HUNTINGTON BEACH : Daughter Charged With Elder Abuse

The daughter of a 68-year-old Huntington Beach man who died after months of neglect will face criminal elder abuse charges even though she was not her father’s primary caretaker, prosecutors said Thursday.

The Orange County district attorney’s office decided to prosecute Susan Valerie Heitzman in connection with Robert Heitzman’s 1990 death after winning an appellate court decision allowing them to take the action.

Robert Heitzman died of septic poisoning at home after neglect that officials said lasted months. Sons Jerry and Richard, who lived with their father, were sentenced this year to four-year prison terms, both for involuntary manslaughter and elder abuse.

Before the brothers were tried, a Superior Court judge said the section of the elder abuse statute governing responsibilities of children who are not their parents’ caretakers was too vague to apply to Susan Heitzman.

But the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that Susan Heitzman “owed her father at least the minimal duty of care to avoid gross negligence.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Molko, who prosecuted the case, said he was “glad to be back in the trial court with an opportunity to show that Ms. Heitzman is accountable for the death of her father.”

Conviction for elder abuse, a felony, carries a maximum prison term of four years and a $10,000 fine, Molko said.

Susan Heitzman’s attorney, Richard L. Schwartzberg, called the ruling “shocking, because it creates a whole new relationship between children and their parents.”