Ridgefield Dad Avoids Jail Time in Son's 'Hot Car' Death, Can Join Family in Colorado

The Ridgefield man charged with the hot-car death of his 15-month-old son received a two-year conditional discharge at his sentencing Thursday and will avoid jail time.

The father, Kyle Seitz, 37, who had been charged with criminally negligent homicide, will be able to join his family, which has relocated to Colorado.

Superior Court Judge Kevin Russo granted the wishes of Lindsay Rogers-Seitz, his wife, who asked the court for leniency in the sentencing of her husband.

Benjamin Seitz was 15-months-old when he was accidentally left in a car by his father in July 2014. Seitz had planned to drop his son at daycare before he went to work. He realized that he had forgotten to make the stop only when he left work, drove to the daycare and was told he had never arrived with the boy.

The father discovered the son in the backseat of his car. Benjamin died of hyperthermia.

Seitz was sentenced to two years of conditional discharge and a one-year suspended sentence, meaning he will avoid jail time by staying out of trouble and satisfying certain court-ordered conditions.

Kyle Seitz will now join his family in Colorado so the family can continue to heal, his wife said in a statement. After her husband was charged in November 2014, she moved to Colorado with their two daughters.

After announcing the sentence Thursday afternoon, Judge Russo said from what he has heard Colorado has become a therapeutic place and he would not want to take that away from the family.

Although his wife was not present at the sentencing, Rogers-Seitz’s lawyer, Peter Buzaid read a statement from her that asked for leniency for her husband.

“The pain of losing Ben is visceral, it never goes away,” the statement read. “I ask for compassion and leniency in sentencing so we can grieve and heal together as a family.”

Before announcing the sentence, Russo said that in his 17 years, Seitz’s pre-sentence investigation was the most favorable one he had read.

“The family has endured a sufficient level of suffering,” Russo said.

Seitz entered an Alford plea in March, meaning he did not admit to a criminal act but did acknowledge that there was enough evidence that would likely result in a guilty finding if the case were to go to trial.

Read Also:

• How Hot Does it Get in a Parked Car?
• One Day, Three Incidents of Children Left in Hot Cars in CT [UPDATE]
• Father Charged With Murder Researched Child Car Deaths
• The Gift of Ben Blog

Seitz’s attorney, John Gulash, said that if his client had been given a polygraph test on that July day, “he knew he dropped his son off.”

Rogers-Seitz wrote on her blog that she hoped to attend the sentencing, but respected her husband’s wishes to be spared the additional trauma that the charge and related court appearances have brought on the family.

Last summer there was a rash of cases in Connecticut and all across the country of parents leaving their children in hot cars.

Despite the personal tragedy Rogers-Seitz and her family have endured, she is trying to prevent a similar situation from ever happening again. She has since been pushing for a change in legislation to address this public safety concern.

An average of 38 children a year in the U.S. have died of heat stroke, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In 2013, 44 children died after being left in unattended motor vehicles. Young children’s bodies can heat up three to five times faster than adults.

On her blog, Rogers-Seitz writes she is working with Janette Fennell, founder of KidsAndCars.org, to engage Congressmen and the NHTSA in discussions surrounding “next steps to solve this public safety problem.”

Possible next steps for solving this issue, according to Rogers-Seitz include inbuilt technology in cars that would detect the presence of a child in the car seat when the driver leaves the car.

She also met with members of Congress last fall as well as then-Acting Administrator of NHTSA David Friedman.

“At that time, we had garnered support in Congress to move forward on this very important issue,” Rogers-Seitz wrote. “We are waiting to see how our efforts progress through the Spring and Summer months this year, as more children will be lost in these tragic accidents. We will also work on raising public awareness of heatstroke dangers through other avenues.”

Image Screenshot via WFSB

Want more Ridgefield news? Sign up below!