{"id":1358,"date":"2026-06-06T18:35:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T18:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=1358"},"modified":"2026-06-06T18:35:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T18:35:36","slug":"mother-daughter-daycare-team-sentenced-to-prison-in-childrens-pool-drownings-in-san-jose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=1358","title":{"rendered":"Mother-daughter daycare team sentenced to prison in children’s pool drownings in San Jose"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SAN JOSE \u2014 After heart-wrenching declarations from shattered families, a San Jose mother-daughter daycare team was sentenced to prison Friday for their convictions in the deaths of two toddlers who drowned in a backyard pool at the mother\u2019s Almaden home three years ago.<\/p>\n

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Nina Fathizadeh, 43, was issued a 13-year, four month term and Shahin Gheblehshenas, 67, was issued an eight-year term by Santa Clara County Judge Paul Bernal, capping a prosecution in which Fathizadeh pleaded guilty in February, followed by her mother going to trial and being found guilty by a jury March 24.<\/p>\n

They were each convicted of three felony child endangerment charges related to the Oct. 2, 2023 tragedy in which two children drowned and a third nearly drowned. Fathizadeh was also convicted of seven more child endangerment counts related to separate allegations of transporting children in a vehicle without properly restraining them.<\/p>\n

Both defendants appeared in Bernal\u2019s courtroom clad in orange jail clothing as several people, including the father of drowning victim 16-month-old Lillian \u201cLily\u201d Hanan, of San Jose, and relatives of victim 18-month-old Payton Cobb, of Hollister, and family members of the defendants, gave victim impact statements to the judge.<\/p>\n

Bernal\u2019s sentences generally fell in the middle range of what he was legally authorized to hand out, and factored the lack of criminal history for both defendants, who will get roughly a half-year of credit for the jail time they have already served.<\/p>\n

However, the difference in sentencing length was not strictly a product of the additional counts charged to Fathizadeh. Gheblehshenas was not home when the drownings occurred, and received less prison time for the same three core charges as her daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a catastrophe for everybody,\u201d Bernal said before revealing the sentences. \u201cI can\u2019t bring back Lily and Payton. Nobody can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statements made in court Friday pitted the victims\u2019 families offering painful detail about their losses against the defendants\u2019 relatives pleading for mercy.<\/p>\n

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Lily\u2019s father, Scott Hanan, described the difficult journey he and his wife Josephine endured in having a family, which included 15 years of fertility struggles before they adopted Lily. He described her loves, including the song \u201cBaby Beluga,\u201d and how the child was buried in a beluga costume they had planned for her to wear for the coming Halloween before she died.<\/p>\n

\u201cLosing Lily was not only a loss for us, but also a loss for her birth family,\u201d Hanan said. \u201cOur home still has a silence that should never exist \u2026 Part of us is just waiting for her to come home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanan also rejected the defendants\u2019 assertions that the tragedy resulted from a \u201cmomentary lapse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe put protecting herself ahead of doing everything possible to save those babies,\u201d he said of Fathizadeh. \u201cThese were not harmless oversights.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Hanan described how the word \u201chappy\u201d has been forever distorted for him in light of the defendants\u2019 business name, Happy Happy Daycare.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really damaged the words \u2018happy\u2019 and \u2018happily ever after.\u2019 Whenever we hear the word \u2018happy,\u2019 we think of the place where Lily was killed,\u201d he said. \u201cThis sentence matters because Lily mattered. Every parent who leaves their child at daycare should be able to trust that child will come home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deborah Herting, Payton\u2019s grandmother, echoed Hanan\u2019s feeling that the defendants were not remorseful in relation to the gravity of the deaths.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no worse sound in the world than hearing your daughter say goodbye to her daughter for the last time. The sound of her grief and her pain was so deep, and so real, that it will never ever leave my head. It\u2019s there forever,\u201d she said. \u201cThey still don\u2019t get it. All I\u2019ve seen is they\u2019re worried about themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cNobody in my family will ever trust again. It doesn\u2019t matter how long they go to prison, they are never going to know what we feel like, ever,\u201d Herting added. \u201cThey have to be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first time since the deaths, Fathizadeh and Gheblehshenas spoke directly to the victims\u2019 families as they sought leniency from the judge.<\/p>\n

Fathizadeh voiced remorse and regret, and proclaimed her love for the children who died.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no word I even can (say) \u2026 or feel what you have been through,\u201d Fathizadeh said, while trembling and crying. \u201cI miss them more than you can think, but that\u2019s nothing than what has happened to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the morning of the drownings, Lily and Payton made their way into the pool at the daycare operated at Gheblehshenas\u2019 Fleetwood Drive home and drowned. A third child was also found in the pool but survived.<\/p>\n

Fathizadeh described being overwhelmed by panic at the sight of the surviving child floating in the pool and believing that the two girls were playing, not also in the pool.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy life will never be the same, in custody or out of custody, they will still be with me,\u201d Fathizadeh said. \u201cMy sadness and remorse are not going to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her brother, Sina Fathizadeh, who also spoke Friday, backed that claim, describing how he did not see the girls in the water until after pulling up the pool cover. He pleaded to the judge not to mistake the chaos and confusion after the drownings for willful inaction. Rahim Fathizadeh, Gheblehshenas\u2019 husband and Nina\u2019s father, also pleaded for compassion in light of a terminal cancer diagnosis that leaves him with months to live.<\/p>\n

Gheblehshenas said that \u201cI have no excuse for what happened\u201d and asked Bernal to \u201cnot judge me as the person who made a big mistake in my life, but see me as a human who is truly broken, remorseful, and full of sorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the case, prosecutors asserted that Nina Fathizadeh failed to ensure the pool\u2019s safety gate was closed before allowing the children into the backyard. A 5-foot fence surrounding the pool was propped open, and the criminal charges alleged both women knew Rahim Fathizadeh would periodically open the gate to water plants and forget to close it.<\/p>\n

They further alleged Nina Fathizadeh could see the open pool gate when she let the two girls and a boy into the backyard but did not close it before returning to the kitchen to tend to oatmeal cooking on the stove.<\/p>\n

She was out of view of the children for at least five minutes, according to a San Jose police affidavit. Fathizadeh later found the boy floating in the shallow end of the pool, pulled him out, called 911 and began CPR. She then alerted her brother, who was the one to find the two girls in the deep end of the pool, according to police. The girls later died at a hospital.<\/p>\n

Gheblehshenas was not home when the children entered the unsecured backyard pool. But suspicions of negligence surfaced after investigators determined that she went to a medical appointment despite a daycare employee calling in sick and her daughter raising concerns about supervising four children alone. Parents were not informed about the short staffing when they dropped off their children.<\/p>\n

Even after she learned her appointment was actually scheduled for the following week, investigators say Gheblehshenas opted not to return home to relieve her daughter but instead headed to a separate nascent and unlicensed day care also run by the family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe care of small children \u2013 our own and others \u2013 comes with deep responsibility and requires close attention,\u201d District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement after the sentencing. \u201cThis case tragically shows the difference between proper care and criminal negligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he was sentencing Nina Fathizadeh, Bernal also pushed back on the notion that the deaths resulted from a momentary lapse, as she, her attorneys and family contended.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendant did not simply tend to oatmeal, (and) that led to the death of these children,\u201d the judge said. \u201cThere were several data points over many months if not years that led to these unfortunate deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Man dies after falling from cliff in Santa Cruz County<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A San Jose mother-daughter daycare team was sentenced to prison Friday for their child endangerment convictions in the deaths of two toddlers who drowned in a backyard pool at the mother’s Almaden home three years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nMother-daughter daycare team sentenced to prison in children’s pool drownings in San Jose - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=1358\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mother-daughter daycare team sentenced to prison in children’s pool drownings in San Jose - 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