15553: (Hermantin) Miami Herald-Mother, Palm Beach deputies square off on spanking (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, May. 12, 2003

Mother, Palm Beach deputies square off on spanking
BY JOHN PACENTI
Palm Beach Post

LAKE PARK - Joanes Clermont says he thought he had stepped into a nightmare
when he returned to his apartment.

His 9-month-old daughter was at the window. His 4-year-old son was weeping
on the floor. Another son, 3, was cloistered in a bedroom. The house was in
disorder with chairs overturned everywhere.

His wife was nowhere to be found.

''I thought she had been kidnapped,'' the Haitian immigrant said of that
morning in late January.

What happened was that his wife, Rosemanine Saimplice, had been arrested on
a four-month-old charge of child abuse that neither the Department of
Children and Families nor the original investigating officer saw any merit
in.

And, she and her husband say, their young children were left alone for about
two hours.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office denies the allegation.

''The deputies went out of their way to make sure the children were taken
care of by a neighbor,'' said sheriff's spokeswoman Diane Carhart.

But DCF was never called to the scene.

''It doesn't make a lot of sense,'' said DCF spokeswoman Marilyn Munoz. ``I
don't know why we weren't called.''

She said DCF would never leave children with a neighbor unless they had been
screened.

Saimplice's neighbors said they knew nothing of the Jan. 28 incident.

The sheriff's office, in late February, looked into the incident, but the
investigator said he got little cooperation from Saimplice or Clarence
Shahid Freeman of Citizens for Equal Justice Under the Law, who wrote a
letter of complaint to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ed Bieluch.

The Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office said there was ''sufficient
legal evidence'' to charge Saimplice, but spokesman Mike Edmondson said the
office doesn't comment on filing decisions.

The state attorney's office has offered Saimplice pretrial intervention, a
court program for first-time offenders that erases the conviction if they
remain free of arrest for 18 months.

But Saimplice has refused and is heading to trial.

''She doesn't want anybody in the community to be treated the way she was,''
Joanes Clermont says.

Saimplice's attorney says the incident is not atypical of the way Haitians
are treated by authorities.

''These people are powerless,'' attorney Robert Guerrier said of Haitians.

In their small apartment, Saimplice breaks down in tears as she recalls the
events that led to her arrest.

Her young children surround her: 4-year-old Romanes, 3-year-old Dovnes and
11-month-old Rose Carssendre.

In September, while Rosemanine Saimplice was shopping with her children at
the Publix supermarket near her house, Romanes started acting up. When he
knocked over a display, a cashier asked Saimplice and her children to leave.

While outside the store, Romanes darted in front of a truck, and Saimplice
said she had to run out in front to stop it.

As she was heading back to her car, she said she gave Romanes a slap on his
arm.

It was this slap that initiated a call to police by Publix security. At
least three witnesses said that Saimplice also used a belt on her child, but
no belt was found and no welts were observed on Romanes. Saimplice denies
using a belt.

DCF workers as well as a sheriff's deputy responded to the scene.

No evidence of abuse was found, and Saimplice was allowed to return home.

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