Jury: Pair left kids in squalor; Montvale parents facing prison
Record, The (Hackensack, NJ)
Author: By KIBRET MARKOS, STAFF WRITER
A Montvale couple was convicted Thursday of leaving their two adopted children alone in a filthy home for nearly four hours.
Michael and Maureen Culhane were led away in handcuffs from Superior Court in Hackensack after the guilty verdicts were delivered. Both face up to 10 years in prison when they are sentenced March 12 for second-degree child endangerment.
"Don't forget us," Maureen Culhane told her husband's attorney as they were taken out of the courtroom.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Patricia Baglivi had asked Superior Court Judge Donald Venezia to revoke the Culhanes' $5,000 bail. Instead, he raised it to $25,000 for each of them.
Baglivi said she was satisfied with the verdict - which jurors reached in roughly half the time the youngsters had been left alone.
"I am hoping that this will keep the children from ever being returned to these people," she said.
Michael Culhane's attorney, Frank Lucianna, said he was surprised by the outcome.
"I thought for a moment that we had a winner. But I think the pictures were highly damaging to the defense," Lucianna said, referring to photographs that Baglivi had shown jurors of the Culhanes' messy house.
Authorities said they weren't aware of the situation until Montvale's building code official entered the 26-room home on West Grand Avenue on Oct. 18, 2002, in search of construction violations and found the 3-year-old boy and 5-year-old girl soiled and disheveled in a room reeking of urine.
Raymond Dressler, the building code official, testified last week that the children - who were adopted from Latvia in 2001 - were eating cereal with coffee creamer when he found them.
Hours later, the state Division of Youth and Family Services took custody of the two youngsters, and the house was declared uninhabitable.
Jurors saw photos of several bedrooms overflowing with household items clothes piled up on the kitchen counter hallways and staircases virtually blocked by old furniture and bathtubs filled with dirty water.
"We are not talking about the parents going next door to borrow a cup of sugar and they were gone for five minutes," Baglivi said during closing arguments Thursday morning. "They were left in this house for hours."
Defense lawyers countered that Baglivi didn't prove the Culhanes knowingly hurt the children. The house was in total disarray, they said, but the children suffered no harm other than common ear infection and diaper rash.
Maureen Culhane's attorney, Mark Musella, said during his closing remarks that Baglivi didn't present any reliable witnesses in the trial.
"Kids locked in the house - yes, this case sounds great. But where is the evidence?" he said, attacking Dressler's credibility.
Lucianna agreed. "Where in this case was it shown that the Culhanes knowingly harmed these children?" he asked jurors Thursday.
Baglivi, in turn, questioned the credibility of Maureen Culhane, saying that the woman had disregarded court rules. Culhane, 51, lost her temper several times during the 10-day trial, prompting stern warnings from Venezia.
While she was being cross-examined on the witness stand last week, Culhane got into a shouting match with Baglivi. Venezia also ejected her from the courtroom when she stood up in the middle of Baglivi's presentation and screamed, "Objection! Objection!"
"Why would you think that when she swore to tell the truth, she would really tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" Baglivi asked jurors Thursday. "Do you think that oath means anything to her?"
The Culhanes already had criminal records after being convicted of neglecting an 87-year-old woman in a Pearl River, N.Y., boarding house in 2000. Michael Culhane served six months, and his wife was ordered to fulfill 416 hours of community supervision. Both are still on probation for the offense.