Former Whisper Ridge employee pleads guilty
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Rob Seal / Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: June 20, 2007
Bianca Nicole Johnson, 33, was sentenced to one year of probation and ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation.
Circuit Court Judge Edward L. Hogshire also sentenced her to three years in prison, but suspended all of it.
Johnson is accused of writing a sexually graphic note to a male teenage resident in which she described actions she would like to engage in with him.
Prosecutors said there was no evidence that she ever had physical contact with the boy.
On Christmas Day 2004, a Whisper Ridge employee found the note in the teen's quarters and recognized Johnson's handwriting, Assistant Common-wealth's Attorney Elizabeth Killeen said in court Wednesday.
The employee notified Whisper Ridge administrators, who investigated the matter internally, Killeen said.
Johnson told her superiors that she hadn't authored the two-page document, maintaining that she merely copied a suggestive letter written by another staff member from cursive to print letters so the boy could read it, Killeen said.
Johnson resigned and took a job at a local elementary school, and Whisper Ridge officials did not report the incident to any law enforcement or regulatory agencies, Killeen said in court.
It wasn't made clear in court where Johnson was employed after she left Whisper Ridge, but prosecutors said she was put on leave at the school when she was indicted.
The note resurfaced in January 2006, when Char-lottesville police searched Whisper Ridge as part of a wider investigation into allegations of abuse at the facility.
During the search, the employee who had initially discovered the note asked a police detective if he had found it, Killeen said. That was the first the officer had heard of its existence, she said.
After entering her guilty plea Wednesday, Johnson said working at Whisper Ridge was a "learning experience" that has allowed her to become more "on-focus in a positive way."
"My experience working at Whisper Ridge is an indescribable one," she said.
Johnson was among five former employees indicted in August after a six-month police investigation into allegations of abuse at the Arlington Boulevard center.
She was initially charged with taking custodial indecent liberties with a child, but that charge was reduced. As part of an agreement, Johnson is cooperating with authorities in the cases of other former employees.
Melissa Pohl Sergeant, a former administrator at Whisper Ridge, was charged with failing to report suspicions of child abuse in connection with the note incident. She was acquitted June 6.
Former Whisper Ridge mental health specialist Bryan Antwann Vaughan is charged with inappropriately touching one female patient and having sex with another.
A jury deadlocked in his case earlier this month, and prosecutors said they intend to try it again.
Michael Prosise, another former mental health specialist charged with abuse, has not yet been tried. A fifth former employee, Jessica Minter, is accused of causing or encouraging child delinquency, and has not been arrested because she now lives out of state.
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