The former director of the daycare at Robins Air Force Base, who was found guilty of failing to report child abuse, was ordered Thursday afternoon to serve two years of probation.
Even though sentencing guidelines suggested Latona Mae Lambert serve 10 to 12 months in prison, federal Judge C. Ashley Royal ordered on Thursday that the former daycare director serve two years probation. A jury found her guilty of failing to report child abuse on April 17, 2024, after two of her employees, Antanesha Mone Fritz and Zhanay Kiana Flynn, admitted to verbally and physically abusing toddlers in their care, court records show.
Royal also said he will suggest the probation office terminate her sentence after one year.
Before her sentencing, Lambert had sent her case to the Court of Appeals on Oct. 3, claiming that her attorney, Barry Debrow, was ineffective during the trial. She claimed that he had made an ineffective closing statement concentrated on allegedly inaccurate information "that had repeatedly been given to my counsel over the 17 months before the trial," court documents show.
She requested to remove him as an attorney and to be represented by a public defender instead. Debrow also requested to withdraw as Lambert's attorney, believing that a "genuine conflict of interests exists."
But Judge Charles Weigle ultimately decided that appointing new attorneys for her case would not be in the interests of justice or an efficient use of resources, and denied both Lambert's and Debrow's requests. Debrow would still work as Lambert's attorney during sentencing and appeal.
'Relentless distress to the minor children in their care'
Fritz and Flynn admitted that, in 2021, they would encourage and coach toddlers to fight one another and would later reward them with hugs or pats on the back, according to both of the women's plea agreements. The children would fight each other for approval and Flynn and Fritz would not intervene. They would also spray cleaning solution onto children's faces and put them into small storage cubbies to discipline them.
On one occasion, Flynn kicked a child into the wall of the room hard enough that "it shook the frame of the CCTV camera recording the events inside the room," according to their plea agreement.
"Together, Flynn and Fritz created an environment that caused relentless distress to the minor children in their care," the plea agreement said.
According to Fritz and Flynn's plea agreements, Lambert would enter the classroom on multiple occasions where children were crying and sitting inside the cubbies and would not take action. Both had expressed to investigators that, even though their actions were "reportable," Lambert did not care what happened and did not follow up on any of the reports she received.
Fritz told investigators that "misconduct was normal" at the daycare center and "everyone knew about it," according to the plea agreement.
Ongoing lawsuits pending decision
Two lawsuits have been filed by anonymous parents of the minor victims against the U.S. government. The most recent one, filed in April, was stalled while they await the U.S. Court of Appeals 11th Circuit in Atlanta to rule on the older, similar lawsuit against the government.
The family and their attorneys, Ashley Cameron and Dustin Hamilton of the Dozier Law Firm, presented their arguments to the appellate judges alongside Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron Ross on Nov. 21, but the judges have not announced a ruling on the case by the time of this publication.
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