Plea Deal Nets Probation For Daycare Workers Charged With Tot's Death

DELRAY BEACH (CBS4)-  Two Palm Beach County daycare workers have been sentenced to 10 years probation after pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter in the death of a toddler left for hours in a sweltering van.

In addition to the probation sentence, State Attorney Michael McAuliffe says Amanda Inman and Petra Rodriguez Perez must serve 200 hours of community service, participate in four speaking engagements, and are prohibited from ever working or volunteering at any school, park, or place where children congregate.

After the death of 2 year old Haile Brockington at Katie's Kids Learning Center on August 5, 2010, the Department of Children and Families found that three of the child care center's employees, including Inman and Perez, failed to follow facility owners' procedures for keeping track of the children while they were on the grounds.

In the report investigators noted that the van's driver, Amanda Inman, broke the facility's rules by completing a checklist of children who had gotten off the van while the kids were still strapped in their seats.

Once the van arrived at Katie's Kids, Perez was supposed to help the kids off the van and make sure no one was left behind, but she was busy that day and never got around to it. Instead she sent Leima Gleen, the third employee cited in the report, to perform that assignment. Gleen reportedly failed to check to make sure that the van was empty.

Investigators also found that on the day Brockington died there was only one staff person to watch over eight children which violated state law of a minimum of two employees for eight children.

The center's owners, Kathryn Muhammad and Barbara Dilthey, have shut down Katie's Kids and relinquished its license. They also agreed to pay two thousand dollars in fines for violating day care facility regulations.