By Alex Ginsberg
As Silva and Joseph Swinton await sentencing next week for nearly starving their 16-month-old girl to death, a Brooklyn minister who has served as the Queens Village couple's spiritual adviser criticized the verdict and said the judge in the case should show leniency.
“I think it was one of the great miscarriages of justice,” the Rev. Herbert Daughtry said of the April 7 conviction for assault, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child. “By all means, I want to plead for the minimum – whatever the judge can do.”
Judge Richard Buchter can send the Swintons to prison for as many as 25 years or as few as five when they are sentenced in State Supreme Court in Kew Gardens May 19, according to the Queens district attorney's office.
The Swintons, both 32, were arrested in March 2002, six months after an anonymous call to the Administration for Children's Services brought authorities to the couple's home. Their daughter Ice was taken to Schneider Children's Hospital, where she was found to be suffering from severe malnutrition.
During the trial, which took place in March and April, doctors testified that the 10-pound child had severely demineralized bones and legs that were bowed by rickets, a vitamin deficiency.
Daughtry, who is pastor at the House of the Lord Church in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, was introduced to the Swintons by a cousin shortly after their arrest. Since then, the Pentecostal minister has been in frequent contact with Silva Swinton, who he said attended services several times at the church. Daughtry was present during most of the two-week trial, and when he was not, representatives of his church took his place.
The minister said discussions with the Swintons had led him to question the jury's finding that the couple was fully aware of the damage they were doing.
“I think that there was no intent on their part to do their children harm,” Daughtry said. “They became vegetarians, and they were trying to find a diet that would help their children. Different people told them different things. They were trying to experiment, to find what would work for their baby.”
The minister, who is himself a vegetarian, said experimentation was a key part of trying any new diet. He also said the Swintons had been the victims of a general prejudice against vegetarians – a prejudice he himself had experienced when he gave up meat more than 20 years ago.
“When I finally made the decision to be a vegetarian, people warned me not to do this, some shunned me, some offered all kinds of advice, like 'Get your proteins,' 'Eat this, don't eat that,'” he recalled.
Daughtry was disappointed that he was not called as a character witness during the trial and said he hoped to be given the opportunity to speak at the sentencing hearing.
That, however, is an unlikely possibility. A spokesman for the district attorney's office said that under most circumstances, no parties other than the defendants and the victims' families speak at sentencing hearings.
Nevertheless, Daughtry was determined to at least make his point that the couple's conviction – and by extension a heavy sentence – sets a dangerous precedent that could constrain parents' ability to raise their children according to different beliefs.
“They tried different things,” he said, conceding that they missed clear signs that their daughter was sick. “If they didn't see that, should they be convicted of a felony? And what about other parents who have tried programs with their kids who didn't work?”
Reach reporter Alex Ginsberg by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 157.
