Au Pair Gets Prison Time
Today the courts handed down the long anticipated sentence for Brazilian au pair, Ana Cuoco who suffocated her infant son. To read the entire story, see here.
It is a very sad situation and many mixed emotions and comments have been posted since the sentencing earlier today. People want to know "why?"
Why did this young mother kill her baby? Ms. Cuoco stated she was "afraid" she would be sent home if anyone knew about the baby. She wanted to finish her year in the USA as an au pair.
The judge made a comment about her "selfishness" that influenced her actions. I think this is a rather superficial explanation of what this young lady did. This young woman had psychiatric problem or at least, a anti-social personality disorder. No one kills their newborn infant, stuffs its lifeless body in a closet, without saying anything, if they don't have significant emotional or psychiatric issues.
What worries me is that Ms. Cuoco got through the au pair agency screening, which involves not only a background check, but a personality test or evaluation, personal and professional references and a 1-2 hour, face-to-face interview with the agency's agent. The types of psychological tests most au pair agencies use are superficial and mainly measure things like the potiential to get homesick, outgoing vs quiet personalities and what kind of hobbies they enjoy, etc.
It seems that the overall process of au pair screening au pairs appears to be flawed. Who is overseeing this "screening" on a daily basis? Not the Dept. of State (DOS). This government office that regulates the au pair industry does not even had a standard test that the agencies must use. Agencies can pick and choose from a variety of tests according to ease of administration and costs!
This could have been your au pair, and the baby she smothered could have been yours. We need more stringent screening methods and host parents and third parties need access to this information in order to know how the process runs (or doesn't).
With all the negative publicity swirling around some of the leading agencies, I feel there is a storm brewing and that the au pair industries are in for quite a squall.
If so, we will be right here to report it as the story unfolds!
Best,
Edina
- Edina Stone's blog
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This Au Pair was here with Au Pair Care
This Au Pair was here with Au Pair Care ...
French au pair did same thing in 1999
New From The Post
Thursday, October 28, 1999; 1:00 p.m. EDT
A French au pair whose newborn baby girl died after she left her outside on a cold March night received a suspended sentence today for involuntary manslaughter.
Alexandria Chief Circuit Court Judge Donald M. Haddock sentenced Karine Gaelle Epailly, 25, to five years, but then suspended the entire sentence on the condition that she receive psychiatric counseling. Epailly, who had been caring for the three daughters of a French embassy official, will be deported and banned from the United States.
Epailly, who had hidden her pregnancy from her family and friends, gave birth to a daughter she named Sarah in the bathroom of her au pair suite. But she decided she could not care for the child and left her on the patio of a garden apartment on Seminary Road in the predawn hours of March 4. A state medical examiner testified that the child probably died of hypothermia.
Epailly said nothing at the hearing, although she wept when Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Krista Boucher proposed a five-year prison term.
Epailly "made choices, and she came first.. . . . Nothing will bring Sarah back, but perhaps somewhere she will know there is justice," Boucher said.
But defense attorney Jeffrey Barbour said his client had suffered brain damage as a child and argued that Epailly thought she was leaving the baby with a family who would care for it. "Ultimately this was an accident, a tragic mistake," he said.