Seat Belt Use at Issue in Trial

Lesia Smith Pappas sat solemnly in a Van Nuys courtroom Friday as prosecutors called first her daughter and then her son to the witness stand to testify about the accident that killed their baby brother.

For the 33-year-old mother, watching her own children testify against her in her vehicular manslaughter trial was just the latest chapter in a tragedy that began 11 months ago when she lost control of the family van near Canyon Country while driving the youngsters to school.

Since then, she has seen her three remaining children placed temporarily in foster homes, and has faced criminal charges that could send her to state prison for at least six years.

Pappas is on trial, prosecutors say, because none of her children were wearing seat belts when her van flew out of control on Bouquet Canyon Road while going an estimated 65 to 70 mph.

“We’re saying that she’s a bad mother,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert B. Foltz Jr., said in an interview. “She never cared about her kids enough to strap them in.”

Defense lawyers argue that Pappas has suffered enough. “Hasn’t she already been punished as much as a mother can be?” asked attorney Dale K. Galipo.

Prosecutors acknowledge that they rarely file charges against parents whose children are killed in crashes that don’t involve alcohol or drug use.

But they allege that Pappas was criminally negligent for speeding and failing to buckle up her children. And, they point to three previous citations she received for failing to restrain her children with seat belts.

Foltz also alleges that the details of the crash--the 4,000-pound van became airborne and sailed over a 15-foot oleander bush on the opposite side of the road--are evidence that the mother was negligent and endangered her children.

But Galipo claims that loose gravel on the shoulder of the road caused the accident. “It could have been you or me driving down that road,” he said.

Galipo said the gravel was placed along the road after complaints about dust. The gravel since has been removed, he said.

Pappas had no comment, except to say through her lawyer that Friday was “an exceptionally difficult day.”

According to testimony Friday, Pappas and her son Nicholas, then 7, flew through the windshield after the van crossed the center line, collided with another car and became airborne.

Three-month-old Alex, still in his car seat, was wedged in the van door, the twisted metal squeezing the air from his lungs until he died. Nicholas suffered severe cuts and daughter Christina, then 9, had minor cuts.

A California Highway Patrol officer questioned Pappas in a hospital emergency room as she sobbed and clutched Alex’s body moments after Alex had been pronounced dead, according to testimony. At the time, she acknowledged that she had been driving “a little too fast.”

After she was arrested and charged with vehicular manslaughter, her three other children were placed in foster homes for nine months, Pappas said during a hearing outside the jury’s presence.

On July 2, she regained custody, and the family was reunited, Pappas told San Fernando Superior Court Judge Shari K. Silver.

Although they were called as witnesses for the prosecution, the Pappas children’s loyalty clearly lay with their mother as they testified.

Both testified that they were sitting in the front passenger seat when they removed the seat belt because it was too tight. Their mother told them to refasten it, but the accident occurred before they could, the children testified.

Both testified that they watched as their mother gave up her own seat belt, using it to fasten baby Alex’s car seat to the floor behind the driver’s seat. But the prosecution contends otherwise.

When Foltz asked the children about earlier statements that seemed to contradict the story they told in court, both denied telling officers that they had been going too fast or that their seat belts were not secured.

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Safety for Young Riders

In 1994, 56 children under age 4 died in traffic accidents on California roads. In all but 17 cases, they were not strapped into a car seat at all or were riding in one that had been installed improperly.

* State law requires car seats for all children under age 4 who weigh less than 40 pounds.

* Motorists who fail to comply face a fine and court costs of $270.

* Violators in nine courts throughout Los Angeles County are required to attend a two-hour session called “Family Safety in the Car.”

* Those sighting children not properly restrained may make a report to SafetyBeltSafe U.S.A. at (310) 673-2666. The caller should note the license plate number and the make and color of the vehicle. A letter of warning from the California Highway Patrol will be issued to the owner of the car.

Source: Stephanie Tombrello, executive director of SafetyBeltSafe U.S.A.