Polygraph Freed Woman From SBS Allegations
Giovannina Guardascione
NAPLES — For nearly three years, Giovaninna Guardascione has lived with the threat of three decades in state prison — and the possibility she’d die behind bars.
On Friday, the 60-year-old Naples Park woman walked out of court a free woman after a prosecutor dropped a shaken baby case against her — two weeks after she passed a lie-detector test.
“The family has been ecstatic since hearing the news,” her defense attorney, Joshua Faett, said of being notified a few days ago. “They’re thrilled. It’s been a long time and a lot of work.”
Ever since her arrest in November 2006, Guardascione has denied doing anything to the 11-month-old baby she cared for in her home. The polygraph test proved she wasn’t lying.
It also shows she told Collier sheriff’s Sgt. Scott Walters, the polygraph examiner, that she saw the baby’s mother trying to calm her crying son for five minutes that morning before kneeling down and shaking him by the shoulders, asking him to calm down.
After the woman left for work, Guardascione said, the baby stood up in a playpen, crying and falling repeatedly until it sounded like he fell hard. She said she picked him up, saw something was wrong, his eyes rolled back, and she called 911.
Last month, Guardascione told Collier Circuit Judge Frank Baker she had only accepted a plea bargain to avoid a long prison term and no one had believed her before. It was the judge who asked if she’d take a lie-detector test after the boy’s father, Tad Strycharz, told him he didn’t want an innocent woman to be sent to prison.
After she passed, the judge granted a motion by defense attorney Joshua Faett to withdraw the no-contest plea to aggravated child abuse, a first-degree felony.
She had agreed to the plea under the condition that she would face up to three years in prison, not 30, the maximum under the law.
On Friday, the judge detailed the long history of the case, saying he’d felt uncomfortable having to sentence Guardascione. He then commended Assistant State Attorney Deb Cunningham for filing a notice, dismissing the charge.
Guardascione, who is Italian and speaks broken English, looked stunned as she left with her daughter-in-law, who referred comments to Guardascione’s defense attorney.
Faett said he had to tell the family three times before the news sunk in.
“She was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Faett said, reiterating his medical expert’s opinion that such injuries could be caused at birth. “Whoever is left holding the baby at the time is charged.”
It’s uncertain whether the boy, nearly 4 years old now, suffered permanent injuries. His father cited concern over possible speech problems, but was uncertain whether they’d last.
“Our reason for (dropping charges) was that with the information that the victim’s father provided … and the new information that came to light during the re-interview of the defendant following her polygraph, we felt we could not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Cunningham said, referring to the father’s desire not to prosecute an innocent woman.
Guardascione, who operated a small, informal day care service in her home, called 911 on Nov. 6, 2006, to report the baby, who had been crying all day and week, appeared injured.
The baby was taken by medical helicopter to Lee Memorial Hospital in Fort Myers for emergency brain surgery and transferred to All Children’s Hospital in Tampa, where tests showed he had a subdural hematoma so severe it was causing part of his brain to shift to the other side. He couldn’t move his right side, the left side of his face drooped, and he needed further emergency surgery to stop the bleeding.
Doctors determined it was shaken-baby syndrome, a controversial diagnosis.
Faett hired a nationally known expert who made headlines in cases that included one in which a Boston nanny serving time in prison was freed and sentenced to time served.
Source:
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/sep/04/charge-dropped-against-day-care-owner-who-passed-p/
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