Chinatown rape case: Worker at boys' group home arrested, accused of doctoring logbook

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A worker at a now-closed city group home for troubled youth has been arrested on charges he doctored a logbook to falsely show he was checking regularly on three teenage residents the night they slipped out and raped a woman, authorities announced Thursday.

This brutal rape case has been expanded by the Department of Investigation and the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office.

The result is the arrest of a worker who investigators say should have been monitoring the suspects in a group home.

24-year old Denzel Thompson, a youth care worker, left court not saying a word and rushing to a waiting car after his arraignment on charges that he doctor a log book used to monitor three teenage suspects in a group home who have been charged with the rape of a 33-year old woman.

The Department of Investigation alleges: "He wrote down in his log book, 'I've been checking every half-hour to make sure that the juveniles that have been assigned here by the court are actually in their beds'", said D.O.I. Commissioner Mark Peters. "In fact he hadn't been checking and in fact they had escaped."

The three suspects, police say, made their way to Manhattan to an Internet caf where they met the woman.

The three have been charged with raping, assaulting and robbing her after luring her from the caf.

"He simply did not do his job, was not checking to make sure they were there," said Peters. "That got covered up and in fact in this instance it had truly tragic consequences."

After Denzel Thompson was arraigned, he and his attorney quickly left the courtroom, only his attorney answering questions.

"That was his first day and he was not really well-acquainted with the structure itself," said attorney Michael Warren.

He also disputes the charges. "There is absolutely no legal basis for establishing legal intent here and it's unfortunate what happened to this young lady," said Warren.

As a result of the latest arrest, D.O.I. Commissioner Mark Peters tells me his office is now expanding its investigation, looking at all the juvenile facilities that house some 250 youths for the city.

"To see whether in the various facilities that are being used for juveniles all of the security measures that are necessary are in fact being put into place."

The woman, missing her camisole and underpants, eventually made her way to a nearby deli. While she was being taken to a hospital, the boys were using her keys to get into her building - but fled when they discovered someone inside, prosecutors said. Police said they also have video of the boys at her apartment.

The nonprofit Boys Town had been contracted by the city's child welfare agency to operate the home. A spokeswoman for the Nebraska-based organization said in a statement that the nonprofit is cooperating with investigators and conducting their own probe. Thompson and another worker at the home were fired last week. The second worker was also being investigated.

The Administration for Children's Services said last week that they were closing the home, which was part of a citywide juvenile justice program called Close to Home that tries to house minors in residences near their relatives and schools instead of in far-off detention centers. The boys were the only three residents there.

The teens, Emanuel Burrowes, Sanat Asliev and Erik Pek, have been charged as adults with crimes including rape and attempted rape. An attorney for Burrowes said last week that the boy just finished ninth grade and was a month away from completing a program for juvenile delinquents. Asliev's lawyer said his client was an emigrant from the former Soviet Union and was placed in the group home by a family court judge.

An attorney for Pek hasn't returned a phone message. A live-in companion of his mother's told The New York Times last week that Pek "would never do something like this."

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)