A man by the name of Salvatore Anello, has been charged with negligent homicide after his 18-month-old granddaughter fell to her death from a cruise ship in July.
WATCH: Parents of toddler who fell to her death on cruise ship break silence
Anella appeared in court on Wednesday in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where was charged in connection with the death of Chloe Wiegand. His grandaughter fell out a window more than 10 stories onto a concrete dock while in the children’s play area of a Royal Carribean cruise ship, docked in Puerto Rico.
The prosecution alleged Anello “negligently exposed the child to the abyss through a window on the 11th floor,” in a statement from the Puerto Rican Department of Justice obtained by People.
“They can’t do anything worse to me than has already happened,” Salvatore Anello told NBC.
Anello and Chloe’s family maintain the girl’s death was an accident and not a crime. The family attorney, Michael Winkleman – who is representing the family in a planned lawsuit against Royal Caribbean – told People that Anello fell through a sliding window.
Chloe’s grandfather put her up on a wood railing beside what he assumed was a wall of closed windows, unaware that a sliding window was open. Winkleman claimed Chloe liked to bang on glass panels at her older brother’s hockey games, so when she went to bang on what appeared to be closed windows, she fell.
“They feel devastated and distraught. They stand 100 percent behind [Anello] and his version of events that he thought this was a wall of windows,” Winkleman said. “It’s pouring salt in their open wounds.”
“They’re in the beginning stages of a lengthy process that is grief. They were trying to put their lives back together, and you throw this into the mix and it puts them back to square one.”
In July, Chloe’s parents, Alan and Kimberly Wiegand defended Anello in an interview.
“He was extremely hysterical. The thing that he has repeatedly told us is, ‘I believed that there was glass,’” Kimberly said. “He will cry over and over and over. At no point ever — ever — has [he] ever put our kids in danger.”
“[Chloe] was his best friend,” Alan added.
