An Arizona father was granted court approval for a family vacation to Hawaii despite facing first-degree murder charges in connection with the hot car death of his toddler daughter.
Christopher Scholtes, 37, requested the family vacation in April and was granted approval in May.
His 2-year-old daughter died after being left inside a hot car for three hours.
Scholtes’ other two children told investigators he “got distracted by playing his game and putting his food away.”
His teen daughter said that she would be left alone in the car for hours when she was a little girl.
“Actually, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. [Once], I had to go sit out in the car for four to five hours and continuously had to restart the car and had only eaten once that day,” she said.
Despite prosecutors’ objections, Pima County Judge Kimberly Ortiz gave Scholtes a 10-day vacation with the condition that included him not have unsupervised contact with his kids.
