Left: Chazzity Candelario with her children (Facebook). Center: Chazzity Candelario (Lebanon County Regional Police Department). Right: Chazzity Candelario (Facebook).
A mom in Pennsylvania who couldn”t control her 11-year-old son or his eating habits while she was at work — leading to her locking the boy to a fuel tank and other things for hours on end — is headed to prison after she pleaded no contest to multiple charges.
Chazzity Candelario, of North Lebanon Township, was facing felony charges of unlawful restraint of a minor and false imprisonment of a minor, as well as a misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of children, for the alleged abuse. She pleaded no contest to the charges in November and was sentenced Wednesday to serve 16 months to five years in a state prison, local NBC affiliate WGAL reports.
Prosecutors said in court that Candelario, who was 33 at the time of her arrest, restrained her son on one occasion for 17 hours after “eating too many hot dogs,” according to WGAL.
“No way … should that have happened,” Lebanon County Court of Common Pleas Judge Charles Jones told Candelario at her sentencing, according to the Lebanon Daily News.
“You’ve got to do whatever you can to make it up to your children for having that happen,” Jones said.
Police officers were dispatched to Candelario’s home at 680 East Kercher Avenue on Jan. 11, 2025, for an 11-year-old boy that was “restrained with handcuffs,” the Lebanon County Regional Police reported online. “An investigation revealed the juvenile’s mother … had restrained the juvenile to an oil tank in the basement using handcuffs,” police said.
Officers arrived on the scene and spoke with her children while Candelario was away at work. The kids directed an officer to a bedroom, where her son was handcuffed to the railing of a top bunk bed.
The boy told cops he was initially locked up in the basement but managed to escape. While free, prosecutors said he accidentally handcuffed himself to the bed.
Authorities contacted Candelario, who allegedly ordered them to not speak with her children until after she got back to the residence. Once there, she told police that she had trouble controlling her son while he was home and she was working, so Candelario started locking him up in a 3 feet by 8 feet utility room and handcuffing him to the oil tank. The boy told investigators that he would typically be restrained for up hours at a time while his mom was away at work — sometimes to a “post,” according to police.
Candelario was also arrested in 2017 for endangering the welfare of children, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia in connection with an incident involving her kids, according to the Lebanon Daily News.
For that arrest, Candelario was charged alongside her partner, John Zayas, who can be seen on her Facebook page posing in photos with her and her kids. He was also charged with endangering the welfare of children, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Candelario posts photos and statuses regularly on Facebook with her kids featured or mentioned.
A collection of Halloween pics from 2021 shows her children dressed up as kids from The Addams Family, with a photo showing one of her sons donning fake handcuffs.
“She’s been very sorry, very remorseful throughout the time I’ve represented her,” Candelario’s lawyer said in court at her sentencing. Candelario declined to speak.
“As a mother, the defendant’s sole duty is to care for, love, and protect her children more than anyone else in this world,” Lebanon District Attorney Pier Hess Graf told the Daily News after Candelario was sentenced. “This defendant instead chained her children up to suffer at her own hand and subject to her own evil will.”
