Foster Parents Face Sentencing in Boy’s Death

Julio Gonzalez died when he was only 19 months old.

What killed him were fractured bones, a bruised skull and apparent neglect. His untimely death came four days after last Christmas.

Julio’s Glendale foster parents, who agreed to a plea bargain with prosecutors last month, will be sentenced Friday for his death. Fernando Paz, 34, pleaded guilty to one count of child abuse in exchange for a six-year sentence in state prison. Maria Del Carmen Elizabeth Paz, 29, pleaded no contest to one count of child abuse in return for time already served in jail and about five years’ probation.

The couple entered their pleas last month during a brief hearing at Superior Court in Pasadena. They had originally been charged with four felony counts--second-degree murder, child abuse, assault on a child causing death and corporal injury to a child--and had pleaded not guilty in April.

“I don’t think they are guilty,” said H. Russell Halpern, the couple’s attorney, who said his clients entered the plea agreement because “taking the case to trial is a gamble, a gamble that means they could’ve spent the rest of their lives in prison.”

“The [infant’s] fractured arm was from a time before he was in the custody of the Pazes,” Halpern said. He explained the bruises on the child’s body and the head trauma as the unfortunate results of the father’s attempt to revive the boy after he stopped breathing because of food lodged in his throat.

Julio was in the Pazes’ custody about five months before he died; his twin brother and the Pazes’ two biological children were placed in foster care after the boy’s death. The other children displayed no signs of physical abuse, prosecutors said.

The prosecutors, in earlier hearings, cited a coroner’s report that identified three healing fractures in Julio’s arms, the oldest dating from about two months before his death. Medical personnel whom the couple called to their home told prosecutors that they alerted police to “suspicious” bruises on the boy’s body.

Fernando Paz, who worked as an emergency room clerk, said he had tried to perform the Heimlich maneuver and cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Julio before calling 911 and that the lifesaving maneuvers led to the youngster’s bruises.

Dr. Susan Selser, a deputy county medical examiner who performed the autopsy, told prosecutors that Julio’s bruised body and injuries to his head, eyes, lips, face, back and abdomen were consistent with “shaken baby syndrome,” not an attempt to restore his breathing.

The twins were born prematurely and given up for adoption by their biological parents.

Julio’s death prompted a review by the county Department of Children and Family Services. Concern about the size, and therefore the stress, of foster families prompted the agency to consider reducing the allowable number of children in a foster home from six to four. But the policy change has not been made.

“The foster agency went over this case with a fine-toothed comb and, to be honest, they felt they couldn’t predict this situation would happen,” said Amaryllis Watkins, the children’s department’s acting director of resources, who oversees foster care services.

“The couple had excellent training, and a social worker visited their house twice a week,” she said.