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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Day care operator pleads guilty to assaulting girl

A former South Hill day care operator who nearly killed a 23-month-old toddler accepted a plea bargain Monday that will send her to prison for five years.

Danette R. Zaring, 37, pleaded guilty to second-degree child assault and first-degree criminal mistreatment for throwing Hailee Rhoads into a playpen, fracturing the child’s skull and causing a nearly fatal swelling of her brain.

Zaring had been charged with first-degree child assault in the January 2004 incident at Danette’s Daycare, 4601 E. 43rd Ave.

She would have faced a standard sentence of approximately 7 1/2 to 10 years if convicted as charged.

Her standard maximum for second-degree child assault was four years in prison, but Zaring agreed to serve an additional year on a new first-degree criminal mistreatment charge.

Without her consent, the criminal mistreatment sentence would have been served at the same time as her second-degree child assault sentence.

Zaring also agreed to be on probation for 20 years after she gets out of prison instead of the standard 11/2 to three years.

Superior Court Judge Sam Cozza gave Zaring, who has been free on bail, until Monday afternoon to report to jail.

Zaring said little in court, and no one from Rhoads’ family or Zaring’s spoke.

In a soft voice that was difficult to hear, Zaring apologized for her crime.

She said she wasn’t making excuses, but told Cozza she had been up all night with her 15-year-old son, who was in pain from a snowboarding accident, when she assaulted Rhoads.

Zaring claimed at first that Rhoads injured herself by falling against a bedpost, but doctors said the girl suffered such a severe blow to the back of the head that it couldn’t have been caused accidentally.

Eventually, Zaring admitted to police that she picked up the child and threw her because she was crying and wouldn’t take a nap.

The girl was knocked unconscious, but she revived after five minutes and Zaring sent her home without medical care or even telling her mother she was injured.

The girl’s parents, Chanin Carr and Jeffrey Rhoads, discovered the injury when their daughter lost consciousness again and couldn’t be revived.

Although Hailee later recovered, doctors thought at first she would die or suffer brain damage. She would have died if her parents hadn’t rushed her to the hospital when she passed out again, authorities said.

Hailee’s parents sued the state Department of Social and Health Services for $22 million for alleged negligence in licensing Zaring’s day care despite a troubled history dating from the 1970s.

The department settled the claim for $4.5 million.

According to state records, parents had complained that Zaring left children unsupervised, slapped them and pulled them down hallways.

Records also showed that DSHS, in granting Zaring a license, accepted a letter of recommendation from her mother, Rosie Zaring, who lost her own child-care license in 1991 because of repeated violations of state regulations. Public records showed Rosie Zaring had ties to her daughter’s day care and paid its property taxes in 2003.

State officials denied a license to Danette Zaring’s sister, Deena Olson, after discovering she already was operating an unlicensed child-care center.

Jeffrey Rhoads’ and Chanin Carr’s lawsuit alleged that state regulators received 12 formal complaints against Danette Zaring’s day care from 1998 to 2001. The complaints ranged from improper supervision to physical violence against children. DSHS officials found nine of the complaints valid, and twice put Zaring on probation.