A Westmoreland County judge on Friday rejected a defense request to dismiss child endangerment charges against a Greensburg man suspected of leaving three children home alone for about a week in deplorable conditions.
Common Pleas Court Judge Christopher Feliciani ruled prosecutors presented sufficient evidence to support the charges against Ryan Mason, who said he was prohibited from having contact with his children under terms of his bail for an unrelated pending drug case.
Mason, 40, was charged last January after sheriff’s deputies found three children alone in his Cleveland Street home as they attempted to serve an arrest warrant. The children, 5-year-old twin girls and a 16-year-old boy, the son of Mason’s girlfriend, Destany Stamps, told deputies they were left alone by their parents in the bug-infested home with little food or heat.
Prosecutors contended Mason and Stamps knowingly endangered the children by demanding they stay hidden upstairs without access to food and the ability to bathe while drug users were permitted to remain in other sections of the house. Deputies, during a pretrial hearing last year, testified they found rotting food and garbage, bugs, drug paraphernalia and soiled bathrooms in the home. The children were described as having matted, unwashed hair and body odor.
Mason and Stamps, who police said were attempting to avoid arrest warrants for drug charges, had visited the house and witnessed the conditions in which the children were living, police contend.
In his six-page ruling, the judge found that Mason’s bail conditions for a previous drug arrest did not disqualify him from having responsibility for the children’s welfare.
“As Mr. Mason was present in the residence and observed his children, the court finds that Mr. Mason was certainly aware of the fact that his children were in circumstances that could threaten their physical or psychological welfare,” Feliciani wrote.
Stamps, 37, of Greensburg, also was charged with child endangerment. Their trial is scheduled to begin in February.
