Deportation hearing for social worker next week

Julius Juma Murray, a privately employed social worker charged with eight others in the starvation death of Danieal Kelly, won't face a deportation hearing in Philadelphia until next week.

Murray, 51, of Upper Darby, is being held at a detention center in Lackawanna County on charges that he lied on papers for U.S. citizenship. Immigration agents must first transport him to Philadelphia before he can appear in federal court as early as Monday, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Kelly, a 14-year-old cerebral palsy patient, weighed 42 pounds when she died at home in West Philadelphia on Aug. 4, 2006. Murray, one of her caseworkers, provided so little care that he was almost a "ghost employee," according to a grand-jury report.

Murray entered the United States in 1992 from Sierra Leone on a visitor's visa, according to court documents. He left the United States briefly, then returned in 1997 after obtaining permanent resident status for this country while in Sierra Leone, according to U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman Patty Hartman. Authorities have charged Murray with lying on a form that was part of the immigration application process in August 1996, Hartman said.

- Bonnie L. Cook