GILROY
– A 29-year-old mother who lived with her nine children and
their father in a recreational vehicle is now sitting in jail on
charges of child endangerment.
GILROY – A 29-year-old mother who lived with her nine children and their father in a recreational vehicle is now sitting in jail on charges of child endangerment.
Gilroy police arrested Sandra Rodriguez at 1:31 p.m. Wednesday and had the RV towed from the south end of Alexander Street, in front of the Bay Sheets paper factory and the former Indian Motorcycle plant. The children told police they had lived there for the last two years.
Child Protective Services took the kids into three separate foster homes, according to Rodriguez’s older sister Debbie, of San Martin. The kids range in age from 7 months – a pair of twins – to 11 years. One of the twins is a girl; the other eight are boys.
Saturnino “Roscoe” Regalado, biological father of eight of the children, was not at the RV when police arrived Wednesday, nor did he appear at Sandra Rodriguez’s arraignment Friday morning in Superior Court in San Martin.
“I don’t think she should be here; I think he should,” Debbie Rodriguez said while waiting for court to begin.
Police said they expect prosecuting attorneys to seek a warrant against Regalado. Sgt. Noel Provost said Thursday he had spoken by phone with Regalado’s legal representative.
Sandra Rodriguez showed no emotion Friday as Judge Ray Cunningham set her bail at $5,500 and referred her to the public defender’s office. She stands charged with nine counts of child endangerment, one count of utility service theft – the RV was allegedly connected to a Pacific Gas & Electric power line – and one count of trespassing, all misdemeanors.
Living in an RV is not unheard of in Gilroy, given the high cost of housing, and police normally leave such people alone unless they receive complaints. Provost said the number of children and the unsanitary living conditions set this family apart.
“A lot of people live in RVs around here, but the living conditions in this one were particularly filthy,” Provost said. He described the inside of the RV as “total disarray, clothing all over the place, food particles, dirty dishes. The flooring was dirty, smelly, lots of flies.”
Debbie Rodriguez disagreed.
“That place was clean,” she said. The family’s previous RV, on the other hand, “I would have been afraid to sit down in,” Debbie said.
She did not, however, deny police’s claim that the RV’s toilet was rigged to dump sewage into an open, 15-gallon plastic container underneath the vehicle.
“We have no indication where they were dumping it,” Provost said.
The family’s only running water came through a garden hose from a nearby Japanese community center, Provost said.
The RV bore license plates that did not belong to it, according to Provost.
“The last time it was registered, it was registered as junk status,” he said.
This is not the family’s first dealing with law enforcement. CPS staff have been investigating them for about a year-and-a-half, Debbie Rodriguez said. About three weeks ago, the district attorney pressed charges against both parents, according to Provost. The status of the previous case was unknown as of press time.
CPS took the children that time as well, Provost said, but the parents regained custody and moved back into the RV at the same location.
Regalado worked as a day laborer, according to police, but Debbie Rodriguez said the family subsisted largely on welfare. According to her, he controlled all family finances, did all the shopping and left Sandra ignorant of money matters.
“She was really good at saving money before,” Debbie said of her sister, but with Regalado, “She was not allowed to touch the (bank) card. … She’s not allowed to touch the money, and she’s not allowed to ask where it went.
“She complained about it all the time,” Debbie added. “At times, he wouldn’t even buy them food. Believe me, I’ve taken milk and diapers over there plenty of times.”
Debbie Rodriguez described her sister as “a good mom” who never left her children except when the three oldest went to school and when she went to the hospital to give birth.
Debbie said she looked after the boys when the twins were born in November, and she was upset that CPS did not let her take any of them into the house she shares with her boyfriend.
“I don’t have enough room for all nine,” she said, “but I’m willing to take the babies because (Sandra) is worried about them.”
Police described Regalado as Sandra Rodriguez’s husband, but Debbie said the two were never legally married.
“He does like her to say she is married to him,” Debbie said.
Regalado is in his 40s, has been married before and had at least five other children before he and Sandra got together, according to Debbie. He used to run a tree service and lived with his first wife and their kids in a single-wide mobile home, she said.
All members of the family are U.S. citizens, according to police. The Rodriguez family is from Gilroy, and Regalado’s parents run a country store in Tres Piños, Debbie said.
Debbie said she never liked Regalado.
“I think my sister would be better off if she didn’t have him in her life,” she said. “I tried to get him out of my sister’s life, but it didn’t work – and that was before she had kids or anything.”
Because of this bitterness, Debbie said she temporarily lost contact with her sister until two years ago.
“We hadn’t talked since kid number three until she was on kid number six,” she said.
