Woman Sentenced in Day-Care Case

A woman who failed to comply with an order to close her day-care center after it was cited for a long list of violations has been sentenced to 100 hours of community service and ordered to pay $3,000 in costs associated with her prosecution, the city attorney said.

Bernadette Levstik, 49, was also given two years of probation by Los Angeles Municipal Judge Harold Crowder Wednesday after she pleaded no contest to one count of operating a day-care center without a license.

In December 1995, Levstik’s license to operate a day-care center on Merridy Street in Chatsworth was revoked by the state Department of Social Services, said Los Angeles City Atty. Jim Hahn in a written statement.

Violations cited by investigators then included infants being left unsupervised, exceeding capacity, failure to furnish proof of criminal background checks or tuberculosis checks of employees, and failure to provide proof that employees of the facility were trained in pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid, Hahn said.

Levstik’s plea of no contest Wednesday resulted from charges she failed to shut the facility and instead moved it to a new site on Swinton Street in Granada Hills.

Tipped off by calls from neighbors, investigators from the Community Care Licensing Division of the Department of Social Services visited the Swinton Street facility three times this year to warn Levstik that she was in violation of the law, Hahn said.

She was charged when she failed to heed the warnings and close the center.