The owner and assistant director of a Hicksville day care center where a 2-year-old toddler died in March after choking on a carrot were arrested Wednesday morning, accused of running an "illegal toddler program" that "lacked proper licensing and training," prosecutors said.
Carousel Day School owner Eugene Formica, 64, and assistant director Kathryn Cordaro, 51, both of Hicksville, were each charged with felony reckless assault of a child by a day care provider. They also were charged with three misdemeanors - second-degree reckless endangerment, misrepresentation by a child care provider, and a violation of Social Services Law, prosecutors said.
The school has been charged, as well, making it subject to fines, Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice said.
"This owner and assistant director knew the rules and they ignored them," Rice said. "And because of that a 2-year-old girl is dead."
The charges stem from an investigation following the death of toddler Olivia Raspanti, 2, at Carousel on March 17.
Olivia died after choking on a carrot, which she had removed from a teacher's pocketbook, authorities said.
Attorney Marc Gann of Carle Place, who represents Formica, told Newsday: "This school and its principals grieve with this family that this child was lost. But to find them criminally responsible for her death doesn't seem to fit with the facts."
Gann later released a statement, saying the district attorney's actions did not "provide justice for what has transpired."
"This tragic accident is not a reflection on either Gene Formica or the Carousel Day School," Gann said in the statement. "The charges against Mr. Formica are nothing short of grandstanding by individuals in the district attorney's office. Neither Mr. Formica nor Kathy Cordaro were in the room at the time of this tragedy or were in any way responsible for it."
Attorney Salvatore Marinello, who represents Cordaro, said his client had nothing to do with licensing at Carousel.
"This is outrageous," he said. "What responsibility does my client have for an occurrence that she was unaware of? It's not a provable offense."
Olivia's parents, Lisa and Anthony Raspanti, released a statement through attorneys Thomas Foley of Garden City and Joseph R. Conway of Mineola.
"Although today's arrest will not bring their precious daughter Olivia back, the Raspanti family is committed to seeing that the individuals responsible for Olivia's death be brought to justice," the lawyers said in the statement. "Today is the first step in that process. The Raspanti family will continue to cooperate with the investigation and is committed to speaking out about their daughter's death in the hopes that no other family has to endure the pain and suffering that they are dealing with."
The district attorney's office launched a criminal investigation into the incident within days. Grand jury subpoenas were served on March 20 - with officials taking student records, a copy of the school charter and licensing records at Carousel, as well as the Maplewood School in Wantagh, which was partially owned by Formica and his wife, Jane.
Attorney Robert McDonald of Mineola, an associate of Gann in representing the Formicas, said in the wake of those subpoenas that Carousel was a well-run school and the lack of proper licenses was "through inadvertence, not through malfeasance."
Officials said that, in pursuing the assault charges against Formica and Cordaro, a seldom-used law instituted following the deaths of infants in Albany and Florida day care facilities was used. It's called "Jeremy and Julia's Law," named after the children who died in the 1998 tragedies while being cared for by day care providers.
Formic and Cordaro were arrested Wednesday morning at Carousel by detectives. They are scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in First District Court, Hempstead.
Prosecutors Wednesday provided details of what happened at the school before Olivia's death.
Rice said that once Olivia was discovered by a teacher's aide as she choked on the carrot the teacher performed the Heimlich maneuver and used "finger sweeps" of the child's mouth in an attempt to clear her airway.
An aide told Cordaro, who went to the classroom and determined that Olivia was breathing, Rice said.
Cordaro left the classroom, went to the front desk and directed an employee to call 911 and tell authorities that the child was breathing and not to use lights and sirens when they came to the school, prosecutor Anne Donnelly said at the news conference.
Prosecutors assert that the ambulance crew arrived to find that Olivia was not breathing and was "blue."
Prosecutors also said that Olivia's mother, who worked as an aide in "an adjacent room of the facility," was "not notified of the medical emergency" until Olivia was already en route to Nassau University Medical Center, where she later died.
Site visits conducted as part of the investigation launched in the days after Olivia's death determined Carousel was "operating an illegal, unlicensed toddler program" for children age 3 years old and younger, Rice said.
State law requires any person or facility caring for more than six children under age 3 for more than three hours per day to be a licensed day care provider. And Rice said investigators confirmed that between 2006 and 2009 Carousel's "illegal" program cared for some toddlers as young as 18 months old.
Rice said that even following Olivia's death Carousel "continued to illegally provide care to children" under age 3 - and that Formica "refused to sign" a cease-and-desist order issued by Child and Family Services representatives one day after the incident.
Additionally, Rice said, six of the 10 bus drivers used by the school, which operated its own bus fleet, were not licensed to drive school buses. And Rice said parents were offered "reduced tuition" in exchange for driving buses for the company.
"Accidents happen at even the safest and most-professional facilities," Rice said in the news release. "But when you're running a facility that is dodging state safety oversight, employing aides without any experience or training and using unqualified bus drivers, the chances an accident will happen go through the roof."
The school remained open Wednesday.
Picking up his 3-year-old daughter at the school, a Westbury resident who declined to be identified defended the school and assistant director, saying she is "the life of the school."
The father, whose daughter has been going to the school part-time for a year, said the fact that they ran an unlicensed toddler program, which his daughter was in, was a shock and of concern.