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November 15, 2012

Witness: Woman concealed history

The Associated Press Associated Press

HOUSTON — A Texas woman convicted of murder for a fire that killed four children at her home day care lied in her application to run the business about having a juvenile record, which would have prevented her from getting a child care license, a former state official testified Wednesday.

Jurors heard the testimony during the punishment phase of Jessica Tata’s trial. She was found guilty Tuesday of one count of felony murder in one child’s death and faces up to life in prison.

Prosecutors said the February 2011 fire started after Tata left the children alone to go shopping and had left a pan of oil on a stove that was turned on. Her attorneys argued that she never intended to hurt the children, who ranged in age from 16 months to 3 years, and that she tried to save them.

When Tata applied to run her home day care, she didn’t indicate she pleaded to an arson charge as a juvenile in connection to two fires on the same day in bathrooms at her suburban Houston high school, said Susan Lahmeyer, a former district director of licensing at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

“If we had had that information ... that would have prevented the agency from issuing a license,” Lahmeyer told jurors. “A history like that elevates the concern about taking care of children.”

Lahmeyer said her agency does a background check on all applicants but such a check did not turn up Tata’s criminal history.

Tata’s attorney, Mike DeGeurin, while questioning Lahmeyer, suggested that Tata had been under the impression that her juvenile criminal history was confidential and she might have misunderstood the question on the application about whether she had pleaded guilty to a crime.

Under the juvenile system, a defendant does not enter a guilty plea but enters a plea of true to a charge. Tata entered a plea of true to delinquent conduct of arson and received probation.

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