Inset: Ascencio Largo (Phoenix Police Department). Background: The adult store where Largo visited while his children were left in a hot car in Phoenix, Ariz. (Google Maps).
An Arizona resident has received his sentence after leaving his four children unattended in a sweltering car while he visited an adult store.
Thirty-eight-year-old Ascencio Largo has been sentenced to four months in jail followed by a decade of probation. This comes after initially facing the possibility of a much longer prison term due to his reckless summer outing.
In July, Largo was apprehended on eight felony charges after his children were discovered in a vehicle that had reached a scorching temperature of 124 degrees.
“Where’s mom or dad?” inquired an officer during the rescue of the four children, as shown in body-worn camera footage shared by the Phoenix Police Department when announcing the charges. Subsequently, another officer is heard asking: “Do you know where your guys’ family is?”
It was revealed that their closest family member was inside The Adult Shoppe located on South 24th Street in Phoenix’s Crestwood area.
The incident was brought to light when a 911 call was made that day.
“The car was turned off and the windows were rolled up,” police wrote in a press release. “Officers recognized the danger this posed to the children and immediately gained access to the vehicle. After getting all of the children out of the car, each was given water and put into a marked patrol Tahoe with running air conditioning to help cool down the children.”
Each of the children was said to be visibly suffering from heat-related issues; they were sweating profusely, hot to the touch, and had red skin, according to law enforcement sources cited by Phoenix-based CBS affiliate KPHO.
All of the victims were under the age of 10 at the time. They were monitored after being rescued and checked for temperatures. Their internal body heat ranged from 99.7° to 100.4°F, police said.
“The children were in imminent danger of death in this situation,” a prosecutor said during Largo’s first courtroom appearance.
The judge at that hearing also took stock of the lapse.
“You could have exited that store to a car full of your dead children which is rather shocking,” the judge told the father. “It indicates a strong level of reckless culpability.”
Beyond leaving the children inside for upward of an hour, police said Largo appeared to be drunk and had not responded to multiple announcements made by store employees about the car.
The judge continued to criticize the since-punished dad, at length:
You are presumed innocent, but what the police are alleging could have resulted in, you know, the kind of story that gets picked up on international news wires: Man goes into porno store leaving his four children to die in their car.
In the end, the children did not die from spending an hour baking while their dad went to “get some supplies,” as he told arresting officers.
Before his arrest, Largo went out the back door of the business where an officer asked if the car was his, according to court documents obtained by KPHO. The man initially responded “no.” Officers, however, thought to follow him until he walked around to find the Nissan surrounded by emergency vehicles – whereupon he said “Oh s–.”
