SAN JOSE, Calif. — A woman charged in the 2023 drowning deaths of two toddlers at the Almaden daycare she ran with her mother pleaded guilty Monday as trial hearings got underway, while her mother’s case continues toward a jury trial.

Nina Fathizadeh, 43, of San Jose, entered the plea and has a sentencing hearing set for May 8, according to court records. She had been charged with three felony child endangerment counts for the Oct. 2, 2023, tragedy in which 16-month-old Lilian Hanan, of San Jose, and 18-month-old Payton Cobb, of Hollister, drowned in an unsupervised backyard pool; a third child survived after also going into the pool.

Co-defendant Shahin Gheblehshenas, a 67-year-old San Jose resident and Fathizadeh’s mother, was similarly charged, and their case advanced toward trial following a preliminary hearing last August. Trial proceedings continue for Gheblehshenas, whose Fleetwood Drive residence housed Happy Happy Daycare and was the drowning site.

Fathizadeh was also charged with seven misdemeanor child endangerment counts for transporting seven children in a vehicle without proper child restraints in a separate incident. Her attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

In the drowning deaths, Fathizadeh was accused of failing to ensure the pool’s safety gate was closed before letting the children into the backyard. The five-foot-tall fence that surrounded the pool was found propped open on the day of the drownings, and prosecutors allege both defendants knew that Gheblehshenas’ husband would sometimes open the pool gate to water plants and forget to close it.

An investigation by the San Jose Police Department and Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office further alleged that Fathizadeh could see the open pool gate when she let the two girls and one boy in her care into the backyard, but she did not close it before going back into the kitchen. She was reportedly out of the view of the children for at least five minutes.

Fathizadeh found the boy floating in the shallow end of the pool when she went out to check on the children. She pulled him out, called 911 and began CPR. She then woke up her brother, who was asleep elsewhere in the house, before attending to the girls, who were found floating in the deep end of the pool, investigators said.

Despite attempts at CPR, both girls were pronounced dead at a hospital.

Investigators later learned that there should have been two employees watching the children the day of the drownings, but one had called out sick. Gheblehshenas was also not at the daycare because she thought she had a medical appointment, investigators said, and Fathizadeh expressed concerns to her mother that she would not be able to keep a close eye on all of the children.

They also allege that after finding out her appointment was actually the following week, Gheblehshenas did not return to the daycare and instead went to a separate unlicensed daycare operated by the family.

The parents of the two toddlers who drowned filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Gheblehshenas and Fathizadeh in August alleging that it was the pair’s negligence that led to children being left unsupervised by the swimming pool. The litigation has been on hold pending the outcome of the criminal case.

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