New City dad Juan Rodriguez pleads guilty in twins' hot-car deaths
A Rockland County father who accidentally left his one-year-old twins in a hot car for about eight hours while he was working in the Bronx last July pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges stemming from their deaths.
Juan Rodriguez, a 39-year-old New City father, pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of second-degree reckless endangerment, misdemeanors, before Bronx Criminal Court Judge Jeffrey Rosenblueth via video.
Judge Rosenblueth sentenced the defendant to a one-year conditional discharge, which means he avoids any jail time. However, if Rodriguez gets into any legal trouble within the year, he would have to return before the judge for further action.
A sentence of conditional discharge takes into account the nature and circumstances of the offense as well as the history, character and condition of the defendant. Throughout the trial, Rodriguez showed remorse and was visibly upset, many times wiping away tears in the courtroom. His hands were always interlocked with his wife's, who said she needed him by her side to grieve together.
Rodriguez's lawyer, Joey Jackson, said Rodriguez pleaded guilty "so that he can move on with his life and get this behind him."
"Mr. Rodriguez and his family continue to heal and work toward the day where all children can be made safer in hot cars," Jackson said. "By working with KidsandCars, and by assisting other families experiencing the same terrible tragedy, he and wife, Marissa, remain dedicated to the cause of child safety. The legacy of his precious twins, Luna and Phoenix, will live on in the work they are doing to help so many others."
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He was supposed to drop his Phoenix and Luna, at a Yonkers day care the morning of July 26, 2019, but forgot. He went to work at a Veterans Affairs hospital in the Bronx shortly before 8:30 a.m. and returned to his car around 4 p.m. to find his children dead.
According to the investigation, the temperature inside the vehicle where the twins were left in reached up to more than 100 degrees. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said the twins died of hyperthermia. Their body temperatures were recorded at 108 degrees.
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark called the incident a "tragedy."
“The children were strapped in their car seats throughout the hot summer day, with no windows open. These babies suffered horribly and we owed them a thorough investigation," Clark said in a statement. "This was a tragic, unfortunate incident. I hope that as the sweltering weather is upon us, caregivers will be extra vigilant about children in vehicles.”
However, Rodriguez should have never been charged at all, said Janette Fennell, president and founder of KidsAndCars.org, a nonprofit that has long advocated for legislation that would detect and alert drivers if someone has been left along in a vehicle.
“There is no way on the face of this earth that he had any intention, any knowledge, any idea that those babies were in the back seat,” Fennell said. She pointed out that there are five other recent instances of hot-car fatalities of children in New York, and none of the adults involved in those incidents faced charges. “He’s a fantastic father, and it’s extremely upsetting to me that they just did not drop all charges.”
On Tuesday morning, hours before Rodriguez’ plea, members of Congress pledged to advance a bundle legislation known as HR 2, The Moving Forward Act, that would require detection and alert technology in all new cars.
“So if there was someone left behind in a vehicle, the driver would be alerted,” Fennell said. “There absolutely, positively should have been technology in the vehicle Mr. Rodriguez was driving."
Twitter: @ChrisEberhart2