Daycare owners arrested in San Jose child drownings

SAN JOSE — The mother-daughter owners of an Almaden-area daycare where two children drowned in a pool earlier this month have been arrested on suspicion of child-endangerment crimes, authorities said Friday.

Shahin Gheblehshenas, 64, and Nina Fathizadeh, 41, were booked at the Santa Clara County Main Jail and were released after posting bail, records show. They are expected to be arraigned at a later date.

The arrests are the culmination of an investigation closely watched both locally and across the country after the deaths garnered national headlines and looming questions about how two 1-year-old girls — identified as Payton Cobb, of Hollister, and Lillian Hanan, of San Jose — ended up in a pool at the Happy Happy Home Daycare on Fleetwood Drive the morning of Oct. 2.

Both children died after being rushed to a hospital. A third child who was found in the water with them survived.

In the wake of the drownings, the state Department of Social services suspended the license for the home-based facility, and warned that the owners risked being barred from operating a daycare again. They were also fined $11,000.

State regulators have issued multiple citations to the facility over the past year for a variety of infractions. The most recent was for not properly documenting their checks on sleeping children under their care. They also were cited in January for having one more infant than is allowed under their license.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Staff writers Rick Hurd, Jakob Rodgers and Austin Turner contributed to this report.