Ventura County

Prosecutors will ask a judge to bar a woman accused of trying to drown her son and daughter from contacting the 10- and 7-year-old children.

In a request filed with the court last month and scheduled to be heard today, Deputy Dist. Atty. Adam Pearlman included a letter from a therapist who said the children were so traumatized by the alleged actions of their mother, Narinder Virk, that they had nightmares and worried that she might hurt them again.

Pearlman added that any additional distress suffered by the children could damage the case against their mother.

“You are dealing with small children who went through a traumatic incident,” Pearlman said. “And anything that would remind them of that may affect their ability to be witnesses in this case.”

But Deputy Public Defender Christina Briles called the district attorney’s request “disingenuous,” noting that the children’s father has already taken them to India and that Virk has never made attempts to contact her children.

“She’s been charged with this offense for a year and a half,” Briles said. “If she really wanted to see them, she would have done something.”

Virk, 40, is accused of plunging into the waters off Channel Islands Harbor about 2 a.m. on Jan. 12, 2000, with her son and daughter in tow. Prosecutors allege that Virk wanted to commit suicide and, intent on taking her children with her, tried to hold their heads under water.

But a former lifeguard heard the faint cries for help from then 9-year-old Sonny Virk.

Defenders have alleged that Virk, a native of India who does not speak much English, was an abused wife who was driven to the desperate act after her husband flew home to India with plans to divorce her and leave her destitute in a foreign country. She has entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Supporters rallied to post $500,000 bail for Virk after she spent eight months in jail. Now Pearlman is asking that while free, Virk be prevented from contacting her children.

Prosecutors made the same request the day after Virk’s September release, but Judge Rebecca Riley refused to support the order, arguing that she did not want to get in the way of family court efforts, which could include visits with the mother, Pearlman said.

But Pearlman said his concerns were renewed after an incident in January, when Virk attended a San Fernando Valley temple where her children and their father also showed up for a worship service.

Briles said the incident was a coincidence and that Virk did not talk to her children. Pearlman, however, said the children were still frightened by the incident and if there had been an order in place, Virk would have been forced to leave.

“But once she was there,” Pearlman said, “the children became upset, so their father had to deal with the situation.”

The children left the temple with their father, Pearlman said, without speaking to Virk.

In a letter to the court in May about the incident, therapist Tamara Pennington wrote that “the children were so traumatized they began having nightmares and expressed fear that she may still want to harm them.”

“It is in my opinion,” the therapist continued, that “forcing the children to see their mother would do harm and it is not recommended.”

Pearlman said he is only asking for the order now because he thought a family court attorney for the children was handling the issue. But after a recent conversation with the attorney, Pearlman said both sides realized that neither was following up on the request. Pearlman said he then took it upon himself to push the issue with the judge in the criminal case.

Briles called the request ridiculous, saying the father, Santokh Virk, moved the children to India in March and has even enrolled them in school. She added that Santokh Virk has been uncooperative with counseling attempts.

“He hasn’t made them available for therapy,” Briles said. “And it’s therapy that’s going to help the children come to terms with what happened.”

If the children had been undergoing therapy treatment this year, they would be less frightened of their mother, Briles said.

“They would have been able to work out those fears and concerns,” Briles said. “But here we are in July, and all that time they could have been working things out in therapy, and they are in India.”

Pearlman, however, said the children have only been in India since May and that they will return after the summer break.