By Courtney Dentch
A Queens Village couple accused of endangering the life of their infant by keeping her on a strict vegan diet were arraigned last week in State Supreme Court in Kew Gardens on charges that they starved the 23-month-old girl.
Joseph Swinton, 31, and Silva Swinton, 31, of 221-47 Murdock Ave., pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of recklessly assaulting their daughter, Ice, putting her life in jeopardy and failing to seek medical treatment for her as she nearly starved to death.
The couple could face up to 25 years in jail if convicted. Silva was released at the arraignment before Justice Joseph Grosso, but Joseph was held on $20,000 bail and remained in prison. The Swintons were arrested in April following a five-month investigation.
“The defendants have been charged with acting with depraved indifference to human life in that they recklessly engaged in conduct which created a grave risk of death to their infant daughter and thereby caused serious physical injury to her,” said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown last month. “The case is the worst case of child neglect that I have ever seen.”
The severity of the charges seems contrary to the length of the investigation, said the couple’s lawyers. The classic example of depraved indifference is firing a gun into a crowd of people and is a crime that requires immediate action, said Don Murray, who represents Silva.
“If these are heinous criminals, why wait six months to arrest them?” said Ronna Gordon-Galchus, who represents Joseph Swinton. “If someone shot a gun into a bunch of people, you wouldn’t watch him for six months.”
The couple has not been allowed to see their daughter, who remains in foster care, but they have had telephone conversations with her, Murray said.
According to the criminal complaint, the child was born at home without medical assistance on July 31, 2000. The Swintons put their daughter on a strict vegan diet of ground nuts, fresh squeezed juices, herbal teas, beans, cod liver oil and flax seed oil. The girl was neither breast fed nor given infant formulas, the complaint said.
Veganism, a strict version of vegetarianism, does not permit a person to eat any animal or product produced by animals.
The girl was brought to Schneider Children’s Hospital, a part of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health system, in November, suffering from severe malnutrition and appearing to be a 2- to 3-month-old, Brown said. At that time the girl weighed only 10 pounds, which is about half of what a healthy 16-month-old should weigh.
The complaint described the child as having decreased fat and muscle mass, no teeth, severely demineralized bones, multiple healing fractures of the ribs, a healing fracture in the forearm, distended abdomen, low muscle tone, decreased strength, difficulty moving her arms and legs and an inability to verbalize other than through soft crying.
After her stay at Schneider Children’s Hospital, the girl was placed in foster care and has been making steady progress. But her development has been seriously impeded and she cannot walk or talk.
The girl, now 23 months old, weighed 21 pounds last month, the normal weight of a 12-month-old female baby, according to the complaint. She still faces severe developmental problems, Brown said.
The case was adjourned until September. The Swintons are due in Family Court in Jamaica on Monday June 24 for custody hearings on their daughter Ice, Gordon-Galchus said.
Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com, or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 138.
