(Editor’s note: This story contains allegations of sexual abuse of children. If you suspect that a child has been abused, call 800-652-1999 or report online.)
Another former employee of the state-run Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Center in Kearney was arrested on the most serious charges yet in a snowballing scandal that has so far involved four arrests, an ongoing independent investigation, the firing of a top administrator and now, a jail sentence.
On Thursday, the first former YRTC employee was sentenced to jail time, receiving a two-year jail sentence from a Buffalo County judge who imposed a harsher penalty than prosecutors asked for. The judge also chided the former employee for initially blaming the victim and downplaying her own responsibility for her sexual abuse.
That employee, 29-year-old Martha Ruiz Palacios, was sentenced on two charges that pale in comparison to what authorities are alleging against Jessica Camacho. Camacho is the most recent former employee arrested on alleged sexual crimes against minors at the state-run center that’s one of the last resorts for teen boys in the justice system.
Camacho, 37, was arrested June 18 on six felony charges ranging from first- and second-degree sexual abuse of a protected individual to intentional child abuse.
She’s accused of subjecting a teenage boy to sexual penetration and sexual contact starting in October 2023, when he was 16 years old. She’s also accused of putting him and another teenager in a position to be sexually exploited and faces two charges of possessing child sexual abuse material.
The affidavit in support of her arrest is sealed. But last year, Camacho was accused of sending explicit text messages and videos to a Douglas County teen in custody at the Kearney center, who appears — based on initials and birthdate — to be a now-18-year-old victim associated with some of her criminal charges.
YRTC staff knew of these allegations in spring 2025, according to court documents. But they failed to share details of the alleged abuse with probation officials, lawyers or the judge in the boy’s juvenile court case for half a year.
Douglas County Juvenile Court Judge Amy Schuchman then held hearings in which she and others questioned YRTC leadership. According to those hearings and court documents:
In March 2025, a cellphone containing nude photos and videos of youth at the YRTC was found in a facility living unit. The phone included “nude content received from two adult females,” including a YRTC staff member.
A document filed in court, written by a YRTC supervisor to Camacho, detailed allegations, including descriptions of videos and explicit text messages.
“The staff member refers to the youth as ‘my future hubby’ and questions whether he will live with her after his discharge from the YRTC,” reads Schuchman’s order to move the youth to an Omaha facility. In a hearing, the “my future hubby” message was connected to Camacho.
“This Court is disgusted and disturbed as to the lack of transparency in this matter and cannot say that continued commitment to the YRTC at this time would be in (the boy)’s best interests,” Schuchman wrote.
YRTC staff found escape plans on the phone and turned the phone over to the Nebraska State Patrol, according to testimony from the former head of the facility, Cindy Krolikowski. She confirmed the facility’s response was primarily concerned with those plans.
That’s also reflected in how staff treated the teen, according to his family’s lawyer.
The boy was isolated in a secure unit for six months, essentially kept in solitary confinement and allowed to leave under guard to participate in programming, because of the escape plans and contraband phone, according to Keith Dornan, a lawyer hired by the boy’s family. He wasn’t released from isolation until the judge ordered him to Omaha in September, Dornan said. During that half year in isolation, he was not provided any therapy addressing the abuse.
“He was punished for being groomed, and the sexual abuse was hidden from his family, from his attorney, from the judge overseeing his case,” Dornan said.
Camacho resigned after the phone was found, according to testimony. Three of her charges carry up to 20 years in prison.
The other former employees arrested thus far were each initially accused of one count of second-degree sexual abuse of a protected person.
Katrina Fewkes, 44, pleaded not guilty in May. Tarah Ross, 23, has an arraignment scheduled for July.
Ruiz Palacios was sentenced Thursday after being accused of subjecting a 15-year-old to sexual contact between July 31 and Aug. 2 last year. As part of a plea agreement, she pleaded no contest to third-degree sexual assault and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, both misdemeanors.
In a victim impact statement, the teen victim in Ruiz Palacios’ case said that he no longer feels safe trusting people with how he feels and that the trauma has impacted his daily life and ability to sleep.
“How am I to know others aren’t just being nice to me to get close enough to take something from me? How am I to believe I’m safe if even in a ‘controlled’ environment I still got abused?” he wrote.
Buffalo County District Court Judge Kane M. Ramsey sentenced Ruiz Palacios to one year in jail for each charge, to be served one after the other — despite the prosecutor recommending that any jail time be served at the same time. She must also register as a sex offender.
Ruiz Palacios, the mother of two young children, said at her sentencing that she took “full responsibility.”
“I knew better, and I know better,” Ruiz Palacios said. She would serve whatever sentence deemed appropriate, she said, but wanted to be there for her kids as much as possible: “I’m all they have,” she said. “They’re all I have.”
Her lawyer advocated for a period of probation, citing a lack of criminal history, a low likelihood to reoffend, mental health diagnoses, her own history of being sexually abused as a child and her responsibilities as the sole caregiver to a 10- and a 6-year-old. An evaluation found she would be a good candidate to be treated in the community, he said, and she has been attending counseling.
“I know Martha … She’s a good person. She is. She made a terrible mistake in this instance, and I know that she wishes she could take it back more than anything in the world, but she can’t,” said her lawyer, Brian Copley.
But an evaluation in the pre-sentencing investigation gave the judge a different impression of Ruiz Palacios’ sense of responsibility. The evaluation concluded that she believed the allegations were exaggerated and no one had been hurt by what happened. She felt victimized by the charges and she believed the victim was responsible for her behavior “because he was so curious about sex.”
“You, through your employment at the Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Center, were placed in a position of trust,” Ramsey said in court. “The juveniles who are placed at the YRTC are there with the purpose of being rehabilitated … to be productive and responsible once they are reintroduced into their communities … They are not there to be victims of a sexual assault.”
Ruiz Palacios was booked into Buffalo County Jail after the hearing.
The four staff members arrested don’t account for all names that have come up in court or in interviews with the Flatwater Free Press. Douglas County Public Defender Tom Riley has said his office knows of six employees who were possibly involved in inappropriate contact with teens at the center.
A heavily redacted report that Flatwater obtained last year from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services included a list of 10 teens who had raised allegations between March and October 2025, according to a spokesperson.
In that same report, officials determined there were no systemic issues at YRTC-Kearney. But the department went on to fire Krolikowski, the facility’s top administrator, this March. DHHS also reconfigured its leadership so there’s now an administrator whose sole focus is the state’s system of youth rehabilitation and treatment centers. The department also made changes such as more unscheduled checks, more closely monitoring video surveillance and additional training, according to previous information from a spokesperson.
A DHHS spokesperson did not say whether there had been any recent additional suspensions or terminations, nor if there had been any new changes to department practices or policies, instead directing a reporter to the process for requesting public records.
The inspector general of Nebraska Child Welfare, Jennifer Carter, said her office’s independent investigation is nearly complete. Under state law, such investigations can include recommendations for systemic reform.
Gov. Jim Pillen, who promised accountability when allegations came to light last fall, held the same line in reaction to the latest charges.
“Sexual victimization of a child is abhorrent,” he said in a statement. “If these allegations are found to be true, the individual needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Period.”
The recent changes have “allowed for tighter supervision and management of the YRTCs and have been very positive,” he added.
1 Comment
This is a quality article. It sticks to the facts and provides the reader with some essential updates on the situation at YRTC. Anecdotal stories and unsubstantiated allegations are kept to a minimum. I appreciate that your coverage even mentions some explicit details of the court proceedings, such as the discrepancy between the way the defendant presented herself and what the pre-sentence investigation indicated about her views. PSIs are typically not available to the public, so your catching this detail from the proceedings is likely the only insight the public will get from that confidential document. It reflects highly on your work to see such intricate details covered in an article like this.
Please keep writing great articles like this one, which are focused on objective facts and intended to hold the government accountable to the citizens. I hope that all future Flatwater articles could be as good as this one.