MIDLAND, Texas — Five staff members at Midland Christian were all arrested and charged with Failure To Report With Intent To Conceal Neglect Or Abuse which is a felony. Shortly after four administrators at Trinity were charged with the same thing.
So what's next?
"Any Felony Offense Texas Law says that we have to present that evidence to a grand jury and actually convince them to indict a person before we can go further in the case and dispose of the case or have a trial," said Tim Flathers, 1st Assistant District Attorney for Midland County.
A grand jury is made up of citizens from the community.
"[They] listen to accusations and consider evidence and they decide if prosecution and the state of Texas have enough evidence to go forward on the case or not, whether or not there's probable cause that a person committed a crime," said Flathers.
The grand jury must decide if there is enough evidence before a person can be indicted or tried.
"None of that can really start until the grand jury has returned an indictment on that particular case," said Flathers.
When it comes to presenting the evidence, the prosecution has to get information from police, and make a case, which can take some time.
"It just depends really on whatever law enforcement agency it is to bring us enough evidence for us to let the grand jury know what the case is about and what evidence we have and that's really the determining factor in how long it takes to get that in front of them," said Flathers.
These grand jury trials are also not public.
"It's not supposed to be a public process, because there are many allegations that come through the grand jury that could be very embarrassing to people and if a grand jury decides there's not enough evidence to go forward then there isn't really a charge at that point," said Flathers.
At this time there is no word on when the Trinity or the Midland Christian administrators will be seen by a grand jury.