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Tanya Lemon leaves court with her lawyer, Jeff DeRoberts.
(Douglass Dowty | ddowty@syracuse.com)
DeWitt, NY -- A DeWitt nurse will spend 90 days in jail for systematically neglecting the welfare of a group home resident who died.
Tanya Lemon, 35, pleaded guilty last October to felony endangering the welfare of Dennis Dattolo, a physically disabled person at 4918 Briarwood Lane. As part of the plea, she admitted routinely sleeping on the job, endangering the other five group home residents, as well.
Dattolo, who had serious lifelong medical issues, died in September 2013. Lemon admitted to neglecting her duties for months, but not specifically to the conduct that led to Dattolo's death that day.
In court, Lemon's lawyer said his client had gone back to trucking school since Dattolo's death in an attempt to find a new career.
Lemon declined to comment when asked by County Court Judge Thomas J. Miller.
Her lawyer, Jeff DeRoberts, asked the judge to spare Lemon jail altogether.
But Miller said he was "disturbed" by Lemon's failure to take responsibility in an interview with authorities before her sentencing. That was despite the fact she admitted to the neglect in open court, he noted.
The judge did keep his end of the plea bargain, sentencing Lemon to 90 days in jail and 5 years of probation. She was led away in handcuffs.
After court, Dattolo's aunt criticized Lemon for her lack of remorse and recklessness.
"Is 90 days in jail enough for what she did?" Tricia Hand asked.
Hand said Dattolo was born with such physical problems that he wasn't expected to last a year. He lived 25 years before Lemon's negligence, she said.
Lemon refused to take responsibility for actually causing Dattolo's death by failing to check an air mask that gave him needed oxygen. Her lawyer said doctor's reports indicated that Dattolo may have actually died of phlegm clogging his throat, a problem related to his ongoing bouts of pneumonia.
But prosecutor Patricia Gunning, with the state Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs, said the important thing was that Lemon admitted to systematically sleeping on the job.
"This case serves a tragic reminder of the serious risk posed by an all too common workforce problem of caregiver fatigue or workers sleeping on shifts," Gunning said afterward.
The judge said that he would send Lemon to state prison if she violated probation over the next 5 years.