Conviction in abuse case
Solander guilty of tormenting adopted kids, could get life sentence
A Las Vegas woman faces a possible life sentence after jurors found her guilty of imposing years of abuse on her three adopted children.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Hamner said jurors made the right decision Tuesday when they convicted Janet Solander of all 46 counts she faced.
“What she did was inexcusable, unjustifiable, and it’s horrifying to think that a parent would do that to their daughters,” the prosecutor said.
Solander, who authored a book that was critical of Child Protective Services, could receive a life prison term for nearly three years of continual abuse that prosecutors said she carried out “just to hurt,” “just to Janet abused these kids, and CPS failed them. She doesn’t get a pass because CPS can’t do their job. humiliate” and “just to cause pain.”
Throughout a month of testimony and in closing arguments to jurors on Monday, prosecutors criticized the state’s Division of Child and Family Services for not responding more quickly to signs of trouble within the home.
“Janet abused these kids, and CPS failed them,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Jacqueline Bluth said. “She doesn’t get a pass because CPS can’t do their job.”
‘Stranger to the truth’
The prosecutor said Solander regularly lied to case workers and even fabricated a biography on the jacket of her book, “Foster Care: How to Fix this Corrupted System,” falsely claiming she was a registered nurse with multiple degrees.
“She is literally a stranger to the truth,” Bluth said.
Defense attorney Caitlyn Mcamis pointed out that the children were abandoned by their mother and
SOLANDER
tremely low-income” families, defined as those making less than the federal poverty level or 30 percent of their area’s media income, whichever is higher.
For a family of four in the Las Vegas area, that’s about $24,600 or less a year. The NLIHC reports there are about 71,000 extremely low-income renter families here.
The study assumed that, in order for housing to be considered affordable, a family should spend no more than 30 percent of its income on rent and utilities.
Las Vegas had 10 affordable rental units for every 100 extremely low-income households. Nevada had 15. The national average was 35.
UNLV professor and affordable housing expert Karen Danielsen said the problem will get worse if Southern Nevada’s population continues to grow as it has in recent years.
“Developers do not typically build housing for the poorest of the poor,” she said. “So because demand for market-rate housing is pretty good, there is no real incentive to build for this income group.”
The lack of housing, paired with the fact that federal rental assistance programs are stretched to their limits, means more families are leasing homes and apartments they can’t afford. The report found that, in Las Vegas and Nevada, about four in five extremely low-income families spend more than half their income on rent.
These households forgo healthy food or delay health care or medications to pay the rent, according to the report.
In total, extremely low-income families need another 64,000 affordable rental homes in Las Vegas. The statewide shortage is closer to 82,000.
Nevada Housing Division administrator Steve Aichroth attributed the growing need to increases in rental housing prices outpacing the growth of household incomes. Aichroth said the state will continue leveraging programs, like federal tax credits, to build more rentals.
“By increasing the supply of rental units and providing options for homeownership, we can continue to incrementally improve the choices for affordable housing for Nevada residents,” he said.
Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Follow @davidsonlvrj on Twitter.