Woman Out of Jail Early in Death of Baby

Three months after she began serving an 18-month sentence for the death of her infant son in a car accident, Lesia Smith-Pappas walked out of jail Friday and into the arms of her husband.

A cold drizzle fell as Smith-Pappas, who has launched a campaign to combat what she believes is an out-of-control child-welfare system, tearfully embraced her husband, Edward, outside the Sybil Brand Institution for Women.

After stopping in a Burbank processing facility to pick up a transmitter that she will wear around her ankle during the remainder of her sentence--six months of house arrest--Smith-Pappas was reunited with her three children at their home in Canyon Country.

“Maybe now we can grieve over the baby we lost because we never have had the opportunity,” said an embittered Edward Pappas, who--like his wife--believes justice was not served.

“I still don’t think I should have done any jail time whatsoever,” Smith-Pappas said from her home Friday evening.

Smith-Pappas said she will be under a complete lock-down at her home until Monday, when, she was told, a caseworker will brief her on the conditions for the remainder of her house arrest.

She said her lawyer told her that in time she will be allowed to walk her children to school and go to the grocery store or church.

She does not know when she will be allowed to drive but vowed, “As soon as I’m able to, I’m going to go get my driver’s license.”

Following the August 1995 accident and the decision by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services to place her three children in foster homes, Smith-Pappas and her husband formed PATCH-UP (Parents Alliance to Challenge Harassment of Unwarranted Petitions).

According to the couple, PATCH-UP is a support group made up of individuals who believe they have been unfairly targeted by authorities as unfit parents and serves as a form of ministry belonging to the Pentecostal congregation.

They said the organization counsels other parents on the social service system and has advocated more strenuous screening of social workers and the elimination of anonymous tips concerning alleged cases of abuse.

In response to the such contentions, Department of Children’s Services officials said they receive more criticism for moving too slowly to remove children from abusive homes than for being too quick to remove them.

Smith-Pappas’ early release Friday was based on a combination of factors, including time already served, good behavior and jail overcrowding.

On learning that she out of jail, her prosecutor Friday called it outrageous.

“What can I say?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Foltz Jr. said.

“For a woman like this to be released from jail after serving so little time just becomes a tremendous fraud on the public,” Foltz said. “Events like these take any meaning out of sentences handed down by the courts.”

Smith-Pappas was convicted of vehicular manslaughter by a jury in Van Nuys in August, a year after her 3-month-old son Alex was crushed to death in an accident in which she lost control of her car on Bouquet Canyon Road and hit another car.

At the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Smith-Pappas had never obtained a driver’s license, and that she was speeding and failed to fasten her children’s safety belts not only on the day of the accident but on two previous occasions for which she had been cited.

After the jury conviction, Judge Shari K. Silver scolded Smith-Pappas for failing to take responsibility for her actions by blaming her son’s death on the road conditions, the other driver she hit, a passerby who tried to revive her son and even paramedics and emergency room personnel.

Silver sentenced Smith-Pappas to 18 months, the maximum allowable under the law.

Edward Pappas said that after the sentencing he was told by authorities that his wife would be released from jail in mid-December with about 35% of her time served.

But the release did not come until Friday after several conflicting reports from sheriff’s deputies, said Pappas, who makes his living painting television and motion picture sets.

“I’m sure her short time served had no impact on her,” Foltz said of the mother. “The one image she’s concerned about is her own. She has been in denial and will continue to be long after this. She’s never going to accept responsibility for killing her child.”

“She was guilty of having a car wreck,” Edward Pappas said, vehemently rebutting Foltz’s characterization.

“They weren’t there to see her vomit, they weren’t there to see the nerves, they weren’t there to see the medication.”

As Smith-Pappas came up the driveway at her home she was greeted by her three children--Christina, 10, Nicholas 8, and Vincent, 6--with the youngest showing off his loose tooth.

“It feels great to be home,” Smith-Pappas said. “It’s almost as if I never left because my kids are my kids.”

“You’ve got to wear that thing?” daughter Christina asked, peering at the black object that looked like a cable TV box secured to her mother’s leg.

“Yes, I’ve got to wear that thing,” Smith-Pappas replied.

Times staff writer John M. Glionna contributed to this story.