C.L Martin
After a toddler was admitted to a hospital twice in two months to be treated for ingesting narcotics, New Orleans police have arrested his parents on drug and cruelty charges.
Fallon Roche, 37, and Kenyon Daliet, 45, are accused of leaving cocaine, heroin and a gun in a dresser in the room where their children slept, at the home of Roche’s parents in the 1800 block of Lizardi Street, police wrote in an affidavit for Daliet’s arrest. Their three-year-old son ingested cocaine, which sent him into cardiac arrest on Nov. 18, the document said.
Roche’s attorney, Lon Burns, said Friday that the family only recently moved in with her parents. He said the gun is legally registered to Roche and that the drugs belonged to her father.
“The grandfather was willing to step up and accept all responsibility,” Burns said. “The mistake [Roche] made was moving in with the grandfather. That’s what she’s guilty of, and it’s not a crime.”
The child ‘stiffed up’
Paramedics took the boy from the family home to Children’s Hospital on Nov. 18 at about 2 p.m. There, he was sedated, intubated and placed under intensive care. Narcan helped save his life, police wrote in the affidavit for Daliet’s arrest.
A drug test showed cocaine in the boy’s system, and a social worker told police it wasn’t the first time he had come to the hospital for narcotics ingestion. Court records say the toddler was hospitalized under similar circumstances on Oct. 26.
Police questioned Roche, who told them she was washing clothes that morning while her two children were in the front of the house. The boy came up to her to tell her he had something in his mouth.
Roche told investigators she saw a dark substance on his teeth, so she wiped it away and had him wash out his mouth. Soon, she said, he fell to the floor and “stiffed up.”
Multiple charges
When detectives asked why drugs were in the house, she told them she didn’t know but that her father was a drug addict, police wrote.
Police arrested Roche that day, and Dailet on Tuesday.
In the Nov. 18 incident, they face complaints of possessing heroin, possession with intent to distribute cocaine, possessing a gun in connection with drugs and second-degree cruelty to juveniles. Roche also was booked with another count of cruelty to juveniles in the the Oct. 26 incident.
Magistrate commissioners set Daliet’s bail at $125,000 and Roche’s at $137,500.
