Deliberations resume Monday in toddler’s heat-death trial

A Bucks County jury will resume deliberations Monday in the trial of a Penndel day-care operator charged in the death of Daniel Slutsky, the toddler she forgot and left to die in her van on a stifling day last summer.

The jury of nine women and three men deliberated for 21/2 hours today before telling Senior Judge John J. Rufe they wished to break for the weekend, capping a long day marked by dramatic closing arguments from the defense and prosecution.

Defense attorney Michael M. Mustokoff portrayed Rimma Shvartsman, 47, as a careful person who accidentally harmed the boy; the prosecution depicted her as an adult who accepted the care of the child, then took unacceptable risks with his safety.

"Not every accident is a crime," said Mustokoff. "How could it be that somebody who spent their life caring for children forgets a child in a car?" He said the lapse was due to a "perfect storm," of stress, lack of sleep and an atypical routine.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Robin Twombly, though, said Shvartsman knew she was shattered by bad medical news she had just received last July 1, but despite that, offered to drive Daniel, 2, to Fairy Tales, the day-care center she ran and he attended several days a week.

"Knowing the stress she was under and that she had lack of sleep, she made the decision anyway," Twombly said.

Shvartsman is charged both with involuntary manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child. To find her guilty, the jury would have to agree that she knowingly violated her duty to watch out for the child, consciously putting him at risk when she knew what the result would be, Rufe said.

If there was a "reasonable doubt" that the child's death was a simple accident, and she didn't know she was taking a risk, she would have to be found not guilty, he told the jury.

The boy died of hyperthermia likely two hours after Shvartsman, 47, drove him in her Toyota Sienna to Fairy Tales, and then went inside, leaving the boy strapped in a booster seat in the car's 130-degree interior, a forensic pathologist. He was found in the car by Shvartsman at 5 p.m., and pronounced dead at St. Mary Medical Center.

Both sides agreed that she had just received news that her thyroid cancer, in remission, likely had returned, and she was "terrified."

The stress caused her brain to go into autopilot and to block new information, such as the fact that Daniel was riding in his booster seat behind her, and needed to be taken inside, an expert testified.

David Diamond, a behavioral neuroscientist at the University of Florida, described the case as that of "forgotten baby syndrome." It is the first one in the state, Diamond and Rufe said.

The syndrome occurs when a caregiver forgets, leaves the child in a vehicle, and the child dies, Diamond said. It is due to chemical and physiological changes in the brain triggered by stress, he testified.

"It can happen to anybody," he testified.

Gil Slutsky, 47, and Lyudmila Slutsky, 36, the child's parents, and neighbors of Shvartsman's in Northampton Township, cried during Diamond's testimony.

Both families appeared for trial wearing black to honor Daniel, who was described by his father in testimony as "smart" and "inquisitive."

"He had a deep sense of fairness," Slutsky testified. "You could negotiate with him."

If convicted of involuntary manslaughter after the four-day trial, Shvartsman faces a maximum penalty of 5 to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.

A lesser charge of leaving a child unattended in a vehicle, a summary offense, will be heard by a lower court, Rufe said.