Toddler Death Law Suit Update

[S.A.M.J.R.]

To whomever:

 

Will the criminal trial be finished before the civil trial (I assume so, but there are plenty of smarter people than me)?

 

Assuming so, and *IF* Anello is found guilty (or pleads guilty), would that be another nail in the coffin for the civil case?  

 

I know there have been comparisons to the OJ trial, but he has found NG in the criminal trial.  

[GarlicBread]

I dont understand why they released the photos of this new evidence in an attempt to defend the GF. 

If anything it makes him look even more guilty. It shows how much effort he went to, to lift her up and over the safety rail. It shows he wasnt just holding her up to the window to look out and slipped, but he went to a lot of effort to put her in a dangerous position...

[Another_Critic]

6 minutes ago, GarlicBread said:

I dont understand why they released the photos of this new evidence in an attempt to defend the GF. 

If anything it makes him look even more guilty. It shows how much effort he went to, to lift her up and over the safety rail. It shows he wasnt just holding her up to the window to look out and slipped, but he went to a lot of effort to put her in a dangerous position...

 

I'm scratching my head on that too.

[rusty nut]

To me, the video is disturbing and it angers me. The GF claims he reached out over the railing to place Chloe on the outside window ledge. Yet, what I see in the video is that the railing is in the GF's gut as he reaches out AND DOWN, NOT UP, to put Chloe where? Although it's difficult to see, or believe, it appears that he's dangling her out the window while he holds her from above. Does anybody else see that?

[twangster]

It also displays a nice clear view from the floor level where the child was before he picked her up.  

 

Why lift a child to have the same view that she already had at floor level?  Makes no sense.

 

He knew the window was open and was trying to give her a view out the open window.  Then he dropped her out the open window.

[BeachChik]

11 hours ago, hazence said:

I don’t know that this is about money.
 

I think this is about...family.

 

This family does not want to believe that this was the fault of the grandfather that they clearly love and respect. They also know that he loved this child just as they did....which makes it even harder to understand why he wasn’t more protective.  They can’t accept that he would be so careless with a child they adored and that they know HE adored as well. So, the fault MUST lie elsewhere.
 

If they blame him, then they essentially have lost TWO family members, because it would be tough to forgive him and reconcile that he was at fault for their pain and grief. At this point, that may be too much for them to reconcile. 
 

So blaming RCCL will do for now. 

 

I 100% agree with this. Grief does funny things to people. And for it to be such a horrific loss makes it even harder. I think at this point they feel a need to blame someone else. No one would want to believe that someone would be so careless with a child. And unfortunately they probably have a lawyer encouraging them to pursue this.

[JsMom2]

12 hours ago, hazence said:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7922419/Doctor-cruise-ship-recalls-finding-toddlers-body-grandfather-dropped-her.html
 

The pictures in this article seem to support the parents case. I hadn’t 

seen these before with the re-enactment with the doll.

 

Of course they "seem" to support the parent's case.  The reenactment was staged by the parents' attorney, not by an independent investigator.  The man in the picture is said to be "about the same height" as Anello.  If it would be as difficult as they claim for Anello to have held Chloe out the window, then that only seems to confirm that the cruise line had safety measures in place.  The attorney said that Anello would have had to have "extremely long arms" to hold her out the window.  So again, Royal Caribbean took appropriate precautions to make sure someone wouldn't accidentally drop a child out the window.  And if he is so color blind that he can't see the glass, then why did he happen to walk directly to the only open window in that area?

 

Also the photos disprove Anello's claim that Chloe couldn't reach the glass down below.  

[CruisingSince1982]

1 hour ago, S.A.M.J.R. said:

To whomever:

 

Will the criminal trial be finished before the civil trial (I assume so, but there are plenty of smarter people than me)?

 

Assuming so, and *IF* Anello is found guilty (or pleads guilty), would that be another nail in the coffin for the civil case?  

 

I know there have been comparisons to the OJ trial, but he has found NG in the criminal trial.  

 

Yes, criminal case will go first; no, it won't have any bearing on the civil case. 

Edited January 24, 2020 by CruisingSince1982

[CruisingSince1982]

1 hour ago, rusty nut said:

To me, the video is disturbing and it angers me. The GF claims he reached out over the railing to place Chloe on the outside window ledge. Yet, what I see in the video is that the railing is in the GF's gut as he reaches out AND DOWN, NOT UP, to put Chloe where? Although it's difficult to see, or believe, it appears that he's dangling her out the window while he holds her from above. Does anybody else see that?

 

Yes, although the video is not totally clear (to me), it certainly looks like he is holding her out of the window. 

[CruisingSince1982]

13 hours ago, hazence said:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7922419/Doctor-cruise-ship-recalls-finding-toddlers-body-grandfather-dropped-her.html
 

The pictures in this article seem to support the parents case. I hadn’t 

seen these before with the re-enactment with the doll.

 

I agree with you. Seeing this, it doesn't look like he could have leaned out of the window. Need to see that video from a different angle. The one RCCL released doesn't portray a gap like this photo does.

[mayleeman]

@S.A.M.J.R. asked "If he is senile, has dementia or Alzheimer's, does that change what he did?"

 

Interesting question. In my Army criminal defense days, I dealt with a number of cases involving mental illness. Many jurisdictions require a mental illness defense to be based on a "mental disease or defect." It is popularly considered to mean severe emotional disorder but the diseases you mention could certainly play a role. 

 

In a criminal negligence case (here, negigent homicide), I believe the defense would be that GF, for example, had some mental condition that prevented him from perceiving any danger or exercising the judgment necessary to conform to the "reasonable man" standard of due care. How that might happen or the specifics would be sheer speculation.

 

Procedurally, there is a greater burden in an affirmative defense than simply making the assertion. To get to the jury, the defense has to make a prima facie case of both the condition and how it affected the mens rea (state of mind) of the defendant. For mental illness, that usually means physchiatrists and/or forensic psycholgists' and diagnostic testing, although witnesses who have observed aberrant behavior often testify, too. If the defense is raised, the prosecution has the right to have the defendant examined by their own experts.

 

The jury is tasked with sorting it all out, and assuming that the defense was properly raised, determining if the prosecution has disproven it beyong a reasonable doubt.

 

In my experience in the military, juries faced with gruesome cases take the easy way out and ignore it. I myself would probably prefer a judge-only trial if I wanted to rely on medical expert testimony.

 

All this is based on my memories from 37 years ago or so. So please don't hold me to the details!

 

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by mayleeman

[Two Wheels Only]

2 hours ago, CruisingSince1982 said:

I doubt he "lied". More than likely he has PTSD and his version is his mind's way of protecting him. The video certainly changes everything, but I would never said he lied.

 

 

Anello initially told the police a version that matches the surveillance videos. Anello later changed his story after the family hired the attorney.

 

What would Anello say if asked to explain what is happening while he's watching the surveillance videos?

[CruisingSince1982]

1 hour ago, Another_Critic said:

 

That picture is showing the doll's feet close to or resting on the lower window ledge.  Of course the angle is deceiving with the window partition blocking the lower window ledge of the window below the feet.

 

To me, that picture is more incriminating than helpful.  It basically proves that even if he was standing straight and arms positioned as the "actor" (which he wasn't), he would still have the child's feet on or outside the lower window ledge.

 

Were her feet on the window? All reports I have read say they were on the railing, and she leaned forward. 

[CruisingSince1982]

1 minute ago, Two Wheels Only said:

 

Anello initially told the police a version that matches the surveillance videos. Anello later changed his story after the family hired the attorney.

 

What would Anello say if asked to explain what is happening while he's watching the surveillance videos?

 

Actually, he said from the start that he didn't know the window was open. 

[twangster]

Photo staged by attorney:

 

 

Using photoshop, if he had dropped her in this position she would fallen to the floor inside the glass.

 

 

Probably would have scraped her head and cried but she would have been on the floor.

 

Using photoshop I adjusted his arms to the extended position:

 

 

The doll is outside the window.  Center of gravity of the doll is beyond the edge of the window frame so when he dropped her she did not fall inside of the glass.

 

Original photo courtesy of Lipcon, Margulies, Alisna and Winkelman P.A.

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by twangster

[CruisingSince1982]

4 minutes ago, twangster said:

Photo staged by attorney:

 

 

Using photoshop, if he had dropped her in this position she would fallen to the floor inside the glass.

 

 

Probably would have scraped her head and cried but she would have been on the floor.

 

Using photoshop I adjusted his arms to the extended position:

 

 

The doll is outside the window.  Center of gravity of the doll is beyond the edge of the window frame so when he dropped her she did not fall inside of the glass.

 

 

In all fairness, IF she was standing straight up on the ledge, and leaned forward to bang on the glass, she would have went out, not down. Her body weight coupled with the forward motion of the toddler would have prevented her from going down. If it happened like he said. 

[retiredgram]

My question to GF would be, "Why pick her up?? The picture at hockey game shows her standing by herself with no one holding her. She was on her level to see out the window and bang on it." (Don't know why people would allow anyone, especially a toddler, to bang on a window or any glass)   GF is trying to find an excuse for what he did.

[Two Wheels Only]

10 minutes ago, CruisingSince1982 said:

Actually, he said from the start that he didn't know the window was open. 

 

Based on the police report (July 8th)....

 

"Police initially said Salvatore Anello told officers he lost his grip while holding the girl outside the window on the 11th deck, the Associated Press reported."

[CruisingSince1982]

Just now, Two Wheels Only said:

 

Based on the police report (July 8th)....

 

"Police initially said Salvatore Anello told officers he lost his grip while holding the girl outside the window on the 11th deck, the Associated Press reported."

Except he never said that. That is not in the official report. That was a media statement. 

[CruisingSince1982]

Long before the police got there, he was in the elevator with crew members repeatedly saying that he thought the window was closed. He would not change his statement to the police, at least an hour or so later, and say he held her out of the window. That is pure media sensationalism. Edited - and it is not in the official report. 

Edited January 24, 2020 by CruisingSince1982

[Another_Critic]

23 minutes ago, CruisingSince1982 said:

 

Were her feet on the window? All reports I have read say they were on the railing, and she leaned forward. 

 

GF said he was trying to put her on the railing.  Video and staged photo indicate she was on or beyond the window ledge.

[Two Wheels Only]

3 minutes ago, CruisingSince1982 said:

Except he never said that. That is not in the official report. That was a media statement. 

 

It's in the Port Authority's report according to Port Authority spokesperson, Jose Carmona.

 

As reported by CNN...

"The grandfather sat the girl in the window and lost his balance, and the girl fell to her death. "Sadly, she died on impact," Carmona said."

...which also matches the video as Chloe was sitting on the window sill before she fell. 

 

I haven't seen the actual report and there may be some inaccuracies (the area was referred to as a dining area, for ex.) and there could be some translation issues but I find it strange that what was initially reported matches what the surveillance video shows and what the attorney has given doesn't match anything...... 

[mayleeman]

I feel pretty certain no expert testimony will be accepted at either trial. Everyone will just introduce this thread to save time!

 

This wsecrack is, BTW, directed to me and my legal opining as much as anyone else! Trying to avoid the expense with a trial judge, too.

[Two Wheels Only]

45 minutes ago, CruisingSince1982 said:

 

Were her feet on the window? All reports I have read say they were on the railing, and she leaned forward. 

 

Anello was leaning on the railing. From what I can see on video, Chloe was sitting on the window sill. 

[BSocial]

50 minutes ago, CruisingSince1982 said:

 

I agree with you. Seeing this, it doesn't look like he could have leaned out of the window. Need to see that video from a different angle. The one RCCL released doesn't portray a gap like this photo does.

this link may change your mind.  Look at the photo of the man in blue shirt and shorts measuring the window,     GF could definitely leaned this far 
 

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2020/01/23/chloe-wiegand-family-attorneys-scene-proves-royal-caribbean-lying/4553751002/