ROCKLAND, Maine — A 40-year-old Camden man was fined $310 Friday after the court agreed to reduce a criminal charge in connection with the removal of his child’s drawing from a guidance counselor’s office.
David Daniello, who had worked as a bail commissioner prior to the incident, was fined for disorderly conduct. He had agreed in March to plead guilty through a deferred disposition agreement in which he would ultimately be convicted of a disorderly conduct charge in exchange for dismissal of a falsifying evidence charge.
The falsifying evidence charge stemmed from a March 2011 incident in which he and his wife, Cheryl Daniello, 48, were accused of removing a drawing their daughter made from a Rockport school guidance counselor’s office after being told not to take the paper.
What was on the paper was not revealed other than it involved a separate investigation that is not being made public.
Police obtained a search warrant and retrieved the drawing from Cheryl Daniello’s purse after they searched the Daniellos’ home.
The charge against Cheryl Daniello was dropped in exchange for agreeing to take an ethics course. She completed a law enforcement ethics course this fall.
Cheryl Daniello works as a records officer for the Knox County Jail.
In August 2011, the jail administrator issued Cheryl Daniello a written warning for waiting two days before informing him that she had been issued a criminal summons.
At the March plea hearing, Justice Jeffrey Hjelm questioned how the allegations of removing evidence in an investigation fit into a disorderly conduct charge.
The disorderly conduct complaint states that David Daniello challenged Maine State Police Detective Abbe Chabot when she was executing the search warrant.
Real story : What was the drawing of??
What other investigation ??
Children have a way of depicting reality quite vividly. It could have been a drawing of daddy beating mommy.
Or Mommy(elsworth) throwing a spatula at Daddy.
Maybe it was Mommy and Daddy visiting a certain Zumba instructor?
And it COULD HAVE been a drawing of daddy and mommy buying a Bushmaster at a Maine gun show.
It is quite unfair to speculate on the content when no one seems to really KNOW anything.
“Children have a way of depicting reality quite vividly.” Although their grasp of perspective is notoriously suspect and they have no appreciation at all of chiaroscuro shading techniques.
Nothing makes much sense in this piece, what, why, who, how, why is, who is, what is, how is, she works, she stole, he, she, ole Gawd, I can see BDN reporters are at it again.
Yep, doesn’t rally say much, does it? Just implies that maybe the parents got a little riled and the rest sounds like gibberish. Wonder if it was like that stick-figure drawing I once saw one a joke site — two figures in a, ah, compromising position and labeled “Mommy” and “Not Daddy.” ACK!
LOL…;/)
So they find the drawing in the wifes purse and she gets off and the husband is convicted?
The wife is a county jail employee, so it looks like they made a sweetheart deal so she wouldn’t have a conviction that might result in her losing the county job. All she has to do is take an “ethics course”. And all the husband had to do was plead to disorderly conduct, which obviously has nothing to do with falsifying evidence. No wonder the judge asked the question about how it fits in. It fits in because it’s all rope-a-dope, and everyone knows it, but no one will admit it on the record.
“David Daniello, who had worked as a bail commissioner prior to the incident” Also a County employee.
I guess one had to go down and her job paid more?
Kind of unnerving to think she’s responsible for court records but the judge feels she needs to take an ethics course.
Yes, and it’s like dumping an assault or domestic violence charge in return for the offender’s agreement to take an “anger management” class.
In this case, it’s very unlikely that the ethics class for the wife was the judge’s idea. If it’s like the usual plead agreement, the judge is just going along with the defense counsel’s and prosecutor’s plea bargain. The disposition of the husband’s case was so strained and silly, however, that it appears the judge had a little trouble swallowing it; otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked that question about how the different charges in the case “fit in”.
So school boards and schools don’t have to answer to the taxpayer parents for anything, yet the school seems to have the rights to stick their noses into taxpayer parents business…
Something is wrong with this picture.
Time for people to take back the schools.
Before or after you turn them into armed camps?
Search warrants for little kid drawings?
Really?
What law gives the school the right to keep this drawing?
Wouldn’t this drawing belong to the child?
Not if it is on school property.
So because it is on school property it belongs to the school?
Wrong – lets just say this child was an artist and the picture was worth 20k. Your saying because it is on school property it belongs to the school?
Schools can strip search you child and their belonging without calling you or any Law Enforcment. As for artwork, yes they will keep it if they want to, something tells me it is the story the artwork tells that is making this an issue.
Citation needed.
Schools can NOT strip search your child with out police presence and warrant, or parental consent in writing. AND today, a school would be well advised to get their own lawyer involved before calling a parent or law enforcement to even suggest such a thing.
“students do not shed their constitutional rights at the school
house gates” Island Trees School District v.
Pico (1982). The Supreme Court of the USA has ruled.
You may want to do some more research, it is becoming an issue, what it come done to is who has the money for a Lawyer.
http://mainecampus.com/2009/03/26/bop-ed-teenage-strip-search-pushes-privacy-rights/
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20121004/news/710049846/http://ushtylrhs.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
http://ushtylrhs.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
That blog has misinterpreted the Tinker decisions.
The Tinker children wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam war. The school prohibited the use of these armbands saying the “speech” involved was disruptive. The Supreme Court said the burden of proof was on the school district, in other words prove it is disruptive. The Court at that time stated that school children “…do not shed their rights at the schoolhouse gate” In other words children maintain their constitutional rights in school.
Ruling favored Tinker.
No, you have it wrong. It is illegal, but some folks choose not to fight for their children.
Warrant-less searches are ALL illegal in the USA.
Walmart security can no9t even search adult shoplifters without a warrant!
Copyright law gives it automatically to the child. As the parents are the child’s guardians, they can exercise the child’s copyright to the picture.
That sounds more reasonable.
Absolutely belongs to the child, and by extension the parents BUT the picture (according to the story) is ALSO a piece of evidence in another case. So it can be seized using a warrant, as it was.
Boy, I bet the real story of this case is seriously thorny. Why are these parents so intent on protecting the privacy of a simple childhood drawing? Hmmmmm.
Children who are the victims of crimes sometimes draw pictures of those crimes. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on here.
Then the school GC should have turned the photo over to authorities!
I’d be willing to bet the cops already have a copy of that picture.
My only question is why the guidance counselor had a piece of evidence posted on the wall of his office?
My guess is we haven’t heard the end of this.
23 years in the classroom taught me “guidance counselors” have a sense of immunity from all parent concerns and a tract record amounting to little in helping kids.
You have that down perfectly… saw the same in my work.
She works for the county with records? Why does this not sound like such a good thing?