A New Jersey school bus aide charged in the 2023 death of a special-needs girl who was strangled by her own wheelchair harness was found not guilty of the most serious charges Monday after her defense lawyer tried to lay blame on the victim’s family.
A jury acquitted Amanda Davila of aggravated manslaughter and reckless manslaughter but convicted her of endangering the welfare of a child more than a year after Fajr Atiya Williams, 6, died on the way to Claremont Elementary School in Somerville for an extended school year program.
“I still don’t have my child. She’s gone forever,” the victim’s mother Najmah Nash said following the trial, according to CBS 2 NY.
“I don’t think it was fair. Do I think that the prosecution did a good job? Yes.”
Davila was accused of ignoring the helpless, non-verbal child who was in the back of the bus on July 17, 2023 as the girl “struggled violently for her life,” authorities said at the time.
The worker was looking at her cell phone with her earbuds in for nearly 20 minutes while the victim was slowly strangled after the bus went over some bumps, tightening the harness around Williams’ neck, according to prosecutors.
But defense lawyer Michael Policastro argued during the trial that the child’s family did not properly put the girl in the wheelchair.
“It’s the parent’s responsibility to buckle the top and bottom parts. The parents — I guess she delegated to her 14-year-old daughter that day — did put the top part,” he said following the split verdict, according to the station.
“She didn’t put the bottom, and that’s why the little girl slipped. If that bottom harness was fastened, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Nash hit back that Davila didn’t do her job by not checking on her daughter, who had a rare chromosome disability called Emanuel syndrome.
“We did our job. We got my baby to the bus,” she reportedly said. “She was strapped in, and that’s a fact. So, any description, or any disbelief in that, is shame on you.”
The bus monitor took the stand in her own defense and admitted she should have done more.
“I made a mistake. You guys are trying to put me in jail for 10-20 years on a mistake,” she said, according to ABC 7 NY.
“I’m partially to blame but there’s other people to blame too, not just me.”
She could be hit with at least five years in prison when she’s sentenced in March.
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