Domestic abuse case entangles Oregon DHS

Child services worker lived with meth-using ex-con, according to court records.

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As an Oregon Department of Human Services child welfare worker, Katie Sichley was in charge of determining whether children should be removed from abusive or troubled households.

But for more than a year, the Gresham mother of two concealed a troubled and abusive household of her own, according to testimony and evidence leveled against her meth-addicted live-in boyfriend in Multnomah Circuit Court.

In a hearing on Monday, Judge Eric Bergstrom made it clear that Sichley's boyfriend, Michael Sutton Chastain, is likely headed for prison, saying the evidence showed he'd rammed Sichley's head into a door hinge last September, knocking her unconscious, and hit her then-14-year-old daughter with a metal pole.

What he didn't say is that Sichley, a state child welfare worker, may face charges as well. That's because while she was on paid leave from her full-time state job - and required to be at home, available for work - she took a second job as a drug counselor at the same nonprofit where Chastain had been assigned on probation. Drawing a state salary improperly is the sort of benefits fraud that prosecutors sometimes go after.

The revelations from the Chastain case show the power of abusive relationships. And they come as DHS is under heightened scrutiny over a string of revelations that have highlighted mismanagement at the department as well as unsafe conditions in the state's underfunded foster care system.

Gov. Kate Brown has proposed reforms, but the story of Sichley is unlikely to make DHS look any better.

Childhood friends

Sichley had known Chastain since elementary school, and they stayed in touch.

Starting in the 1990s, Chastain had been picked up for theft and car prowls, speed racing and endangering others, court records show.

In 2007 he was arrested for delivery of marijuana and endangering a child. In 2008, five weeks after pleading guilty, his decision to store 11 pounds of marijuana at the house of his mother, a foster parent of two for DHS, led to her arrest. He eventually was sentenced to more than five years in prison.

In 2007, Sichley had her own problems - losing custody of her two daughters, then roughly 5 and 9 years old, according to her testimony at Chastain's trial in March. Until 2008, they were removed from Sichley's home and placed with her brother, who became their foster parent.

Hired to oversee other parents

Sichley later studied criminal justice at Portland State University. According to the PSU website, Sichley participated in research on police officer stress.

Chastain, meanwhile, got out of prison in 2014, went to Project Clean Slate to expunge his driving record and get a new driver's license.

He became romantic with Sichley and moved in - despite the fact that under the conditions of his parole, he was supposed to be staying with his mother. In 2015, he founded a towing company that he began operating out of Sichley's home.

That year, in June 2015, Sichley got a job with DHS, the same agency that had taken away her children. Now, she would be put in the job of determining when the state could take away other people's kids.

How was this possible? Though she failed an initial background check, she appealed, and an administrative law decision overturned the denial, DHS spokesman Gene Evans said.

Even after going to work for the state, Sichley routinely lied to Chastain's parole officer, she testified at Chastain's trial on March 14.

"I was dishonest with his P.O.," she testified. "I told his P.O. he was staying with his mom when he wasn't - he was staying with me."

Starting in May 2016, Chastain began failing other conditions of his parole, skipping his required drug tests and mental health counseling at Lifeworks Northwest. He admitted that he was using meth and marijuana again.

Because of her job, Sichley is a mandatory child abuse reporter. So in August, when she mentioned to a coworker that her boyfriend was using meth again, it amounted to her self-reporting a dangerous situation involving her own household.

Then things got worse.

Last Sept. 13, Sichley and Chastain got into an argument. Her daughter later told police it was about money, but Sichley said she was unhappy because Chastain was on meth again, and she wanted him to leave.

For whatever reason, she brandished a steak knife at him, then put it down. He punched her in the face, knocking her down, then straddled Sichley as she lay on the floor, punching her in the face, the daughter said.

Sichley's daughter told police Chastain then knocked Sichley's head into a bathroom door jamb so that she hung unconscious with her hair tangled in the hinge.

Hower, the incident went unreported until Oct. 4, 2016, when someone saw a description posted on Instagram by Sichley's 19-year-old daughter based on what she'd heard from her younger sister.

Police and the DHS launched an investigation that led Sichley, at her employer's urging, to file a restraining order accusing Chastain of abuse.

According to court records, the youngest daughter also told police "she has personally observed and or heard the defendant assault her mother at least 10 times in the last year."

Sichley's DHS work made her two daughters reluctant to report Chastain, they told police - they feared their mom would be fired from a job she'd worked so hard to get.

Recanting earlier comments

But by the time of the trial, Sichley and her now-15-year-old both had problems remembering what they previously said. They recanted, and Multnomah County Senior Deputy District Anderson Traci Anderson attributed the change to "hundreds" of calls that Chastain and his fellow inmates made to Sichley from jail despite a "no contact" order issued by the court.

Anderson even played a tape of one of them in which Chastain suggested he never hit Sichley at all - she merely passed out from drinking.

Sichley was defiant on the stand, saying that the jail calls from Chastain and inmates using names like "Loki" did not affect her testimony.

However, she admitted on the stand that after being placed on paid leave over the DHS investigation of the Chastain case, she'd taken a second job at Lifeworks, getting promoted to being a main counselor there.

"I'm the kind of person I always have a plan B," she told the judge.

Now the state is collecting two months of back pay from that time when she was drawing two paychecks, said DHS spokesman Gene Evans. He declined to comment on whether Sichley would be prosecuted for benefits fraud.

In March, Sichley filed for bankruptcy, court records show.

On Monday, Judge Bergstrom said Sichley's current version of events is not credible. "This case is remarkable for just the ridiculous behavior by Mr. Chastain before, during and after the assault that rendered his girlfriend unconscious," Bergstrom said.

Sentencing will take place later this month, and Chastain could face a five-year mandatory minimum sentence.

Bergstrom also criticized Sichley, who was not present, saying she "put Mr. Chastain above her job, above her children."