Nicole Allen convicted for death of child after fire
Nicole C. Allen wept tears of joy Monday night when she was convicted of a lesser homicide charge for causing severe burns to her three children — one of whom later died — by leaving them alone so she could buy beer.
She mouthed the words “Thank you” to a state Supreme Court jury of seven men and five women when they found her guilty of a low-level felony of criminally negligent homicide after acquitting her of a more-serious felony of second-degree manslaughter.
Allen, 22, stood and wept on the shoulder of her lawyer, Dianne C. Russell, as the verdict was announced after jurors deliberated more than 5 ½ hours.
The jury also convicted Allen of three misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
She faces a penalty ranging from probation to a prison term of up to 1 1/3 to four years when Justice Francis A. Affronti sentences her Feb. 23.
Had she been convicted of manslaughter, she could have received a prison term of up to five to 15 years.
Russell said the District Attorney’s Office overcharged Allen in an indictment handed up in August 2009, nearly a year after the fire occurred on Sept. 17, 2008. The verdict, she said, reflected the charge she believes should have been brought.
“It was a long, hard battle to get to where it should have started,” she said.
Assistant District Attorney Paul Irving said the charge was filed after the DA’s Office turned over the results of an investigation into the fire to a grand jury of 23 citizens to decide what charge, if any, should be brought.
He thanked jurors for their work in a trial that was punctuated by gruesome photos and graphic testimony from firefighters who struggled to maintain their composure as they described the children’s horrific injuries.
“This was a very difficult case for anyone who was in the courtroom,” he said.
Outside court, relatives said they had no doubt Allen wasn’t guilty of manslaughter.
“We knew she did not do that,” said her mother, Brenda Allen.
“They knew that,” her cousin, Amy Haygood, said of the jury. “That’s why they kept deliberating. God is good.”
Allen was 20 when her children, all under 3, were burned in her mother’s apartment on Second Street when she and her mother’s boyfriend left to buy beer at a store 1.2 miles away. Her mother was at work.
Allen returned to find the apartment in flames and firefighters attempting to rescue the children. The fire was so hot that the first firefighters on the scene had to move their truck down the street to prevent it from being scorched.
The fire, which investigators said was caused by a gas burner that was left burning under a cooking pot on a kitchen stove, burned Kamari Mona Allen-Holmes, 3; Dayveion Kani Allen, 20 months; and Natalya Cenai Allen, 2 months.
Kamari, who was burned over 68 percent of her body, died Dec. 9, 2008. Dayveion, who was burned over 60 percent of his body, and Natalya, who was burned over 12 percent of her body, have gone through extensive skin grafts and physical rehabilitation.
The manslaughter charge alleged that Allen created a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death, knew of the risk, and consciously disregarded the risk in a way that was beyond the standard a reasonable person would observe.
The lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide alleged that Allen created a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death but failed to perceive the risk.
Allen told a variety of stories about her whereabouts just before the fire.
She claimed at first she was smoking a cigarette outside the apartment and didn’t realize it was on fire until fire trucks pulled up, later said she had gone to a store down the street to buy diapers for her youngest child, and finally admitted she was buying beer with Vonnel Smith, her mother’s boyfriend. He wasn’t charged.
In her summation to jurors Monday morning, Russell conceded that Allen was gone about a half-hour but insisted Allen had no way of knowing that the fire would break out and wasn’t guilty of manslaughter.
“We’re not challenging the fact that she left her kids alone,” Russell said. “But the evidence did not establish that she was aware the risk of death would occur when she walked out of that house.”
Russell also touched on a larger issue: That Allen was a 20-year-old mother of three and dropped out of school in the ninth grade.
“Kids should not have kids,” she said. “They take on a grown-up responsibility before they’re grown up. They have immature judgment and lack of foresight.”
Irving argued that Allen put herself above the interests of her children and said that attitude was shown in a video recording of her interrogation by a police investigator. When the investigator left the room, Allen wept to herself, “Why me?”
“‘Why me?’ That’s what this case is all about, about this defendant only caring about herself and not taking care of her children,” Irving said.
He also said Allen wasn’t immature and should take responsibility for what she did.
“Every day Americans who are younger than Nicole Allen are fighting a war in Afghanistan and being entrusted with deadly weapons,” he said.
Allen has been in custody since her indictment, unable to make bail of $30,000 cash or $50,000 bond set by Affronti.
The judge ordered that bail is revoked pending her sentencing.
Allen’s surviving children are in foster care. Allen has had supervised visits with them and still has parental rights, which can be removed only if she surrenders them or a Family Court judge finds she should lose the rights.
