Trial Is Ordered in Scalding of Boy

The Oxnard parents of a 3-year-old who was scalded after soiling his pants took the boy to Tijuana for treatment to prevent their four children from being taken away, a detective testified Tuesday.

Maria and Alfredo Esquivel, both 26, told police they feared authorities would remove their children from their home because they had previously been convicted of beating their 2-year-old daughter, Oxnard Police Det. Kenneth Klapman said during a preliminary hearing for the couple.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Roland Phelan ruled later Tuesday that there was enough evidence to support a trial of the gas station attendant and his homemaker wife.

A trial date is scheduled to be set May 28. The Esquivels are charged with seven felony counts, including torture, for allegedly plunging their son, Fabian, into a bathtub of 145-degree water on Dec. 21. The second- and third-degree burns covering 20% of his body from the waist down required hours of skin-replacement surgery.

Klapman also said that Alfredo Esquivel admitted to police that he held his son under the scalding water despite the boy’s screams to let him out as Maria Esquivel bathed him.

“At some point he saw Fabian’s feet and legs turning red and thought, ‘What am I doing?’ and removed him from the water,” Klapman said.

Once the Esquivels agreed that Alfredo’s mother, Luz Rodriguez, would take the boy across the border, they waited at least six hours to leave so Rodriguez’s boyfriend could accompany them, Klapman said.

Fabian finally received medical attention at a Tijuana hospital 18 hours after he was burned. He was transferred to UC San Diego Medical Center five days later with severely infected wounds and underwent skin graft surgery.

Before Fabian left Oxnard, the Esquivels had applied aloe vera from a plant in their front yard and egg yolk to the wounds, witnesses said during the hearing.

“We sneer and look down our noses at Mexican remedies, but they really thought they were getting good medical treatment for their son when they took him to Mexico,” said Randy Tucker, Alfredo Esquivel’s lawyer.

He and Maria Esquivel’s attorney, Charles Caffy, said the two were loving parents who had planned to take their four children to a Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant that day.

Alfredo Esquivel was convicted in 1999 of hitting his daughter Luz, now 5, with an electrical cord and a sandal. His wife also was convicted after she admitted to watching the beating and to providing the objects.

The Esquivels are being held in Ventura County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail each.

Fabian is in rehabilitation and living with a foster family in Northern California, and his siblings also are in foster care, said Deputy Dist. Atty. David Lehr.