A 41-year-old Bronx mother has been indicted in her 7-year-old daughter's hotel pool drowning death, prosecutors on Long Island announced Tuesday.
Erica Baez was ordered held without bail after her arraignment on second-degree manslaughter and child endangerment charges in the May 1 death of her daughter, who had suffered extensive brain damage when she was pulled unconscious from the Melville Marriott hotel pool nearly 15 months earlier. She had been on a ventilator since.
According to court documents, Baez was staying at the Melville Marriott Hotel in Suffolk County with her boyfriend, her 5-month-old son and her 7-year-old daughter, Katlyn Pineda in January 2022. It wasn't clear how long they were guests, but on Jan. 13, 2022, prosecutors say Baez's boyfriend left the hotel early in the morning to go to work nearby.
Hours later, around 3:30 p.m., Baez asked hotel staff at the front desk to open the pool gate for the indoor atrium pool, according to the investigation. Hotel staff told her there was no lifeguard on duty, so she'd have to be present the entire time her 7-year-old was in the water. The mother allegedly left the girl playing in the pool alone as she sat at the hotel bar eating and drinking an alcoholic cocktail, the indictment says. About 30 minutes elapsed.
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Baez then went to check on the girl, who was still playing in the pool, unsupervised, and allegedly left a second time. Prosecutors say she went up to her room, where her 5-month-old son was alone, then came back downstairs and had another drink at the hotel bar. More than 30 minutes allegedly passed before the mom checked on her daughter again.
When she did, she found Katlyn floating lifeless in the pool. Baez took off her shoes and socks and set her phone down before going in after her, prosecutors allege. She told first responders that Katlyn, who was pulseless and in cardiac arrest, had only been alone for five minutes. Emergency responders managed to revive her heart en route to the hospital, but the brain damage from oxygen deprivation was irreversible, according to the indictment.
Katlyn spent nearly two months in the pediatric intensive care unit at Cohen's Children's Hospital, depending on a feeding tube and ventilator, before she was transferred to the New Jersey facility, where she died.
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Baez was arrested in Manhattan Monday by Suffolk County police with the assistance of the U.S. Marshals Service New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force.
"The alleged actions of this defendant were selfish, senseless and heartless," Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said in a statement. "We are going to do everything we can to ensure that justice is served for little Katlyn, whose short life ended too soon."
It wasn't immediately clear if Baez entered a plea at Tuesday's hearing, nor was information on her attorney clear. She is due back in court later this month.
