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Basuta Sentenced To 25 Years in Child Murder Case

R S Shankar in San Diego

In August when the Superior Court Judge William Kennedy postponed the sentencing of Manjit Basuta for fatally shaking Christopher Evan 'Oliver' Smith, a 13-month-old boy and slamming his head on the floor, her family and supporters on both sides of the Atlantic hoped for a miracle. They hoped he would send her out on parole at a later date.

Basuta, 44, who had migrated to America from England with her husband over a decade ago, had been convicted in June under a new California law called fatal assault on a child. The penalty under that law could range from probation to a prison term of 25 years to life.

Judge Kennedy postponed the hearing, saying he was troubled by the disparity in possible punishments under the new law. He added that he believed probation was too lenient and life imprisonment too extreme. And he wanted to consult with his peers and lawyers.

But on October 1 he sentenced her to 25 years in prison. He also said he felt the death of Oliver Smith was akin to manslaughter, rather than "an intentional, malicious act" such as murder. He scolded Basuta for her refusal to accept responsibility for shaking to death the child in her care.

"She tried to blame everyone else," he said.

Following the hearing, defense lawyer Eugene Iredale said the case will definitely be appealed.

"How do you express remorse if you're innocent?" Iredale asked. "Sometimes juries make mistakes. This is one such case." The sentencing was broadcast live in England where Basuta had worked for several years as a nurse.

Basuta kept sobbing throughout the verdict. There were many moments when her sobbing swelled, as when prosecutor Dan Goldstein called her a child-killer and a liar.

Basuta wept as her own son Tiko tearfully begged for her freedom. She continued weeping while the mother of the dead boy demanded justice and told Basuta she never would forgive her.

"I ask for the maximum sentence for Manjit Basuta, the one who has denied Oliver the riches of this world," Audrey Amaral said. "Oliver will never grow and mature into the great man I knew he would become."

When several parents of children cared for at Basuta's day care center spoke glowingly of her and described her as incapable of violence, the judge disagreed.

"Though she doesn't like to hear it, there is a dark side to her," he said. He then went on to say that she had fabricated her immigration records.

Kennedy noted how authorities have proven Basuta lied in order to be granted asylum in the United States. Basuta swore under oath that she had been living in India in 1992 and 1993 and had been arrested, beaten and raped by police because of being a Sikh.

In fact, Kennedy said, officials have shown Basuta never lived in India, and was born and raised in England. During the years when she said she was being persecuted in India, she was already operating her day-care center, Kennedy said.

The judge said insights into Basuta's character were revealed in her attempt to cover up her role in the death by blaming a child, threatening her housekeeper and then trying to suggest Oliver's mother was somehow responsible.

To Basuta's husband, also known as Manjit, and hundreds of supporters including many white families in their neighborhood, the verdict was disconcerting to say the least. They had held several rallies to rouse support for her and launched a donation drive to pay for the appeal. And they had hoped that the judge would get to know of the rallies and read the testimonials by satisfied parents.

According to Kirit Joshi, an independent businessman, who rallied to the support of the Basutas, though he never knew them before the trial, the family had forfeited its house to pay the legal bills that exceeded half-a-million dollars.

Though the husband Manjit Basuta had a well-paying high-tech job, much of the savings had gone to send the three children to good schools, and part of the money was invested in the day care center run by the wife.

"Anyone who has known my mother will testify how much she cared for children, how much of patience she had for them," said one of her sons, Tiko. "When she is going to be in prison, we will also be in prisons of our own."

Basuta's neighbors and many Indian families including the worshippers at the local Sikh temple had pledged their homes to bail her out during the trial but once she was convicted, Judge Kennedy canceled the bail.

He said he considered her a "flight risk". The prosecutor had suggested that she might flee to India or England. Friends and relatives in the donation drive would not reveal how much has come in but would say that it was "not too much". The family reckons it needs more than $ 500,000 to fight an effective appeal.

"She is not Louise Woodward, She is not a teenager, and she is not white," said a family member, referring to the British nanny whose trial in the death of baby Mathew Eappen had roused great sympathy for her in England, leading to more than $300,000 in donations. Though Woodward was found guilty in the death of the toddler, a judge in Boston took into consideration the year she had spent in the jail, and released her so that she could go back to England.

Woodward, who faces a civil suit by Mathew's parents, Sunil and Deborah Eappen, is studying law at a London university.

Eugene Iredale, who defended Basuta unsuccessfully, has forcefully said race had unwittingly played a role. The jurors must have found it strange to see the men in "funny hats" (turbans) in the court day after day, he said. Besides, the dead baby was white, and the accused was a foreigner.

Iredale also slammed the local newspaper, including the San Diego Tribunal for running a story during the trial that said the Basuta's had claimed political asylum under false pretexts.

He had also sought in vain to argue in the court that the dead boy's father had accused his estranged wife, during the divorce case, of physically abusing the child. But judge Kennedy had turned down Iredale's claims, asserting that the accusation had been withdrawn later.

Last month, many of Basuta's British relatives delivered a letter to the US embassy in London professing her innocence and complaining that she did not receive a fair trial.

"We are committed to proving Mrs Basuta's innocence and further are resolved to having her back in the UK as soon as possible," the letter said.

The only eyewitness to the killing was Cristina Carillo, Basuta's housekeeper, who testified at the trial that Basuta was angry at Oliver because he kept watching television when she called for him to get a diaper change.

Carillo testified Basuta grabbed the boy by his arms and yelled, "Oliver, when I tell you that you have to come you have to come" and then shook him violently. The boy's head shook back and forth and he cried loudly as Basuta carried him across the room, she said. Basuta then pushed the boy down on the floor, striking his head, Carillo testified.

While the diaper was changed, Carillo said she noticed his head fell back, his eyes were opening and closing rapidly. Within minutes his skin turned blue.

When the boy lost consciousness, Carillo telephone for emergency help. He died the next day in the hospital. An autopsy showed he died from a blood clot beneath his skull and massive swelling of the brain.

The defense had sought to point out that in an earlier interviewer with the police Carillo had said that another child had pushed Oliver leading to the opening of an old wound. It was implicated that the wound had been caused by perhaps by Olive's mother.

But Carrillo, a Guatemalan citizen who was living in the United States illegally, said she initially told lies to the authorities at Basuta's insistence. Basuta had threatened to have her deported if she told the truth, Carillo added.

Though Basuta did not testify at her trial, but said in a tearful interview two days after her conviction that the housekeeper lied in court. She insisted that Oliver was injured when another child pushed him and he hit his head on a brick patio.

Despite the claim that Basutas had falsified their immigration records, the district attorney's office said the family members would not be deported during Manjit Basuta's imprisonment.

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Basuta Sentencing Postponed Again But Judge Refuses Fresh Trial

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