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Lawyer For Indian Nanny Convicted In Death Of A Baby Vows To Have Her Declared Innocent

Sonia Chopra

A lawyer for an Indian day-care operator found guilty in the shaking death of a 13-month-old boy announced on Tuesday that he will file an appeal and vowed to win the case and have his client declared innocent.

"We are upset, shocked and very disappointed with the verdict. In the face of overwhelming evidence of innocence, the jury voted otherwise," said Eugene Iredale, the lawyer of 44-year-old Manjit Basuta.

"I wish I could tell you that the all-white jury was not tainted by racism but I can't. Their reaction to the dark-skinned Sikh defendant and her turban-clad family members was a giveaway," Iredale said in a telephone interview.

He recalled how Basuta put her face in her hands and cried after the jury's verdict was read out in the crowded courtroom in the presence of the friends and family of the victim and the defendant.

"Justice was served today," said Audrey Amaral, the mother of Oliver Smith -- who died while in Basuta's care in March last year -- in a statement outside the courtroom. Amaral said she hoped the verdict would prompt stricter regulations for daycare centers, which should include additional training for caregivers.

Basuta, who has British citizenship, faces 25 years to life in prison when she is sentenced July 13. She was taken into custody after the verdict was announced. She had been free on bail during the trial.

"We intend to win and seek exoneration," said Iredale, who also added that a number of legal reasons prohibited them from showing evidence that could have proved their case.

"The baby was too big to be shaken. He weighed 36 pounds and was 29 1/2 inches tall,'' said Iredale, who also said the toddler's father had made accusations of abuse about the mother, which were considered inadmissible in court.

Basuta, who had been a day-care operation out of her home in Carmel Valley for several years had been reported for prior abuse to children, had been investigated but nothing had ever been proved, according to Greg Walden, assistant chief of the family protection unit

Walden, one of the officials in charge of the several months long investigation with ten people working on it, said "the case was a terrible tragedy." He had seen the body of the toddler, "who had turned blue because he had stopped breathing and there were no external injuries. He looked like he was sleeping."

"These kind of cases are extremely hard to prove, especially since there was no prior pattern of abuse. It was a serious accident that happened once," said Walden, who added that initially everyone believed Basuta.

Until the autopsy results came in. "The blood clot in the report was consistent with the shaken baby syndrome." Walden said, adding that the jury took seven hours to reach the verdict.

The prosecution's strongest witness was Cristina Carrillo, Basuta's Guatemalan housekeeper who was living in the United States illegally and was the only other adult witness when the toddler was shaken, Walden said.

"But it was difficult because she kept giving several conflicting stories," said Walden, who believes Basuta's lawyer will lose the appeal.

According to Carrillo's testimony, Basuta shook and slammed the child's head on the floor; angry because he wouldn't stop watching television when she wanted to change his diaper.

Initially, Carrillo had lied about what she witnessed because she said Basuta threatened to have her deported if she did not offer Bastua's version of the tragedy. She also said she was ordered to tell police that the toddler fell on a brick patio while playing with other children.

The toddler, who died on March 17, 1998 after being in the hospital for one day, had been in Basuta's care for five weeks. An autopsy revealed that he had a blood clot beneath his skull and massive swelling of the brain because of bleeding.

Walden said the mother of the toddler, a bank teller, usually left the child in Basuta's care for eight hours a day and that there were seven or eight children at any time and had been on that day as well.

In Basuta's defense, her lawyer had claimed that she only shook the child after he collapsed and was unconscious and that the toddler had died of a previous head injury.

But Daniel Goldstein, the prosecutor, disagreed. "The medical evidence was compelling. The jury did not find it a complex case. We are happy and gratified with the verdict."

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