Lawyer: Case dismissed for Westport daycare owner
WESTPORT — The case of a daycare owner accused of not reporting alleged abuse or neglect was dismissed last month due to a lack of evidence according to the owner’s attorney.
“While we expected this, it still comes as a relief,” said Ridhita Gupta, who owns Bright Beginnings Early Childhood Program, in a letter to parents. “As you can imagine, after 14 years of providing first-rate care for infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers, it was very painful for me to have questions raised about my commitment to your children.”
“Thank you for your support this past year,” she wrote. “It has been a difficult one in some respects, but also a time when the children in our care have been thriving and our dedicated staff have given 100 percent to their all-important jobs.”
Gupta was charged in December 2021 with failure to report abuse or neglect by a mandated reporter. The case was later dismissed on Nov. 2, 2022, according to attorney Mark Sherman, Gupta’s and Bright Beginnings’ lawyer for matters regarding the Connecticut Department of Children and Families.
Sherman said he is grateful prosecutors dismissed the criminal charge.
“This was a complete vindication for my client and validation as to why Bright Beginnings continues to be one of the top day care centers in Fairfield County Connecticut,” he said in an email.
When asked whether Gupta has implemented procedures to prevent similar incidents in the future, Sherman said Gupta has “prioritized safety and mandated reporting” since 2008 “and the court’s decision to dismiss the charges against my client reflect that.”
The charge stems from a pending case into Suzette Virgo, one of the daycare’s former lead teachers. Virgo was accused of flicking children on their heads “as a form of punishment and to scare them” and calling them demeaning names like “chunky monkey” and “fat f—,” according to her arrest warrant.
Virgo later told police that she never hit the children and made the flicking sound as a way of alerting them, the warrant stated. Other employees at Bright Beginnings claimed they saw Virgo force-feed bottles to some of the children.
A DCF investigator went to the facility on June 14 to review video footage after receiving a complaint. Virgo’s arrest warrant said she was fired the next day. Virgo had also been previously suspended for three days in December 2020 for a lack of supervision of a child, according to her warrant.
Virgo was charged with risk of injury to a child, a felony, in December 2021. She has not entered a plea in the case, but her lawyer, Bridgeport-based attorney Sam Kretzmer, claims she is innocent.
“Attorney Sam Kretzmer’s goal is to get this charge dismissed so that her client can move forward with her life and put this behind her,” Kretzmer’s office said in a statement Friday.
Virgo is next scheduled to appear in state Superior Court in Stamford on Jan. 20.
During the investigation, police claimed Gupta and two other staff members were aware of the alleged abuse and didn’t report it to the state Department of Children and Families. By law, childcare providers and many others are mandated reporters of abuse or neglect.
The two other former staff members, identified as Kelleigh Cantiello and Ayshia Jaeger, were each charged with failure to report abuse or neglect by a mandated reporter. Both Jaeger’s and Cantiello’s cases have been statutorily sealed, according to the judicial branch’s website.
A former employee of the facility informed Jaeger, who was Bright Beginnings’ director at the time, of Virgo’s alleged behavior. The employee felt Jaeger did not take the complaint seriously and went to DCF, according to Virgo’s warrant.
Jaeger resigned from the facility in June 2021. Cantiello, a former lead teacher, was fired that same month.
Virgo, Jaeger and Cantiello have not worked for Bright Beginnings since their charges and they will not be returning, Sherman said.
According to the facility’s licensing history, a representative with the state’s Office of Early Childhood Development, which licenses childcare centers, inspected Bright Beginnings’ Westport location in May 2022 and found no violations. An inspection report indicated that the facility had corrected previously documented violations.
Bright Beginnings has four locations in Westport, Fairfield, Stamford and Norwalk. After DCF investigators noted multiple violations at the locations in the past, the agency reported none during inspections this year at the Fairfield facility. In an April inspection, a DCF investigator reported three violations — insecure furniture, stained ceiling tiles and Styrofoam toys being accessible to children — at the Norwalk location. Three months later, there was one violation documented at the Stamford location when it was discovered four staff members had incomplete background checks.