Judge reaffirms 10-year sentence for day care provider

By jon frank
The Virginian-Pilot

VIRGINIA BEACH — Nicolas and Trish Weiss have lived with a profound sense of betrayal and loss since September, when they left their infant daughter with Anne Marie Cardinal at her Shadowlawn home.

The Weisses thought their child – 9-month-old Hannah – was safe. Cardinal had a day-care provider’s license hanging on the wall, and claimed to be certified in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

The couple had developed a good personal relationship with Cardinal, and that made them feel confident.

The Weisses soon learned that all of Cardinal’s claims were lies, and that Cardinal, who was with them when Hannah was born, was operating an illegal day care business without a state license.

That knowledge came too late to save Hannah. She died in Cardinal’s care, after Cardinal was unable to resuscitate her on Sept. 14, 2005.

Later, authorities said Cardinal was caring for 21 children in her home without assistants. She was charged with 10 counts of operating a day care center without a license.

Cardinal pleaded guilty to those charges and was sentenced in February in General District Court to 10 years in prison.

On Thursday, Circuit Judge Thomas S. Shadrick upheld that sentence on appeal. He told Cardinal: “You perpetrated a fraud on 21 parents. A darling 9-month-old died.”

In court Thursday, Nicolas Weiss wept as he remembered how he once considered Cardinal to be “like family. Now, her name is like acid on my tongue.”

Despite indications that Hannah Weiss was smothered, the state medical examiner could not determine what caused her death. As a result, police did not charge Cardinal in the child’s death.

Her sentence, however, was the maximum penalty under the law.

Susan C. Hackney, licensing administrator for the state Department of Social Services, testified Thursday that a licensed day care center in Virginia with more than 13 children should be staffed with at least six assistants.

Cardinal had none.

Hackney encouraged parents to check on day care providers at www.dss.virginia.gov/facility/search/licensed.cgi

This was not Cardinal’s first brush with the law.

In 2000, Virginia Beach Child Protective Services investigated several claims against Cardinal, including allegations that she placed children as young as 1 in a closet for up to three hours at a time.

Cardinal was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She also was the subject of a founded case of child neglect by Child Protective Services.

She received a 60-day suspended sentence. That conviction prevented her from legally running a child-care business.

It did not, however, prevent her from lying about her qualifications and convincing almost two dozen Shadowlawn parents that she was qualified.

“She is a con artist,” said Hannah’s aunt, Lisa Nelson.

Nicolas Weiss said, “She deserves a lifetime of pain. Like we have in our hearts.”