Lawyer blasts charges in toddler’s cruise death

FILE - This May 11, 2006 file photo shows the Freedom of the Seas cruise ship docked in Bayonne, N.J. An attorney for an Indiana family whose 18-month-old daughter fell to her death in July from the cruise ship docked in Puerto Rico says the negligent homicide charges her grandfather now faces "are pouring salt" on the family's wounds. A judge in Puerto Rico ordered the arrest of Salvatore Anello on Monday, Oct. 28, 2019, after prosecutors submitted evidence saying that Chloe Wiegand fell from Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas cruise ship when Anello raised her up to an open window. (AP Photo/Mike Derer, File)

An attorney for the Indiana family of an 18-month-old girl who fell to her death from a cruise ship says Puerto Rican prosecutors’ decision to charge her grandfather with negligent homicide is “pouring salt” on the family’s wounds.

A judge in Puerto Rico on Monday ordered the arrest of Salvatore Anello after prosecutors submitted evidence saying that Chloe Wiegand fell from the ship in July when Anello raised her up to an open window.

The family’s attorney, Michael Winkleman, said in a statement that the girl’s death “was a tragic accident” and that “these criminal charges are pouring salt on the open wounds of this grieving family.”

Winkleman has said Chloe asked her grandfather to lift her up so she could bang on the glass in a children’s play area and he blamed the cruise operator for leaving the window open.