WOODLAND — Nearly two years to the day after Frank Rees’ newborn son Justice was found lifeless on a Knights Landing slough bank, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office announced it would pursue criminal charges against the Woodland man in connection with his baby’s death.
Frank Rees. Courtesy photo
District Attorney Jeff Reisig said the felony charges against Rees — involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment and administering methamphetamine — stemmed from facts aired at the trial last fall of Samantha Green, Justice’s mother, who was convicted of second-degree murder for taking the baby into the slough while high on drugs.
“Evidence presented at trial established that Frank Rees was administering methamphetamine to Samantha Green” even though Justice was born with the drug in his system just weeks earlier and the couple had promised social workers they’d address their addictions, Reisig told reporters at a press conference Wednesday morning.
“Under California law, when another individual’s unlawful or reckless conduct in the face of known risks is a substantial factor that contributes to the death of another person, criminal liability may be established,” Reisig added.
Rees, 31, maintained his innocence in an interview with The Davis Enterprise at the Yolo County Jail, where he’s being held on an enhanced bail amount of $500,000.
“I just started healing from everything, and now they’re trying to do this s— to me,” said Rees, who recently became a father once again when his current girlfriend gave birth to a baby girl on Feb. 14, two months prematurely.
“We’ve been doing everything we’re supposed to do,” Rees added. He said a district attorney investigator and several other officers arrested him Tuesday morning after he and his girlfriend left the Child Welfare Services office in Woodland.
Rees denied reports that the new baby tested positive for methamphetamine at birth, as Justice had. Social workers are involved “because of our past history,” he said.
Yolo County officials also declined to comment on the new baby’s status, citing state privacy laws.
“I really just want to be a dad and move on with my life,” said Rees, alternately weeping and angered during the half-hour interview. “I just want to see my baby. I can’t have Justice back, but I have another chance with this new baby. I don’t want to lose another one.”
Rees is scheduled to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. Thursday in Yolo Superior Court. If convicted, he faces up to six years in state prison.
“I can almost guarantee you this is going to be thrown out,” Rees said of the new case, for which he says he’s seeking a “shark” of an attorney to represent him. “The DA should come here and give me an apology. I lost my son. I think I’ve been through enough.”
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But prosecutors disagreed, saying that an investigation of Rees’ alleged conduct has been ongoing since Justice’s death, and that Green’s month-long trial proved a significant source of incriminating evidence.
Rees’ arrest earlier this month for allegedly having drugs and ammunition, which he is prohibited from having because of a prior felony conviction, also factored into the timing of the new case.
“During that incident, Mr. Rees was with a 27-year-old female who was six months pregnant and living with Mr. Rees,” Reisig said. “She was also found by (sheriff’s) deputies to be in possession of methamphetamine.”
The woman, presumably the mother of the new baby, was cited for the offenses. Rees denied them as well, saying first that “she had nothing that was hers,” then, “she didn’t have anything.”
As for why Rees wasn’t charged alongside Green, Reisig said it was “for legal reasons, which I do not plan to discuss today.”
John E.B. Myers, a criminal law professor at McGeorge School of the Law in Sacramento, said the two-year delay isn’t all that unusual.
“There’s many reasons that could be completely justifiable. You have to do your investigation. You have to see how the case unfolds,” Myers said. He also noted that Reisig may be hesitant to divulge reasons for holding off on charges “because doing so might reveal his sources and methods. There may be witnesses he needs to protect.”
Justice was just 19 days old when Green swam with him across Ridge Cut Slough on Feb. 23, 2015, while on a methamphetamine high, and, according to prosecutors, in a jealous rage over Rees’ infidelity. Rees had gone to Knights Landing earlier that day to pick up a female friend with whom he later admitted having an affair.
Clad in just a gray cotton onesie, Justice died of exposure due to neglect as Green, having crashed from her drug high, kept him on the slough bank overnight.
Rees’ family disclosed following the baby’s death that he had tested positive for methamphetamine at birth due to Green’s ongoing use of the drug, but social workers allowed him to remain in his parents’ custody following the creation of a family “safety plan” that included the couple’s pledge to quit meth and seek drug treatment.
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In reaching their second-degree murder verdict, jurors ruled that while Green didn’t intentionally cause her baby’s death, by continuing her drug-abuse habits she acted recklessly and with conscious disregard for the infant’s life.
Green’s attorney, Public Defender Tracie Olson, mounted a defense that largely blamed Rees for Green’s actions, alleging that after injecting Green with large rectal doses of methamphetamine, Rees made bizarre claims of an impending apocalypse that sent her fleeing into the slough in a drug-induced psychosis.
“Never,” Rees said of those claims Wednesday. “She made her own f—ing choices. She needs to take some responsibility and not put it off on me.”
Green, who turns 25 this week, is serving a sentence of 15 years to life at the Central California Women’s Facility state prison in Chowchilla, her bid for a new trial or reduced conviction of involuntary manslaughter rejected in December.
Her father, Randy Green, stood outside District Attorney’s Office following Wednesday’s press conference, calling Rees a “menace to society” whose criminal prosecution was a long time coming.
“All the people involved need to be held accountable for their actions,” said Green, who in addition to Rees has faulted child welfare workers for failing to remove Justice from his addicted parents’ custody, as well as Rees’ parents, with whom the couple lived, for being oblivious to their continued drug abuse.
“They had a responsibility there, they violated their agreement, and that contributed partially to the death of my grandson,” Randy Green said. “I’m not saying my daughter’s innocent. She’s where she needs to be. But 15 to life?”
Read the criminal complaint here: Rees complaint
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048.