office as“very thorough,” “broader” than a child abuse investigation and “expansive.” Yet whenpressed by the Inspector General on the fact that no additional activities were conducted,Chairman O’Brien replied that it was actually a “focused, specific review.” “Wenarrowed what we were doing, that’s all I know.”Other Misleading or Inconsistent Information ProvidedGovernor’s Officeby CQC to theIn addition to the misleading information about the extent of CQC’s care andtreatment investigation, CQC provided further inaccurate information related to itsinvestigation of the Carey matter in a document transmitted to Governor Pataki’s Office.The information was requested by the Governor’s Office in response to the Careys’complaint about the investigations of their son’s case. The information was transmittedto the Governor’s Office by OMRDD Associate Commissioner Gatens, who wasresponsible for coordinating the responses of OMRDD and CQC to the Careys’complaint. CQC General Counsel Boehlert provided the information related to hisagency to Gatens. The Inspector General cautions CQC and all state agencies that192