Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Danieal Kelly's dad posts bail

The father of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly yesterday posted bail just hours after a judge denied his attorney's bail-reduction request.

The father of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly yesterday posted bail just hours after a judge denied his attorney's bail-reduction request.

Daniel Kelly, 37, who was in custody at the Philadelphia Detention Center on State Road, was expected to be released last night.

He is charged with endangering the welfare of his daughter Danieal, who died from starvation two years ago in her mother's Parkside home. The mother, Andrea Kelly, is charged with murder and is being held without bail.

Yesterday morning, Daniel Kelly's privately retained attorney, Evan S. Shingles, asked Common Pleas Judge Frank Palumbo to reduce his client's bail from $50,000 to $15,000.

Shingles argued that his client is not a flight or safety risk. He also said that his client, who was not living with his daughter at the time of her death, faces just the solo endangerment charge.

Assistant District Attorney Ed McCann, who led his office's grand-jury investigation into Danieal's death, argued against a bail reduction, noting Kelly's prior arrests on assault charges, including a 1992 conviction on aggravated assault. Kelly also has failed to appear for court hearings, he said.

McCann said after the hearing that Kelly's prior failures to appear were all in Arizona, where Kelly had previously lived. Kelly's 1992 conviction was in Sharon, Mercer County.

Judge Palumbo kept Kelly's bail at $50,000, saying there were "some flight issues here."

Kelly was not brought into court for the hearing.

About four hours after the hearing, at 2:54 p.m., despite the status quo in Kelly's bail, a woman posted the required $5,000 or 10 percent on Kelly's behalf.

Danieal, who suffered from cerebral palsy, was found starved to death Aug. 4, 2006, and lying in her own feces with maggot-infested bedsores in her mom's home.

In addition to Danieal's parents, two now-fired Department of Human Services caseworkers were charged with endangering the welfare of a child; two workers at MultiEthnic Behavioral Health were charged with involuntary manslaughter; and three of Andrea Kelly's friends were charged with perjury.

McCann said yesterday he has filed a motion to bypass a preliminary hearing, which can be done in cases that have been heard by a grand jury. If Common Pleas Judge Lillian Harris Ransom grants the motion, the case would then proceed to trial.

Shingles, who opposes the motion, said later "the benefit of a preliminary hearing is to have a judge review the evidence."

McCann said Daniel Kelly had been arrested three times on assault charges in Arizona. Two of the alleged assaults, in 1998 and 2000, involved his then-girlfriend, Kathleen John, and a third, in 1998, involved his son, Daniel. Those arrests did not result in convictions. In at least two of the cases, the alleged victim did not show up in court.

Shingles told the judge yesterday that Kelly is employed as a loan officer at Mortgage Now in Willow Grove, Montgomery County. A company vice president, who did not want to give his name, contended afterward that Kelly was laid off in July because of the "tough" housing market. *