Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

The Texas Youth Commission's chief internal investigator was suspended Friday over allegations that he removed damaging information from a report on sexual abuse at a West Texas juvenile prison.

Ray Worsham, director of youth care investigations for the agency, was suspended with pay, said Jay Kimbrough, special master overseeing an investigation of TYC.

Mr. Worsham, who could not be reached for comment Friday, is the third high-ranking official swept from the agency by the aftermath of a sexual abuse scandal. Executive director Dwight Harris abruptly retired last month, and board chairman Pete Alfaro resigned.

In a day of rapid developments, Bexar County authorities arrested a TYC halfway house administrator on allegations of tampering with evidence. The Texas attorney general's office said it will appear before a grand jury examining the West Texas sexual abuse allegations. And a San Antonio attorney for a teen assaulted by other inmates in a juvenile prison called for the FBI or another federal agency to get involved.

Randal Chance, a retired TYC inspector general who once worked for Mr. Worsham, defended his former boss on Friday, saying he believes Mr. Worsham was "pretty honest."

"It seemed like he was trying to help, although he couldn't do much because of other people above him," Mr. Chance said.

The allegations surrounding Mr. Worsham's suspension could have criminal implications. The Travis County district attorney's office said last week it is investigating alterations of TYC documents on sexual abuse.

At issue is the Summary Report for Administrative Review, a 14-page internal examination of the agency's handling of two West Texas State School administrators accused of sexually molesting young male inmates.

The 2005 review found that agency officials ignored repeated complaints about suspicious behavior by the two men and that employees who reported them were "rebuked."

The review was not released publicly. But in February, The Dallas Morning News published a story detailing the West Texas sexual abuse and the review's findings.

Copies of the review originally released to news organizations and legislators did not contain one crucial passage. In that missing portion, a security coordinator told an inspector general sent to West Texas of numerous rumors of sexual abuse of inmates.

The coordinator, Melody Vidaurri, also told the inspector general of a "list which students were compiling about sexual abuse," the missing portion said.

But the inspector general, Lydia Barnard, told Ms. Vidaurri that "these investigations had already been investigated and there was nothing to it," the review said.

Not satisfied, Ms. Vidaurri took her concerns – and information from interviews with staff and students – to higher-ranking TYC officials. Among those officials, the missing portion said: Mr. Worsham.

TYC officials took no actions on the suspicions until a Texas Ranger sergeant conducted a criminal investigation. He found evidence that the prison's assistant superintendent and principal had repeated sexual encounters with multiple inmates, often in exchange for special favors.

Earlier this week, agency officials declined to answer questions from The News on who ordered the passage withheld, and when. Then came Mr. Worsham's suspension Friday.

"There's sufficient evidence to warrant what we've done so far," said Mr. Kimbrough, the special master Gov. Rick Perry appointed to oversee the abuse investigation. "All we can do is suspend him, pending due process."

The suspension came the same day the Texas attorney general's office announced it will appear this month before a grand jury investigating the West Texas sexual abuse allegations.

The criminal case has languished for two years but was revived last month when the attorney general's office agreed to help the Ward County district attorney. The attorney general's office was alerted to the sexual abuse case in February 2006 by the Texas Rangers, but took no action.

An assistant attorney general told the Rangers it couldn't act until asked to do so by the Ward County district attorney.

But attorney general spokesman Jerry Strickland said Friday that lawyer didn't follow agency procedures and send the report to his supervisors.

"Knowing the seriousness of the allegations contained in that e-mail, action would have been taken by the attorney general's office, and this agency would have actively engaged in the matter in any way possible," he told The Associated Press.

Also Friday, Bexar County authorities arrested a TYC halfway house administrator on suspicion of tampering with evidence, said Jim Hurley, spokesman for the agency. Sylvia Machado was suspended on Thursday after investigators received a tip that she was shredding TYC documents. She could not be located for comment.

Wednesday, a 23-year-old guard at a Coke County juvenile facility, privately operated for TYC, was fired after officials learned he was a registered sex offender.

Mr. Worsham's suspension came as special investigators continued to scour the embattled agency. Texas Rangers have gone to each TYC unit and halfway house, conducting interviews and seizing documents.

Mr. Worsham, who has worked at TYC since 1999, gave a wide-ranging interview with The News on Thursday, before his suspension. He described himself as a career child-welfare advocate and investigator and said he took a strong stance against anyone who would harm a child at TYC.

"If you're getting any confirmed abuse findings at your facility, it's too many and so you're going to have to take corrective action for each one," he said. "Unfortunately, it's not a perfect world, and we still have staff that may not always behave professionally as a result in those circumstances."

Mr. Worsham also explained how investigators search for wrongdoing – and how scandalous reports aren't always what they seem.

"We do have a lot of allegations, as you can see there, and some of them can sound pretty extreme. And then when you get out there, no, [it wasn't that way]," he said. "You've got to get out there and find the facts related to the situation because things can get very mixed up between the time something happened and then somebody reported it."

In his Thursday interview, Mr. Worsham apparently did not know his job was at risk. He told a reporter he would soon get a new boss with a law enforcement background, an idea he praised.

"The board voted to have a chief inspector general that will be a law enforcement officer, and that will take care of all this confusion about assaults and abuse," he said. "It should give the agency a better response to these kinds of cases."

Meanwhile on Friday, a San Antonio lawyer called for an independent investigation of the agency.

Civil rights lawyer James W. Myart Jr. said that while he respected the Texas Rangers' work, he believed that one state agency could not adequately investigate the other. Mr. Myart said he was sending letters to U.S. Attorney General Al Gonzales and the FBI.

Mr. Myart represents 18-year-old Erik Rodriguez, who is at the state juvenile prison in Corsicana. Four juvenile inmates gained access to his room and assaulted him in October 2006 while the two guards on duty were elsewhere. An investigation by TYC concluded that the two guards on duty failed to notice the young men making their way into Mr. Rodriguez's dorm room.

Staff writer Doug Swanson contributed to this report.