Prosecutors seek six-year prison term for mother of overdosed children

Prosecutors seek six-year prison term for 19-year-old

Staff report

WARREN

Calling Carlisa Davis “callous and indifferent” to the potential that her two small children might die from a drug overdose last February, prosecutors have asked a judge to sentence Davis to six years in prison.

Davis, 19, will learn her sentence today in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court after being convicted at trial in November of two counts of felony child endangering. Davis has been in the county jail since Nov. 3.

In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors said Davis admitted to knowing that her brothers sold drugs out of the home where she, her mother, the children, age 21 months and 9 months, and others lived on Randolph Street Northwest.

On the day the children overdosed, Davis told police her brother warned her that one of the children had gotten into drugs, and Davis saw one of her children “playing in white powder” when she awoke from a nap, the memorandum says.

Despite that, when personnel repeatedly asked Davis what might be wrong with the children later at ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital, Davis “failed to disclose that the children had been exposed to opiates,” the memorandum says.

“The children nearly died while she sat mute mere feet away in the waiting room,” prosecutors said. Her inaction delayed treatment for 30 minutes, prosecutors said.

Each child received multiple does of the opiate reversal drug naloxone, and both recovered.

Davis’ attorney, Michael Scala, meanwhile, points out in his filing that Trumbull County Children Services has indicated that Davis has been “in full compliance” with the case plan the agency wrote regarding her participation in the care of her third child, who was born in May.

A filing in Trumbull County Family Court says Children Services has asked a judge to transfer legal custody of all three of Davis’ children to Davis’ maternal grandparents.

A custody hearing is planned for 1:30 p.m. Friday in Family Court.