SAN JOSE — The mother-daughter operators of a San Jose daycare center where two toddlers drowned in a swimming pool in 2023 were held to answer to charges of child endangerment by a judge following a preliminary hearing this week.
The ruling, which means that there is sufficient evidence for the case to proceed to trial, was passed down by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Ronald Toff, following a three-day preliminary hearing that concluded Thursday.
Shahin Gheblehshenas, 66, and Nina Fathizadeh, 42, who ran home-based Happy Happy Daycare in the Almaden neighborhood, each face three counts of felony child endangerment — one count for each of the two toddlers who died, and another for a third child who survived after also going into the pool. Prosecutors allege negligence by the pair that resulted in the children being near a pool unsupervised on Oct. 2, 2023.
The allegations include that Fathizadeh did not ensure that the pool’s safety gate was closed before letting the children into the backyard, leading to the deaths of 16-month-old Lilian Hanan, of San Jose, and 18-month-old Payton Cobb, of Hollister.
Fathizadeh also faces seven misdemeanor counts of child endangerment for a separate incident in which she allegedly transported seven children in a vehicle without proper child restraints.
“What is clear after the preliminary hearing is that this is a tragedy all the way around,” said Carlos Vega, a defense attorney for Gheblehshenas and Fathizadeh. “Our hearts go out to the families.”
A spokesperson for the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office was not immediately available for comment.
Investigators from the San Jose Police Department and the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office found that there should have been two employees watching the children the day of the drownings, but one called out sick. Gheblehshenas was also not at the daycare because she had a medical appointment, investigators said, and Fathizadeh had expressed concerns to her mother that she would not be able to sufficiently watch the children.
Prosecutors also alleged that Gheblehshenas did not return to the daycare after finding out her appointment was the next week; instead, she went to a separate unlicensed daycare operated by the family.
The five-foot-tall fence that surrounded the pool was found propped open on the day of the drownings. Prosecutors allege that both defendants knew that Gheblehshenas’ husband would sometimes open the pool gate to water plants and forget to close it.
Prosecutors further alleged that Fathizadeh could see the open pool gate when she let the two girls and one boy in her care into the backyard but did not close it before going into the kitchen, which was out of the view of the children, for at least five minutes.
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Fathizadeh woke up her brother, who was asleep in the house, before attending to the girls, who were found floating in the deep end of the pool, investigators said. Despite attempts of CPR, both girls were pronounced dead at the hospital.
The parents of the two toddlers who drowned filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Gheblehshenas and Fathizadeh last month alleging that it was the pair’s negligence that led to children being left unsupervised by the swimming pool.
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