MOTHER OF 2 PRESCHOOL FIRE VICTIMS LEFT AT HOME GETS PROBATION

Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Hayward

The mother of two preschoolers who died in a Hayward fire after she left
them to go on a 3 a.m. shopping run was sentenced yesterday to five years'
probation and told to remain at a drugtreatment center for pregnant women.

Joellen Flauta, 21, who is expecting a child next month, was visibly
relieved after she was sentenced on child endangerment charges by Alameda
County Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman.

``My concern was that she would have been forced to deliver her unborn baby
while in custody,'' said Diane Bellas, assistant public defender. ``She
could have lost the opportunity to bond with the child.''

Flauta declined to comment.

James Meehan, deputy district attorney, said that while Flauta had been
``involved in extremely negligent conduct,'' he agreed with Bellas that
probation was the best sentence. Flauta now will be able to ``pick up all
the pieces and not by any stretch of the imagination ignore what happened
to the children,'' Meehan said.

The bodies of Kayla Jean Flauta, 4, and Kurtis John Flauta, 3, were found
huddled in a corner of their bed early January 25. They had died of burns
and smoke inhalation in a fire apparently caused by a candle.

The children and Flauta had been staying temporarily in a Thackeray Avenue
home occupied by other people, some of whom were drug users, police said.
The utilities were shut off, and Flauta used candles for light and fires to
cook.

About 3 a.m., Flauta left her children with other adults at the house to go
shopping, authorities said. When she returned two hours later, her children
were dead. No one called Hayward police for another five hours. ``She
basically freaked out,'' Meehan said.

Bellas said Flauta had been disconsolate. ``It was an accident in every
sense of the word, unforeseen and unanticipated,'' the public defender said.

Flauta was arrested in April and charged with two counts each of
manslaughter and felony child endangerment. Under a negotiated arrangement,
she pleaded no contest October 9 to the child endangerment charges, and the
manslaughter counts were dismissed.

Flauta spent six months at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin before being
transferred last month to a livein drugtreatment center in the East Bay.
She has been a regular methamphetamine user, Meehan said.

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