Children accused of starting fires offered chance to avoid prosecution

Three children accused of starting fires that ravaged almost 2,000 acres in Lehigh Acres in April won’t have criminal records if they successfully complete a pretrial diversion program.

Russell Walker, 12, Jorge Puig, 10, and Paris Solis, 14, all of Lehigh Acres, were pulled off of a juvenile criminal court docket Tuesday and won’t be prosecuted. In exchange, the children and their parents and guardians must meet with volunteers and victims to decide what type of punishment fits their crime in an alternative justice program.

Instead of only paying fines or spending time in the Department of Juvenile Justice, the children will develop individual punishment plans with victims and volunteers with the Neighborhood Accountability Board of Lehigh Acres, said Nora Donato-Hitchcock, Neighborhood Accountability Board coordinator with the Lee County Department of Human Services.

“About less than 10 percent will re-offend, so we have a pretty good rate,” she said.

And they have to admit guilt, she added, something they can avoid inside of a courtroom.

“They have to acknowledge before the board who was harmed and how,” Donato-Hitchcock said after the hearing. “There’s also harm done to the parents and the kids involved. We talk about repairing harm. They really do that individually.”

The children, their parents and guardians did not attend Tuesday’s hearing in Lee County Circuit Court. They were unavailable for comment to the Daily News.

“For juveniles, it really is much more impactful,” Donato-Hitchcock said of the Neighborhood Accountability Board program. “One of our volunteers called it a gut check for the kids when they come before the board.”

The board will meet with the children and their parents and guardians in two or three weeks, then host the conference with them and victims. This meeting will be hosted in July in Lehigh Acres, Donato-Hitchcock. There they will develop plans for each child — detailing what they must do to make amends — and the children will have 90 days after inking their plans to complete the tasks.

Lee County Circuit Court Judge Sherra Winesett said if the children complete pretrial diversion, the cases will be dropped. They will have charges on file, but won’t be adjudicated. That’s the juvenile court term used instead of a criminal conviction in adult court.

If they fail, they will return to court to be prosecuted, Winesett said.

“This is not our first malicious burning of land case,” Donato-Hitchcock said. “We’ve had kids plant trees to replace trees (destroyed in the fire).”

Some victims attend these conferences and decide they don’t want the children to repay them for their losses, Donato-Hitchcock said. They could be ordered to perform community service hours at animal shelters or wildlife rehabilitation centers, visit burn units, write letters apologizing to their victims, or deliver flowers to a cemetery’s memorial for firefighters killed in the line of duty.

Donato-Hitchcock said she’s spoken with an instructor for the Lehigh Acres Fire Rescue and Control District’s Juvenile Fire Setter Program, and the children will be enrolled in it shortly. Messages were left Tuesday for Educational Officer Paul Dube, who helps teach the Juvenile Fire Setter Program, but he was unavailable for comment.

According to the fire district, its program is part of the Lee County Juvenile Fire Setters Network. It is designed to educate children responsible for setting fires, or those curious about fire or experimenting with it

“There’s just a number of things they can do,” Donato-Hitchcock said. “Sometimes parents impose many more consequences than we could.”