Child-Care Operator Accused of Shaking Boy Loses Her License

A Simi Valley child-care operator who is accused of shaking a 1-year-old boy so hard that he almost died has had her license permanently revoked and is barred from ever working at or visiting any licensed child-care facility in the state.

The revocation is part of a settlement reached Wednesday between the state Department of Social Services and an attorney for Mary Margaret Major, who provided child care from her home, said Steve Semper, a lawyer for the Department of Social Services in Sacramento.

In addition to the administrative proceedings, Major also faces a criminal trial where she could be sentenced to more than a decade in prison.

The settlement was reached just days before a hearing, scheduled next week, where officials would have decided whether Major, 48, could renew her child-care license.

The settlement, however, does not include an admission of guilt. Semper said all that remains is for the settlement to be signed.

Major’s attorney, Stuart Curran, did not return repeated phone calls.

Capping a three-month investigation, Major was arrested and accused of child abuse in January. She agreed to turn herself in to the Simi Valley Police Department, which had issued a warrant for her arrest.

About 7:35 a.m. Sept. 24, the boy’s father dropped him off at Major’s house, watched him play for a few minutes, then went to work.

About 1:30 p.m., Major called 911 to report that the child had stopped breathing. Officers arrived within minutes and found the boy lying in a crib with his eyes closed and breathing with difficulty. Major told an officer that the boy had gone limp in her arms.

The boy had been injured so severely that a neurosurgeon at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, where the boy was airlifted, “likened it to that of a child who had fallen out of a second-story window and landed on a driveway below,” according to a police document.

Major’s child-care license was revoked Oct. 2 after the Department of Social Services alleged that she either caused or permitted an injury so serious that the boy suffered a stroke.

In late December, the Ventura County district attorney’s office filed a single count of felony corporal punishment to a child against Major, with a special allegation that she inflicted great bodily harm.

A preliminary hearing in that case is set April 6. She faces up to 11 years in prison if convicted.

Semper said he did not know what prompted Major and her attorney to settle at the last minute.

“It’s an offer we made a long time ago,” he said. “We made it from the very beginning, saying, ‘Do you want a full-blown evidentiary hearing, or do you want to avoid the expense and publicity?’ ”

He added: “I guess they gave in given that there is a criminal lawsuit.”