KAMARI ALLEN-HOLMES - 3 yo (2008) - Rochester NY

Carrying diapers and beer, Nicole C. Allen and her mother’s
boyfriend, Vonnel Smith, headed home after a midnight shopping spree at
a corner store seven blocks away.
A cell phone Allen was carrying rang twice. It was the upstairs
tenant of her mother’s duplex at 192 Second St. in northeast Rochester,
where Allen had left her three young children alone.
“I called her back and there was something
wrong, but I could not understand her,” Allen allegedly told police
investigators, according to court documents.
Allen was charged Friday with a felony and three misdemeanor counts
in connection with the fire, which killed one of her children.
“I started running to my mom’s and Vonnel dropped his beer and ran after me,” she told investigators.
“When I got to the house it was on fire and the fire trucks pulled up,” she said.
“They (firefighters) went in and got my
three kids, but all three got burned and hurt. Vonnel felt bad and told
me it was his fault, but they were my kids. I never should have left
them. I feel so bad.”
Allen’s words were disclosed Friday in documents after a sealed
indictment was opened, charging that Allen was blocks from the home
when it caught fire Sept. 17, 2008, inflicting disfiguring burns on all
three children and causing the death of her oldest.
Allen, 21, wept when she was told she had been charged with a felony
of second-degree manslaughter in the death of 3-year-old Kamari Mona
Allen-Holmes and three counts of the misdemeanor of endangering the
welfare of a child for allegedly leaving alone Kamari and her siblings:
Dayveion Kani Allen, 20 months, and Natalya Cenai Allen, 2 months.
Clutching a tissue in her hands, Allen sobbed “Oh, God!” as state
Supreme Court Justice Francis A. Affronti ordered her held without bail
in Monroe County Jail pending a bail application.
She entered a plea of not guilty through her lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Mary Willkens.
Assistant District Attorney Paul Irving said he knew of no other
case in Monroe County in which a parent had been charged with
manslaughter for leaving a child alone before a fatal fire.
The case
Over the past 11 months, investigators from the Rochester Police
Department and Rochester Fire Department compiled evidence to confirm
that Allen was far away from the home when the fire erupted, said
Irving and District Attorney Michael C. Green. Although neither would
say what the evidence is, Green said it’s clear Allen wasn’t home.
“This isn’t a case of someone running into the store for a second with their kid 10 feet away,” Green said.
If convicted of manslaughter, Allen faces a penalty ranging from
probation to a prison term of up to five to 15 years. Endangering the
welfare of a child is punishable by no more than one year in County
Jail.
The manslaughter charge alleges that Allen acted recklessly by
leaving the children alone, creating a substantial and unjustifiable
risk of death and consciously disregarding the risk. The endangerment
charge alleges that she acted in a way that was likely to be injurious
to a child’s physical, mental or moral welfare.
Smith wasn’t charged and is expected to be a prosecution witness.
None of Allen’s relatives were in court for the arraignment and
couldn’t be reached later. In previous interviews, they supported Allen
and said they didn’t believe she would leave her children alone.
The two surviving children have undergone extensive skins grafts at
Strong Memorial Hospital but are no longer hospitalized. Neither was
living with Allen when she was arrested Wednesday night on a warrant to
bring her to court for the indictment to be opened.
The house where the fire occurred, just off Bay Street, is boarded
up and vacant. Its second-floor windows are shattered and melted vinyl
siding droops onto the porch.
The fire
Firefighters were called about 12:30 a.m. for a fire in the rear
downstairs of the duplex. They found three young children trapped
inside a back bedroom, the youngest in a car seat. All three were
unconscious when firefighters rescued them.
Kamari, who was burned over 68 percent of her body, died Dec. 9,
2008. Dayveion was burned over 60 percent of his body and Natalya was
burned over 12 percent of her body.
The fire was apparently caused by a gas burner on the kitchen stove
that was left on, Fire Chief John D. Caufield said at the time. The
home had no working smoke detectors, firefighters said.
The downstairs apartment was rented by Allen’s mother, Brenda Allen.
During an interview after the fire, Nicole Allen said she lived on
North Street but regularly visited her mother and came over with her
children to visit the night of the fire and stayed after her mother
went to work.
Allen offered investigators conflicting versions of where she was when the fire was discovered, according to the documents.
During a news conference at Strong the day of the fire, Allen said
she loved her children. “They’re my kids and I am going to be here for
them no matter what,” she said.
During the investigation, police subpoenaed recordings of that
interview and other interviews Allen gave to news media. Green,
however, said those interviews were relatively inconsequential to the
investigation.
Confronted with the discrepancies, Allen allegedly admitted finally
that she and Smith were leaving a store at Central Park and North
Goodman Street — seven blocks away — when the upstairs tenant called.
As the investigation concluded, police had the option of charging
Allen outright or asking the District Attorney’s Office to place the
evidence before a grand jury.
The DA’s Office chose the grand jury, where 23 citizens have to decide whether there’s enough evidence to take the case to trial.
Although acknowledging Allen’s emotional arraignment, Green said the
case against her has been built on her alleged conduct before the fire.
“Regardless of what her state of mind is now,” he said, “I think the issue is going to be what happened back on that night.”

A new lawyer was appointed today for a Rochester mother charged with
homicide in a fire that burned her three children — one fatally — after
she allegedly left them alone.
Citing an unspecified conflict of interest, the Monroe County Public
Defender’s Office bowed out of representing Nicole C. Allen, 21, who
pleaded not guilty last week to second-degree manslaughter and
endangering the welfare of a child.
State Supreme Court Justice Francis A. Affronti appointed Dianne C. Russell, a private lawyer, to represent Allen.
Russell and three of Allen’s relatives who attended the proceeding declined to comment afterward on Allen’s behalf.
Affronti ordered that Allen continue to be held without bail in County Jail pending a bail application.
He also scheduled a trial for Feb. 1, 2010 , and ordered a pretrial
hearing for Dec. 9 in which statements Allen allegedly made to
investigators are expected to be examined to determine if they can be
used in her trial.
Allen’s next court date is Oct. 20, when her defense will challenge evidence and how it was gathered.
Prosecutors allege that Allen left her children alone on Sept. 17,
2008, before a fire raced through her mother’s apartment at 192 Second
St. in northeast Rochester.
Her daughter, Kamari Mona Allen-Holmes, 3, died of her burns Dec. 9,
2008. A son, Dayveion Kani Allen, 20 months, and another daughter,
Natalya Cenai Allen, 2 months, were seriously burned and have gone
through extensive skin grafts.
Neither surviving child is living with Allen. Assistant District
Attorney Paul Irving said he couldn’t discuss their condition or who is
taking care of them.
Allen allegedly told investigators that she left her mother’s
boyfriend, Vonnel Smith, to watch her children when she walked to a
neighborhood store for diapers, but met up with him later on the way to
another store when he went out to buy beer.
Irving, however, said evidence in the case will dispute Allen’s claim that Smith was supposed to be watching her children.
“I’m confident that’s not true,” he said.

Rochester, N.Y. - Nicole Allen, 22, has been found guilty of criminally
negligent homicide in the death of her three-year-old daughter Kamari.

Allen
had left her three young children home alone to buy beer. A stove fire
erupted while she was gone, killing one child and severely injuring the
others.

The fire happened in September 2008 on Second St. During
the trial, the jury was shown graphic images of the victims' burns and
heard emotional testimony from firefighters who rescued the children.

Allen
had been charged with second-degree manslaughter, but to be found
guilty of manslaughter, the jury must conclude that her conduct created
a risk of death, and she consciously disregarded that risk.

The
jury convicted her on the lesser charge of criminally negligent
homicide, meaning an individual created a risk of death, and did not
perceive that risk.

Allen was also found guilty of three counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

The
jury started deliberating just before noon and had asked three times
for the judge to read back the definition of manslaughter.

Defense
attorney Dianne Russell asked the jury not to "get involved with
emotion...It's bad judgment, a lack of insight, but it wasn't conduct
that contributed to a risk a death would occur."

Russell said
Allen has a limited education and vocabulary, using the word "eyes" to
describe stove knobs. Allen, who was 20 at the time of the fire, was
"ignorant and irresponsible," said Russell, but she did not commit a
crime. "Kids should not have kids," she said.

Assistant District
Attorney Paul Irving said the fire was no accident, and said Allen
blamed everyone but herself for the fire. Irving dismissed Russell's
contention that Allen didn't know better, saying, "We have teenagers
younger fighting wars in Afghanistan, being allowed to handle deadly
weapons."

Irving referenced fire investigator testimony that the children were "cooked alive."

"You leave a three-year-old dog home alone. You don't leave a three-year-old child home alone," Irving told the jury.

Allen
faces a maximum sentence of 1-1/3 to 4 years in prison for the
criminally negligent homicide, and one year in prison for each of the
three counts of counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

Rochester, N.Y. - A mother who left her three children home alone before a fire broke out was sentenced Tuesday.

After
the 2008 fire on Second Street, jurors found Nicole Allen guilty of
criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a child.
She was acquitted of manslaughter charges.

Allen was sentenced
to 1-1/3 to 4 years in prison, of which she must serve the minimum
sentence. She has already served six months in jail.

She received a one year sentence for each of three counts endangering the welfare of a child, and those will run concurrently.

All three of her children were burned; her oldest daughter, Kamari Allen Holmes, later died from her injuries.

Allen’s two other children are in foster care.