Bucks woman charged in hot car death
Rimma Shvartsman, 46, of Northampton Township, also was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and leaving an unattended child in a motor vehicle in the death of Daniel Slutsky.
The co-owner of a Bucks County daycare center was charged with involuntary manslaughter today for the July 1 hyperthermia death of a 2-year-old boy whom she had forgotten in her van outside the center for seven hours.
Rimma Shvartsman, 46, of Northampton Township, also was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and leaving an unattended child in a motor vehicle in the death of Daniel Slutsky. She was arraigned this morning and released on $50,000 unsecured bail. No preliminary hearing date has been set.
Shvartsman, a neighbor of the boy and his family, frequently drove the child to her business, the Fairy Tales Day Care Center in Penndel, Bucks County District Attorney Michelle Henry said. After arriving at around 9:30 a.m., she inexplicably left the child buckled into a car seat in the rear of her tinted-window minivan.
The child was discovered at 4:30 p.m. when Shvartsman opened the back hatch of the vehicle. He was taken to St. Mary Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. His core body temperature was still 108 degrees 45 minutes after being removed from the van, Henry said.
The boy was found on the floor of the van, indicating that he had gotten himself out of the car seat and had attempted to get out of the van, Henry said.
"We are not charging this woman with intentionally doing this," the district attorney said. "This is a crime of negligence. She had a duty of care to this boy and his parents."
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