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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Ukrainian Mother On Trial Prosecution Says Woman Endangered Toddler By Leaving Him In Hot, Parked Car

A Ukrainian mother who left her 15-month-old son in a sweltering, parked car is guilty of reckless endangerment, a Spokane County prosecutor told a jury Tuesday.

Even if the child wasn’t harmed, the law says knowingly leaving a child in a hot, confined car is a serious crime, Spokane Deputy Prosecutor Mary Ann Brady told jurors.

The case may well be the only time in recent years prosecutors have charged a parent with abuse for leaving a child inside a car.

Olena Bezzubenkova, 25, is on trial for reckless endangerment, a gross misdemeanor. She was arrested July 27 after security guards found her son, Daniel, crying and sweating inside her parked car in a parking lot near Deaconess Medical Center.

Bezzubenkova had just moved to the United States three weeks before her arrest. The mother of four children was visiting an obstetrician that day, two months into her fifth pregnancy.

Spokane police arrested her after Deaconess security guards found the child around 2:30 p.m. Bezzubenkova and her sister were walking to a 2:15 doctor’s appointment in a nearby building.

Bezzubenkova’s sister, Nadezhda Chekulayeva, returned to the car about 2:40 p.m. She told police they left the child asleep because his sleep patterns were irregular since arriving in Spokane three weeks earlier.

After her arrest, Bezzubenkova said her culture doesn’t view leaving a child alone in a car as abuse. Bezzubenkova lived in Mariupol, Ukraine, a city near the Black Sea, with her family. They came to Spokane to join her sister and flee years of persecution for being Baptist.

In a similar case in April, Spokane sports broadcaster Paul Sorensen was cited at Spokane International Airport for leaving his 2-year-old daughter alone in a car for 15 minutes. Sorensen was cited for a gross misdemeanor, which was later dismissed by the prosecutor’s office.

Prosecutors originally charged Bezzubenkova with second-degree criminal mistreatment, a felony. They later reduced the charge to reckless endangerment - punishable by up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Four prosecution witnesses testified against Bezzubenkova on Tuesday.

Deaconess security guard Brian O’Connell told jurors the child, strapped into a safety seat, was alone in the locked car for at least 20 minutes.

The driver’s side window of the car was open about an inch, he said. All other windows were open “just a crack.”

The temperature that day was 82 degrees, O’Connell testified. “When we did open the car, out came a blast of heat.”

Bezzubenkova will testify today, then the defense expects to rest its case.

Since Bezzubenkova speaks no English, a court interpreter is helping translate.

Her attorney, assistant public defender Jim Kane, told jurors that what Bezzubenkova did was a mistake, but not a criminal act.

Before the trial started, Kane asked Superior Court Judge Richard Schroeder to move the case to another county or bring in jurors from outside the area.

Kane said 11 of 32 prospective jurors interviewed Tuesday said they couldn’t set aside their opinions about Bezzubenkova if they were selected for the jury.

“I’m afraid that what you’ll preside over is more like a mob than an impartial group,” Kane told Schroeder.

But Schroeder disagreed, insisting that 12 impartial jurors could be found from the remaining 21 people.

Kane also said that the key issue is whether Bezzubenkova knew she was acting recklessly.

She wasn’t acting recklessly because she felt the child was safe and because her sister would soon rejoin the infant in the car, Kane said.

, DataTimes