A Los Angeles man pleaded no contest Friday in connection with his 2-year-old son’s drowning death, despite the victim’s mother objecting to a plea deal that resulted in a 10-year sentence.
Deputy District Attorney MacKenzie Teymouri told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Francis Bennett II that the prosecution’s position was that it could not prove the more serious charge of murder against Durrell Dionte Daniels, who was charged in the June 6, 2019, death of his son, Legacy, one of a set of triplets.
The victim’s mother, Tywona Wade, joined two other family members in opposing Daniels’ plea to the charge of child abuse under circumstances or conditions likely to cause great bodily injury or death.
The woman said Daniels has never shown any remorse for the boy’s death.
“I believe in my heart that Mr. Daniels did put his hands on my son,” she said, adding that she did not believe what happened was an accident.
“You’re going to hell!,” she told the 37-year-old defendant shortly before walking out of the downtown Los Angeles courtroom where Daniels subsequently entered his plea.
The prosecutor told the judge that the 10-year sentence was the maximum that Daniels could face for that crime, along with an allegation that it resulted in the boy’s death.
At a December 2023 hearing in which Daniels was ordered to stand trial, Anise King Anise King testified that she was asked that day to perform CPR on the boy, but said she didn’t touch him because he already seemed dead. She described the father’s demeanor as “very” calm.
Paramedics were subsequently sent to the apartment in the 200 block of South Whitmer Street after 911 was called.
Los Angeles Police Department Officer Christina Johnson testified at that hearing that Daniels told her that his two sons were splashing around in the bathtub and that Legacy began choking after being splashed with water.
In emotional testimony, the toddler’s mother said that Daniels had taken the two boys from her as she returned from the store about a week and a half earlier, and that she had told him that morning that the boys should be home with her for her then-10-year-old child’s graduation.
“I wanted my kids, period,” Wade said then. “He knew that.”
When asked if they weren’t seeing eye-to-eye, she responded, “It’s still like that, period. We’ve never seen eye-to-eye.”
Daniels was arrested in October 2020 and remained behind bars since then, with the judge giving him credit for more than 2,200 days served in custody and the same amount of time for “good time” credits while in jail.
Daniels’ attorney noted that his client should be released from custody “forthwith” because he has already served the term.
Daniels had initially been charged with murder and assault on a child causing death, but those charges were dismissed as a result of his plea.
A protective order issued by the judge bars him from having any contact with the victim’s mother or the boy’s siblings for the next 10 years.