Parents who brought their unresponsive newborn to an Orange County hospital in 2020 were convicted of felony child abuse this week, on charges they exposed the baby to extreme heat and cold and failed to provide him necessary nourishment, causing severe brain damage that left the child a quadriplegic, and unable to talk or see.
John Andres Gonzalez, 38, and Jaqueline Navarro, 45, were each convicted of felony child abuse and endangerment, with an enhancement for causing great bodily injury to a child under 5, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office. They each face a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison.
Prosecutors said the couple considered themselves “vegan mucus-free fruitarians,” which appears to refer to belief in a diet aimed at removing mucus from the body. They were also followers of naturopathy, prosecutors said, which typically means employing a more holistic approach to preventing and treating disease by addressing root causes.
But Gonzalez and Navarro appeared to employ misguided and extreme views related to these practices, including that the body could heal itself and that breast milk was toxic, according to prosecutors and lawsuits about the case. They would only feed the baby soy-based formula, fruits and vegetables, prosecutors said. In a lawsuit, his paternal grandmother said the couple tried to keep the baby on a plant-based diet, and primarily fed him blended bananas and dates with honey.
Medical professionals, including naturopaths, recommend breastfeeding a baby during their first six months of life for optimal nutrition, or using formula almost exclusively.
Within weeks of their son’s birth, the couple also began putting him in high-temperature saunas and ice baths, prosecutors said.
Orange County authorities became involved in the case when the couple brought their limp, unresponsive son to Hoag Hospital Emergency Room in Newport Beach, where they’d been on vacation. The couple lived in Lindsay, in Tulare County.
“The baby was gray in color, emaciated, and catatonic,” according to the statement from prosecutors. “Emergency room doctors discovered the boy had extremely low blood sugar levels and suffered from hypoxia and constant seizures.”
Further tests confirmed that he had not been fed properly, prosecutors said. But even during the hospital stay, Gonzalez objected to many life-saving treatments and said he “believed that starvation would lead to healing,” the prosecutors’ statement said.
The brain damage the boy suffered is permanent, doctors reported, causing him to be a quadriplegic, blind and unable to talk, walk or eat on his own. The boy is now 5 and under the care of his paternal grandmother.
The grandmother had been concerned about her grandson soon after he was born, and had repeatedly called the Tulare County Department of Child Welfare Services to report possible abuse or neglect.
She filed a lawsuit against the county’s welfare agency, claiming the agency failed to protect her grandson, resulting in the child’s permanent brain damage. That case was settled in 2023 for $32 million dollars, which at the time was believed to be the largest settlement obtained from a child protective services agency in California.
“This innocent child suffered from almost the first breath he took because of his parents’ beliefs that starvation would cure him,” Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said in a statement. “Instead of curing him, they robbed him of his sight, his ability to take his first steps, to say his first words, and his chance to see the world. … Tragically, he will never get to experience any of those milestones because his parents starved him nearly to death instead of giving him the nourishment he so desperately needed.”
Gonzalez and Navarro are currently being held without bail and will be sentenced July 25.
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