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Officials at the club learn she is accused of harboring a runaway boy after deputies charge her with failing to appear in court.
By RYAN DAVIS
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 1, 2000
PORT RICHEY -- About a month ago, the Port Richey Boys and Girls Club hired 39-year-old Donna Sidoti to plan activities for the kids there, club official Pennie Anderson said.
Anderson, the director of Boys and Girls Club of Pasco County Inc., said her organization ran its standard background check on Sidoti, but "it takes more than a month for all the background checks to come back." In the meantime, Sidoti worked.
Turns out the part-time recreation coordinator was facing a charge of harboring a runaway, according to Pasco County sheriff's deputies.
The club didn't learn of the charge, Anderson said, until Aug. 25, when Sidoti was arrested and charged with failing to appear at her July 31 arraignment, according to New Port Richey police.
She has been suspended indefinitely, Anderson said.
The initial charge of aiding a runaway was levied June 12 against Sidoti, court records show. According to deputies, she took in a 13-year-old River Ridge Middle School student who she knew was a runaway.
The law does not permit anyone to keep an unmarried admitted runaway minor for more than 24 hours without making an effort to contact law enforcement, deputies said.
"They're charges," Anderson said. "She's not been convicted of anything at this point. Her charges had nothing to do with her position here."
Sidoti could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Though the Boys and Girls Club receives state funding for providing day care to poor or at-risk children, it is not required by the state to perform background checks on its child care workers, said Carolyn Olson, the day care licensing supervisor for the Department of Children and Families in Pasco County.
The club is exempt, Olson said, because it is certified by a national non-profit organization that provides primarily recreational activity, not day care.
The original charge against Sidoti stems from her relationship with the 13-year-old, whom she met in June 1999 while working at Youth and Family Alternatives Inc.'s Runaway Alternative Program House, deputies said.
Sidoti worked for Youth and Family Alternatives from July 1998 until February, said that group's executive director, George Magrill.
The teen stayed in touch with Sidoti by telephone until March, when he spent three or four days at her 7816 Montrose Drive home in New Port Richey, deputies said.
In a written statement to deputies, Sidoti said she bought clothes for the teenager, allowed him to shower and fed him, according to court records. She said his visits were five or six hours long.
The boy did not want to return home, she said, because he feared his father would abuse him, according to court records.
Sidoti posted $500 bail Aug. 25 and was released from county jail in Land O'Lakes.
- Staff writer Christopher Goffard and researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.