Hollywood Nanny's 'Child Dumping Scheme' Unravels

On the long list of possibilities that could go wrong with a nanny, excess library time is not usually at the top. So when two little boys in Los Angeles told their parents that they hated "the library," week after week, month after month, it didn't set off too many alarm bells.

As the seemingly perfect nanny's scheme has unraveled during the past year, it became apparent that "library" was just a code word. According to Los Angeles' city attorney, Roxanna Patricia Villamarin was taking her clients' kids not to a world of books but to an unlicensed daycare provider in an apartment. She paid the stranger $10 a day. When Villamarin walks into court next week, she faces seven misdemeanor charges for what officials describe as a complex child-dumping scheme carried out over five years.

The evidence has been particularly hard to digest, parents say, because on the surface Villamarin was like a modern-day Mary Poppins.

"She was the most amazing nanny ever. Every parent was like, 'Oh, she's a godsend; they behave so well with her,'" says Gina Osher, who entrusted Villamarin with the care of her baby twins.

Villamarin's clients say they were taken by her emphasis on educational outings and her confidence. She was so certain about how kids should be raised, in fact, that some parents admit that she made them feel insecure about their own abilities.

"I was convinced that if she wanted to be the president of the United States, she could do that. She was that confident and entrepreneurial," say Kim Lewis, who employed Villamarin for five years.

These sorts of rave reviews turned Villamarin into a nanny-in-demand among a select group of Hollywood attorneys and creative types. If educational outings to the natural history museum and zoo weren't supercalifragilistic enough, for somewhere from $12 to $16 dollars an hour, Villamarin also threw in homemade organic baby food.

The Magic Fades

But one day in October 2007, when their twins were supposedly off at the zoo, the Oshers got a tip from a second nanny that worked for them. Ms. Villamarin is dumping your kids off at a rundown apartment, the woman told them. Police by their sides, they found out it was true.

"It was very dark and very hot, and our daughter was placed on a bed on her back with a blanket thrown over her. Nobody was around her," Gina Osher says, her shoulders tensing as she recalls that day. "Our son was strapped into a bouncy chair sitting on a bed — which is really dangerous, because he could have bounced right off. He had no toys. ... As soon as they saw us, they were so excited. They just lit up and were like, 'Get me out of here.'"

According to officials, Villamarin had been leaving at least five clients' children at this apartment over a period of five years.

"She would pick up the children; she would drop them off at an unlicensed daycare center. And she would pursue other goals," City Attorney Will Rivera says.

These other goals, he says, included working at a farmer's market and at her family's restaurant. At the end of the day, Villamarin allegedly would return to the apartment, pay a woman there $10 a day — about $110 less than she was making — and bring the children home.

Guilt And Betrayal

Upon learning what had happened, Gigi and Joe Hutchinson said they felt guilty and betrayed. "If you can't trust someone with your kids, what are you supposed to do?" Joe asks.

Even before their Mary Poppins fell from the sky, the Hutchinsons were cautious parents, careful to filter out potentially bad influences – such as talking creatures that flip burgers and wear square pants.

"I mean even Sponge Bob, which they really like," Gigi Hutchinson says. "I have very mixed feelings about that show."

Their older son, now 6, is autistic. Part of the reason that they hired Villamarin is because she said she understood how to cater to his special needs. Now, they have him in therapy to reverse all the potential developmental damage.

The Hutchinsons say they hate to think about their son's efforts to tell them what was going on. Because of his disability, he was struggling to get out complete sentences. But he kept hinting at strange happenings at "the library."

"He told me that somebody gave his brother a shower," Joe Hutchinson recalls, saying he responded, "A shower where, at the library? What are you talking about?"

Villamarin would explain it away. Stop making things up, she'd tell the boy. So, when the Hutchinsons got a phone call telling them their son had been left with a woman they'd never met, at an apartment in a supposedly bad neighborhood — that this was the place he'd been calling the library — they were filled with regret.

A Dismaying 'Library'

There isn't much to read at "the library." Located on a busy street in East Holllywood, the two-story apartment building is covered in graffiti, the windows barred. The unit where Villamarin's clients' children allegedly spent their afternoons is simple but tidy, with a worn floral couch and a corner filled with stuffed animals and games.

Ana Zolaya — who wound up caring for the Hutchinsons' and at least four other families' children, without their knowledge — frowns at the mention of Villamarin.

"I thought that they were her family members," Zolaya says in Spanish. "She saw a humble woman and took advantage of me ... like she did the kids' parents."

Nonetheless, the children were happy playing in her apartment, Zolaya says.

'I Needed A Break'

I caught up with Villamarin on her cell phone recently.

"They should not be so upset," she said of the parents. "The kids were safe."

She sometimes left the kids in Zolaya's apartment without their parents' consent, she said, but she insists it was only once a week for a few hours.

Villamarin has been charged with five counts of grand theft, one count of intimidating a witness and one count of annoying phone calls. But for each charge, for each angry family, she lobs back a complaint she seems to think evens the score: They didn't pay her enough, they didn't cover her doctor bills, they insisted on paying her under the table.

"They treat me bad, I treat them bad," she says.

But, asked if she ever raised her concerns with the parents, she admitted, "No, it's not my style to complain."

She said her motivation for dropping off the kids was that, occasionally — between juggling all her clients' families and her own — she need a break. Why is it such a big deal, she asked, if the kids were OK?

But for parents such as Joe Hutchinson, OK is a relative term. "Basically, we got conned — and she didn't use money or an ATM card or a false identity. She'd used our kids," he says.

Whether the court agrees remains to be seen. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for Jan. 16.

The song Joe Hutchinson sings at the end of the audio version of this piece is 'Twelve Kisses for My Baby' from the Conductors' album for autistic kids.