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Thursday, October 04, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Couple faces charges in child's drowning

A Las Vegas couple whose unsupervised child drowned in a backyard pool is facing involuntary manslaughter and abuse charges -- a rare event in Clark County.

Dozens of children have drowned in backyard and apartment complex pools in the Las Vegas Valley in recent years, but none of their parents has been criminally charged.

"It's the first one I can remember in the seven years I've been in office," District Attorney Stewart Bell said of the case against Gregory S. Jones and Rovelyn Aban.

According to Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Bowman and court records, Aban's 5-year-old daughter, Ammacyn, drowned in a pool at the couple's home near Durango Drive and Alta Drive on May 13.

Bowman said witness statements gathered by Las Vegas police indicate the child told her parents she was going to go play either by or near the pool and the parents let her, even though she couldn't swim.

"They both say in their statements to police that they knew she couldn't swim," Bowman said.

It was not clear whether the couple has retained an attorney. According to a criminal complaint filed in Las Vegas Justice Court, each is charged with involuntary manslaughter and child abuse and neglect resulting in substantial bodily harm.

Jones and Aban were each issued a summons. Their arraignments are scheduled Oct. 30 in Las Vegas Justice Court.

The decision to charge the couple, however, is expected to bring criticism.

Clark County Deputy Public Defender Curtis Brown said he has concerns about what purpose a criminal prosecution of the pair would serve.

"I struggle to grasp what the objective is," Brown said. "You can look under 'a' in the dictionary in there is the word accident. You can look under 't' and there is the word tragedy. They both happen, and it doesn't always serve society to criminalize them."

In many cases where children have accidentally died when their supervision by parents could be questioned, the parents have not been charged.

County Fire Department spokesman Steve La-Sky said that in the past decade, the number of child drownings in the county has ranged from six to 13 annually. The Review-Journal could not locate a single one of those cases that resulted with a parent charged in such a fatality.

Just within the past year, the parents of two Las Vegas children who died after being accidentally left in a sweltering vehicle were not charged. In both of those cases, authorities said the parents simply forgot about their children being in the vehicles.

While the actions of those parents might have been negligent, they did not knowingly leave the children in the cars to die, prosecutors have said.

But in at least one such case, the parents were charged. In 1998, two parents were charged with second-degree murder in Las Vegas after a 7-month-old was left in a hot vehicle. Raul Rojas, 29, and Patricia Robert, 23, pleaded guilty to child abuse and neglect, and received suspended sentences in the death of Jose Robert.

They were accused of driving around the city collecting bottles and cans to recycle for money for about four hours the day the baby died. The van was not air-conditioned and had only one working window, which was open just a crack.

Authorities said they charged Rojas and Robert because the couple saw the baby each time they got in and out of the vehicle, yet they did not take the necessary steps to protect him.

Bowman said in the case of Jones and Aban, the fact that they knew the child couldn't swim and chose not to supervise her amounted to an "affirmative action" that resulted in her death.

"The standard is whether it is inadvertent neglect or intentional neglect," Bell said.

The crime of involuntary manslaughter is punishable by one to four years in prison. The child abuse and neglect charge carries with it a potential sentence of life with parole eligibility after 10 years.