Daycare owners guilty of felonies

By Kevin O’Brien

The former owner of an Abbotsford daycare faces the possibility of several years in prison after pleading no contest last week to multiple felony counts of neglecting a child and reckless endangerment.

Naomi Konieczny, 56, was convicted on eight counts of neglecting a child, two of which are felonies, and two counts of recklessly endangering safety, a Class G felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. On each of the two felony child neglect cases, she could be jailed for up to three and a half years.

As part of a plea agreement between district attorney Melissa Inlow and defense attorney Wright C. Laufenberg, 15 other charges were dismissed and read into the record.

Naomi’s husband, Gary Konieczny, also pled no contest last Thursday to a single county of recklessly endangering safety. Based on documents from the police investigation, he had a smaller role in running the daycare but still participated in some of the alleged abuse.

Gary was sentenced to two years of probation, with the condition that he attend counseling, no longer care for any minor children and pay $518 in fines and court costs. He is also barred from having any contact with the victims or their families.

The Koniecznys ran a home-based daycare on Elm Street in Abbotsford, and during an investigation of the home in April of 2019, police and social workers found several young children strapped to high chairs and car seats and confined inside playpens in two back bedrooms.

One of the playpens with a child inside was covered with a piece of plywood with nails sticking out.

According to follow-up interviews with some of the older kids at the daycare and their parents, many of the younger children were routinely left confined in the back bedrooms for hours at a time without any adult supervision or social interaction. The kids also showed signs of neglect and physical abuse, including unexplained bruises and severe diaper rash.

Naomi’s daughter, Rachel Konieczny, was sentenced to four years in prison in May of this year for her role in mistreating the children at the daycare. The four-year prison sentence was for a felony count of recklessly endangering the safety of the child in the crib with plywood on top. Several charges of child neglect resulted in concurrent prison sentences. “The state that the children were held in was pretty much inhumane torture,” Rachel reportedly told police during an interview, describing it as “no different than a prisoner of war camp.”

At Rachel’s sentencing hearing in May, her defense attorney alleged that his client also suffered abuse at the hands of her parents when she was growing up and said she was “the product of the environment” she grew up in.

Besides keeping the kids confined for hours at a time, the Koniecznys were also accused of giving some of the children Benadryl to make them sleep, denying them food, and subjecting them to physical force.

“If the children screamed or tried to get away, they were picked up and slammed to the ground,” Inlow said at the hearing in May.

A pre-sentence investigation has been ordered in Naomi’s case, and a sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Sept. 3 in Clark County Circuit Court.