California couple whose failure to care for their son led to permanent brain damage convicted of child abuse

A mother and father were convicted of child abuse this week for exposing their newborn son to extreme heat and cold and failing to give the child vital nourishment nearly killing the infant An Orange County Superior Court jury on Monday located John Andres Gonzalez and Jacqueline Navarro guilty of a felony count of child abuse with an enhancement for causing great bodily injury to a child under the age of Related Articles No remorse Union City police arrest woman suspected of drowning her newborn -year-old California boy last seen with soccer coach died of acute alcohol poisoning healthcare examiner says California man arrested after leaving baby locked in car at post office police say Embattled child welfare agency appoints new director in Santa Clara County Bay Area man arrested after soul-crushing child pornography research The conviction came nearly five years after the couple brought their unresponsive -month-old son to the Hoag Hospital Crisis Room in Newport Beach The couple who are residents of the city of Lindsay in Tulare County were on a trip to Orange County at the time Crisis room doctors learned that the baby who was gray emaciated and catatonic had extremely low blood sugar levels and was suffering from hypoxia and constant seizures according to prosecutors A specialist at the Children s Hospital of Orange County later determined that the baby had not been fed properly Costa Mesa police officers were called to Hoag Hospital and learned the family was staying in a hotel in the city Detectives spoke to hospital staff reached out and coordinated with Tulare County functionaries and conducted more than a dozen interviews with bystanders over the class of their probe Costa Mesa police arrested the couple and turned their analysis over to the DA s Office for prosecution According to prosecutors Gonzalez and Navarro are vegan mucus-free fruitarians who would only feed the baby soy-based baby formula fruits and vegetables The couple considered themselves followers of naturopathy prosecutors commented believing that the body can heal itself and that baby formula and breast milk was toxic They also within weeks of the baby s birth began putting him in high-temperature saunas and ice baths prosecutors allege While the baby was hospitalized Gonzalez objected to life-saving treatments prosecutors added telling biological staff that he deduced that starving the child would lead to healing Despite the curative medication he received the boy suffered permanent neurologic damage as a impact of the severe malnutrition He is a quadriplegic blind and unable to walk talk or eat on his own For nearly a year leading up to the couple s arrest their child s paternal grandmother had been contacting the Tulare County Department of Wellbeing reporting concerns about the baby s welfare Beginning when the child was only a month old the grandmother called the county department more than a dozen times Tulare County paid a million settlement over the child welfare department s failure to protect the infant The grandmother has since been awarded custody of the child Gonzalez and Navarro are scheduled to be sentenced on July They face up to years in state prison This innocent child suffered from almost the first breath he took because of his parents beliefs that starvation would cure him Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer revealed in a report Instead of curing him they robbed him of his sight his ability to take his first initiatives to say his first words and his chance to see the world through the eyes of a child who is seeing everything for the first time Tragically he will never get to experience any of those milestones because his parents starved him nearly to death instead of giving him the nourishment he so desperately needed The DA added