The case against a formerly homeless Joshua Tree couple accused of child abuse took a dramatic turn yesterday in a Joshua Tree courtroom. Reporter David Haldane was there and filed this report…
Mona Kirk and Daniel Panico are still charged with endangering their children by living with them in squalor. But the charges were reduced from felonies to misdemeanors yesterday, thanks to the intervention the couple’s lawyers.
“We have won round one,” Mike Kennedy, representing Panico, declared in a written statement heralding the change. Prosecutors had agreed to reduce the charges, he said, after defense attorneys privately objected to any further delays in the case.
Kirk and Panico were arrested February 28 after sheriff’s deputies found them living with their three children in what was described as a plywood box. Though they were released a week later, the children remain in the custody of county family services.
At yesterday’s hearing, the couple was surrounded by supporters, at one point clasping hands in what appeared to be an attitude of prayer.
Judge Joel Agron ordered them back to court on June 29.
