CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A former childcare worker accused of abusing children with special needs under her care has accepted a plea deal with prosecutors.
Amber Seiler, 30, of Poca, entered into a Kennedy Plea Monday before Kanawha County Circuit Judge Kenneth Ballard for one felony count of battery and assault of a disabled child following allegations of Seiler smacking children with special needs and spitting on a 4-year-old while employed at the Cross Lanes Child Care and Learning Center.
A Kennedy Plea means there’s enough evidence to convict Seiler if she were to go to trial and it does not effect her guilty sentence.
In exchange for the plea deal, the state dismissed the remaining counts of the indictment, which included two counts of misdemeanor battery. The state also agreed to not file any additional charges related to the investigation.
“I find it adequately affects the rights of the defendant given the best interests of the justices and therefore judge that Amber Seiler is guilty of the felony offense of battery assault of a disabled child as contained in count one,” Ballard said.
Seiler will have to pay a fine of no less than $1,000 and spend up to five years in prison for the felony charge. Her sentencing is set for September 15 at 9 a.m.
Bethany Bird is who’s child Seiler was pleading guilty to abusing within the felony charge. Her daughter has level three autism and was just 3-years-old during the time the abuse happened to her at the daycare facility.
Bird said the law has fortunately changed where all child abuse is considered a felony now, something which her and a group of other parents who’s children were under Seilers’ care at the facility had lobbied for.
She said they are taking what they can get.
“We wanted her to have the felony, it is a disappointment that we didn’t go to trial, we wanted to go to trial, but out of respect for the children having to testify against somebody that had done so many things to them, they agreed for her to plead to a felony,” Bird said.
Bird said that in the last deal that Seiler had offered, the only thing she would have avoided would have been the felony.
“Our kids were afraid every single day, so we wanted her to have the felony, and we’re happy with what it is, but we still would have liked all the charges,” she said.
Bird said that Seiler had originally been charged with six misdemeanors and two felonies, and had the law not changed, those six misdemeanors would have all been felonies.
She said while they were a bit too late for the law to change over within this case, she believes this will potentially help bring other parents whose children are suffering abuse in the hands of a trusted child care worker to justice.
“I think that these teachers are going to think twice before they touch any of our children,” Bird said. “They’re going to think, oh, I’m not just looking at one year in jail, that’s what the misdemeanor would have held, or a fine, or just probation, they are going to be looking at that one to five, it’s minimum one year, maximum five years.”
House Bill 2123 unanimously passed both in the House and Senate in February and it modifies criminal penalties for child abuse and neglect, and increases potential sentences.
Bird said that just in the past couple of years alone, there has been similar incidences of child abuse reported at other daycare centers.
She said that fortunately, the state is taking the necessary steps to put a stop to the abuse through this new legislation.
“That’s going to scare them, I think that it’s going to show that West Virginia put that harsher punishment on child abuse, we’re not going to tolerate it anymore, it’s happened too many times.”