CLAYTON — A ºüÀêÊÓƵ County judge on Tuesday dismissed one of two child abuse and endangerment cases against the former chief executive of an embattled behavioral health organization in Webster Groves.
Circuit Judge Kristine Kerr granted Vincent Hillyer's motion to dismiss a 12-count indictment against him.Â
"We believed from day one that there weren't facts to support the underlying allegations," Hillyer's lawyer, Joel Schwartz, said.
Hillyer is the former CEO of Great Circle, one of Missouri's largest behavioral health organizations for troubled youth. The organization closed its residential treatment program in Webster Groves on April 30.
The cases against Hillyer, 60, of Eureka, accused him of abusing multiple minors at the facility in 2018 and 2019. The indictments said Hillyer endangered children under his care by discouraging medical care to patients injured during altercations at the facility, including two who attempted suicide and another who was stabbed by a fellow resident.
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It was not immediately clear why the bigger of the two cases fell apart but Schwartz said he believes the state never established the evidence needed to make the case. A spokesman for ºüÀêÊÓƵ County prosecutor Wesley Bell said on Tuesday that he would look into it.
In addition to dismissing the 12-count case, the judge took under submission a separate case accusing Hillyer of child endangerment, abuse of a health care recipient and assault. Hillyer on Tuesday waived his constitutional right to confront witnesses, asking Kerr to decide that case based on submitted evidence and without witness testimony.
An assistant prosecutor on Tuesday agreed, saying in the hearing Tuesday that "it would be cruel to revictimize this autistic child" by going through with a public trial.
That remaining case against Hillyer says that on April 17, 2019, Hillyer "created a substantial risk to the body and health" of the child "by choking and using other physical restraint and force control hold techniques" on the child at Great Circle's campus.
After prosecutors charged Hillyer, several other Great Circle employees have been charged with crimes alleged to have occurred at the facility.