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Court hearing for former Guiding Hands staffers in boy's death at school moves to January

Sacramento Bee - 10/14/2020

Oct. 14--The case against two school administrators and a teacher who were charged with involuntarily manslaughter for fatally restraining a 13-year-old boy with autism at an El Dorado Hills school will move to a preliminary hearing in next year in El Dorado Superior Court.

The case against the three staffers at the now-closed Guiding Hands School -- school site administrator Cindy Keller, Guiding Hands principal Staranne Meyers and Kimberly Wohlwend, the teacher accused of being among those who restrained 13-year-old Max Benson -- will move to a preliminary hearing on Jan. 22 to determine whether it will be moved to trial.

In November 2019, El Dorado County prosecutors formally filed involuntary manslaughter charges against the administrators and teacher at the El Dorado Hills non-public school where Max Benson died in 2018 after being restrained face down for hours by staffers.

Guiding Hands' attorney Linda Parisi requested records from the Davis Police Department, Fremont Police Department and the Yolo County Sheriff's Office that show any previous history of misbehavior, or to determine if the family withheld behavioral issues from the school. Max and his family lived in Davis.

"It's relevant to show that the behaviors of the deceased goes right to the heart of (Keller's and Meyer's) responsibilities," Parisi said.

Prosecutors challenged the subpoenas in court, calling them over broad, irrelevant, and a violation of confidentiality. The subpoenas include police reports regarding Max's parents and grandparents.

The judge questioned whether disclosing the records was relevant to determining if restraining Max was justified, and will review the evidence in chambers on Dec. 1.

Meyers, Keller and Wohlwend were also named in a civil suit filed against the school and several employees. The suit also names Davis Joint Unified, Elk Grove Unified and Amador County Unified school districts -- districts that had contracted with Guiding Hands for education services -- along with California Department of Education and special education administrative bodies in Yolo and Amador counties.

The civil suit filed on behalf of Benson's family and other families of Guiding Hands students alleges Wohlwend held Max's upper body while other staff members -- Jill Watson, Betty Morgan and Le'Mon Thomas -- took turns holding Max's legs down.

The suit states that the staff "imposed a prolonged prone restraint on Max and failed to render competent medical aid to Max."

Max was restrained face down for 105 minutes. The state Department of Education said in 2018 the school staff used "an amount of force which is not reasonable and necessary under the circumstances."

The suit alleges staff members took no steps to ensure that Max was released from a hold, nor did they check on his medical condition and that it took 10 minutes for a school nurse to arrive after Guiding Hands staff called for help. Paramedics weren't called until nearly a half-hour after Max lost consciousness, plaintiffs said in the lawsuit.

Paramedics were called to the school at 2:03 p.m., "25 minutes after Max was rendered unconscious," the suit read.

When paramedics arrived, they found that Max had no pulse and was not breathing. He was declared brain dead the following day at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.

Guiding Hands had been the subject of several state investigations over its treatment of special-needs students, court documents and state records have shown. In January, state education officials decertified the school. It closed later that month.

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