Babysitter didn’t interfere with deputy, judge rules

A judge dismisses the charge against a woman who opened a police cruiser’s door to comfort a hot and crying boy.

[Times photos: Jill Sagers] Erika Csintalan, center, kisses her husband, Antal, after she was acquitted of obstructing a police officer when she comforted David Sylvanovitz, right.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 13, 2001

LARGO -- Pinellas sheriff's Deputy Sam Mitchem led the 10-year-old boy to his cruiser.

"You have the right to remain silent," Mitchem said, reading the Miranda warning to a boy accused of pushing a 7-year-old onto the ground and spitting on him July 31.

Pinellas sheriff's deputy Sam Mitchem, in court Monday.

Sitting alone in the cruiser, the scared boy screamed and cried and thrashed widely.

Witnesses say the deputy told an onlooker, "I've seen grown men cry harder than that."

The boy's babysitter opened the cruiser door and, she said, comforted him while Mitchem was busy talking to someone else.

That landed the woman in a jail cell.

But a judge granted a summary judgment of acquittal during the trial Monday of the babysitter, Erika Csintalan, 34, dismissing a misdemeanor charge of obstructing or opposing a police officer.

County Judge Patrick Caddell asked prosecutor Melissa McCullough, "Why would this be illegal?"

McCullough told him the woman disobeyed an order to get away from the cruiser and interfered with a deputy's duty. The answer didn't satisfy the judge.

So after prosecutors rested their case, Caddell dismissed the case because prosecutors hadn't met their legal burden.

McCullough had earlier threatened to seek a jail sentence against Csintalan if she were convicted, unless she gave up her right to a jury trial, instead allowing a judge to decide the case.

Caddell told McCullough, "I question the ethics of that."

Csintalan, a self-employed framemaker, insisted on her jury trial despite the threat, only to have the judge decide it after all.

"I'm very happy," said Csintalan, who faced a year in jail if convicted. "That deputy overreacted, I think."

Csintalan was looking after David "E.J." Sylvanovitz for the boy's mother, who was her neighbor on Bramblewood Drive W in Clearwater. E.J. suffers from attention deficit disorder, his mother said.

At the time the deputy placed E.J. in the cruiser, he hadn't yet received his medication for the condition, leading the boy to "flip out" worse, she said.

The deputy never arrested or charged E.J. for shoving the other neighborhood boy, instead releasing him into the custody of his mother.

"People need to be treated with respect and dignity and not like a dog," said E.J.'s mother, Barbara Lyon, a nurse who no longer lives in the area. "You have to keep in mind that all kids aren't Columbine killers."

When Mitchem responded to the neighborhood, he asked E.J.'s friends to track the boy down. E.J. voluntarily came up to the deputy.

Mitchem said he immediately placed him in the cruiser without talking to him about his tussle with the 7-year-old.

"You put him in a cruiser?" asked Jeff Brown, Csintalan's attorney.

"Like I do with adults," Mitchem said.

"He's not an adult," Brown responded. "You do know the distinction?"

Later, Mitchem said, "That's just my policy."

He said, "I was just trying to control the whole situation." But he acknowledged that E.J. wasn't acting up and that he wasn't a risk to flee or hurt someone.

Witnesses said Mitchem handcuffed the boy and kept him in the cruiser with the windows rolled up on the late July afternoon without the car's air-conditioning on, which Mitchem denied.

"Do you think a 10-year-old understands Miranda?" Brown asked.

"I clarify it as much as I can."

Mitchem could not recall telling Csintalan, as she remembered, "On these streets, I'm the law."

But Mitchem told Brown, "Technically, I am."

Why didn't he call E.J's mother before putting him in the cruiser?

"Because I don't have to," said Mitchem, a deputy for seven years who formerly trained new hires.

Mitchem said he had to physically escort Csintalan, who has no prior criminal record, away from his cruiser because she wouldn't move away.

Mitchem said Csintalan's arrest was automatically triggered by her opening his cruiser door.

Once she did that, he said, "She's going to jail. That's the end of it."

Said Brown, "I say she acted with compassion. She isn't a criminal."

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright