Filed 4/13/21 In re Ariana B. CA2/1

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions 

not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion 

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

In re ARIANA B. et al., 

Persons Coming Under the

Juvenile Court Law.

 B307774

 (Los Angeles County

 Super. Ct. No. 

 20CCJP01560)

LOS ANGELES COUNTY 

DEPARTMENT OF 

CHILDREN AND FAMILY 

SERVICES,

Plaintiff and 

 Respondent,

v.

ADRIAN B.,

Defendant and 

 Appellant.
2

APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles 

County, Rashida A. Adams, Judge. Affirmed.

Daniel G. Rooney, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rodrigo A. Castro-Silva, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy, 

Assistant County Counsel, and Jacklyn K. Louie, Principal 

Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

____________________________

Adrian B. (father) was arrested on March 8, 2020 after a 

two-month investigation by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department 

(LASD) revealed he was selling drugs, both out of his home and 

at a local bar. When they arrested father, deputies found drugs 

and a large sum of money on him and found more drugs, 

paraphernalia to package the drugs for sale, and a loaded firearm 

in the garage adjoining (but not accessible from inside) the 

family’s home. Because four minor children lived in the home, 

deputies referred the family to the Los Angeles Department of 

Children and Family Services (DCFS), which eventually filed a 

petition in the juvenile court alleging that father’s drug business 

placed the children at a substantial risk of serious physical harm 

and that the children’s mother, Daniela C., had failed to protect 

them.

At a hearing on September 8, 2020, the juvenile court 

concluded based on father’s drug business that the children1 were 

persons described by Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, 

1 As explained below, the two youngest children were 

father’s. The two oldest children were mother’s by another 

father, who did not participate in these proceedings at any stage.
3

subdivision (b).2 Father filed a notice of appeal (mother did not), 

and argues here that the evidence is insufficient to support the 

juvenile court’s jurisdiction and disposition orders. Father 

argues that the evidence below demonstrates no risk of harm to 

the children from his actions, either in the past or existing at the 

time of the jurisdiction and disposition hearing. He further 

argues that DCFS demonstrated no nexus between his actions 

and any risk of harm to the children.

We disagree with father’s arguments and will affirm the

juvenile court’s orders.

BACKGROUND

On March 8, 2020, LASD deputies arrested father and 

served warrants to search him, his vehicle, and his residence. 

LASD surveillance revealed that since January 2020 father had 

been selling drugs out of the home he shared with mother, the 

couple’s two children, Ariana B. (then three years old) and Adrian 

B., Jr. (then 20 months old), and mother’s two other children 

from another father, Izabelle R. (then 11 years old) and Lilianna 

R. (then seven years old).3

LASD deputies arrested and searched father at the Tropic 

Lounge in Hawaiian Gardens. According to their report, deputies 

“recovered a plastic bag containing cocaine from [father’s] pants 

2 Statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions 

Code unless otherwise noted.

3 Izabelle and Lilianna’s father is Jorge R. Mother has full 

legal and physical custody of Izabelle and Lilianna. Jorge R. is 

allowed no contact with mother, Izabelle, or Lilianna under the 

terms of a restraining order issued to mother. Jorge R. has never 

been a party to these proceedings. 
4

pocket.” Deputies then went to the family home. There they 

asked father what narcotics he had in the home; father replied, “I 

have coke and meth.” Asked where the drugs were, father 

replied, “All the dope I have is in a tan backpack on the shelf in 

the laundry room.” 

The home’s garage and laundry room were not accessible 

from inside the home, but rather were accessible by a large 

garage door and a smaller metal security screen door outside the 

home, both of which required a key to enter. Father had the only 

key, which deputies used to access the garage. Deputies 

retrieved the backpack from the laundry room and found in the 

bag three-quarters of a pound of methamphetamine, half an 

ounce of cocaine, several pills believed to contain fentanyl, a 

digital scale, empty plastic baggies commonly used to package 

narcotics, and a loaded (with nine live rounds) Smith & Wesson 

9mm handgun with an obliterated serial number. During the 

booking process, deputies found $836.00 in father’s wallet. 

Father was charged with four felony counts: possession of 

a controlled substance for sale (Health & Saf. Code, § 11378); 

possession of a designated controlled substance for sale (Health & 

Saf. Code, § 11351); possession of a controlled substance while 

armed (Health & Saf. Code, § 11370.1, subd. (a)); and possession 

of a firearm by a felon (Pen. Code, § 29800, subd. (a)(1)). 

Deputies contacted DCFS. DCFS initiated an investigation 

the same evening father was arrested.

DCFS interviewed mother, Lilianna, and Izabelle at the 

family home on the evening of March 8, 2020. Mother told DCFS

that she was not aware of drugs or firearms in the family home. 

She denied using drugs or alcohol, and told DCFS that she was 

willing to drug test. The older two children, Lilianna and 
5

Izabelle, reported that they were allowed to go inside the garage 

and were never told to stay out of the garage. Lilianna told 

DCFS that the children’s scooters were stored in the garage, and 

that they regularly went into the garage to retrieve them. The 

two younger children (Ariana and Adrian) could not give 

meaningful statements to DCFS. 

On March 12, 2020, four days after father was arrested, 

DCFS met with father at the facility where he was being held. 

According to DCFS’s report of the interview, “father denied that 

there were any drugs or weapons in his home. The father stated 

that the drugs and weapon [found in the home] did not belong to 

him. The father stated that the garage is not connected to [the]

home and others have access to [the] garage.” Asked “if the 

garage was locked,” father replied, “yes but people can break into 

the garage.”

At a later interview, mother told DCFS that she was not 

aware that either the drugs or the gun that deputies found were 

in the home. Mother said that she had never seen the backpack 

deputies found in the home’s laundry room. Mother told DCFS 

that she was not aware whether father had been involved in drug 

sales. But since moving into the home in January 2020, mother 

said she “saw people going in and out of the garage,” and that 

father “had people over on the weekends.” Mother explained that 

father had set up the garage as a “man cave” where father and 

his friends “hung out . . . and sometimes they would drink.” 

Mother explained that she did not associate with father and his 

friends while they were on the property, but rather she “would 

stay inside with the kids.” Mother was aware that father had 

been involved in a gang, but father told her “he was not involved 

in that life anymore.”
6

On March 20, 2020, DCFS filed a petition under section 

300, subdivision (b), alleging one count. The petition’s count b-1 

alleged: Father “created a detrimental and endangering home 

environment for the children in that . . . father possessed a half 

pound of methamphetamine, half pound of cocaine, and a loaded 

firearm in the children’s home, within access to the children. On 

03/08/20 [father] was arrested for possession of drugs and a 

loaded firearm. The mother failed to protect the children by 

allowing [father] to reside in the home and have unlimited access 

to the children. Such a detrimental[ ] and endangering home 

environment established for the children by the [father] and 

failure to protect by the mother endangers the children’s physical 

health and safety, creates a detrimental home environment, and 

places the children at risk of serious physical harm, damage, 

danger, and failure to protect.” 

The juvenile court held a detention hearing on March 20, 

2020. The court concluded that a prima facie case existed that

Ariana and Adrian were persons described by section 300 and 

that reasonable efforts had been provided to prevent removal.4 

The juvenile court detained Ariana and Adrian from father and 

released them to mother. The court ordered DCFS to provide 

family maintenance services to mother and reunification services 

to father. Father was granted monitored visitation.

4 The reporter’s transcript reflects that based on Jorge R.’s 

absence from the proceedings, the juvenile court made no 

findings regarding Lilianna or Izabelle and on DCFS’s 

recommendation allowed them to remain released with mother. 

At the jurisdiction and disposition hearing, father requested 

presumptive parent status for Lilianna and Izabelle. The court 

denied father’s request, and father has not challenged that order 

here. 
7

The juvenile court initially set hearings for jurisdiction and 

disposition of DCFS’s petition for May 20, 2020. Accommodating 

for scheduling issues created by COVID-19, the juvenile court 

continued that hearing and then eventually held it remotely on 

September 8, 2020. 

In anticipation of the jurisdiction and disposition hearing, 

father told DCFS that he had enrolled in an online parenting

class and in a drug and alcohol program, but DCFS was unable to 

confirm father’s enrollment or participation. DCFS visited the 

family’s home monthly and observed no safety concerns and 

observed no signs of father’s presence in the home. Mother

denied any in-person contact between father and the family. 

Mother did, however, tell DCFS that she “want[s] to work on” her 

relationship with father; that she “know[s] he feels bad for all of 

this,” and that it would “take [her] some time to trust him with 

the kids and who he brings around the house and the kids.” 

Ultimately, mother told DCFS that she does not believe father 

“would want to put us through this again.”

After his March 12, 2020 interview, father declined to 

answer any questions about the facts alleged in DCFS’s petition. 

Father “stated he has been advised by his criminal court attorney 

not to speak to DCFS about the current petition by telephone,” 

and although father indicated he was willing to speak to DCFS in 

person, COVID-19 social distancing guidelines prevented DCFS 

from conducting an in-person interview. Shortly before the 

September 8, 2020 hearing, DCFS reported to the court that 

father was out of jail on bail pending further proceedings in his 

case. 

After hearing from the parties at the September 8, 2020 

hearing, the juvenile court amended the petition to remove the 
8

words “half pound of” before the word “cocaine” in the single 

count (b-1), and sustained the petition as amended.

In ruling, the trial court stated: “What is not in 

question . . . was that there was both methamphetamine, cocaine, 

and a loaded firearm in the home’s garage. . . . [¶] . . . The court 

notes that the evidence as to the . . . father is not in significant 

question. The court finds the denials of the . . . father to be not 

credible. [¶] The evidence before the court indicates not only 

that there was ongoing drug sale activity going on out of the 

garage, which was a place where the oldest children were 

sometimes present, had access to obtain things from the garage, 

at least some times, but also that there were illicit substances 

found on the father’s person when he was arrested by the police.” 

This evidence, the juvenile court concluded, “indicates that the 

drug activity was not limited simply to the garage, as the father 

was carrying drugs to another location. [¶] The presence of this 

kind of illicit activity, the danger of which is also illustrated by 

the loaded weapon which was found with the drugs in the garage, 

indicates a highly dangerous, volatile activity going on operated 

by the father near the children in the garage for their home and 

including the father having drugs on his person. [¶] So the 

father carrying illicit substances in his clothing when he has 

regular access to the children is certainly conduct which places 

them at substantial risk of harm, of suffering serious physical 

harm.” 

The juvenile court concluded that Ariana and Adrian were 

persons described by section 300, subdivision (b). The court 

removed the children from father. The court also sustained the 

petition as to mother, but placed the children in the custody of 

DCFS and released them to mother. The court ordered family 
9

maintenance services, and ordered monitored visitation for 

father.

Father filed a timely notice of appeal.

5

DISCUSSION

“A child may come within the jurisdiction of the juvenile 

court under subdivision (b) of section 300 if the ‘child has 

suffered, or there is a substantial risk that the child will suffer, 

serious physical harm or illness, as a result of the failure or 

inability of his or her parent . . . to adequately supervise or 

protect the child.’ (§ 300, subd. (b)(1).) In order to sustain a 

petition under section 300, a significant risk to the child must 

exist ‘ “at the time of the jurisdiction hearing.” ’ [Citations.] 

DCFS ‘has the burden of showing specifically how the minor[ ] 

ha[s] been or will be harmed.’ [Citation.] Evidence of past 

conduct may be probative of current conditions, and may assist 

DCFS in meeting this burden. [Citations.] However, DCFS must 

establish a nexus between the parent’s past conduct and the 

current risk of harm.” (In re J.N. (Apr. 2, 2021, B308879) ___ 

Cal.App.5th ___ [pp. 7-8].)

“We review the trial court’s findings for substantial 

evidence. [Citation.] We do not reweigh the evidence, evaluate 

the credibility of witnesses, or resolve evidentiary conflicts. 

[Citation.] The judgment will be upheld if it is supported by 

substantial evidence, even though substantial evidence to the 

contrary also exists and the trial court might have reached a 

different result had it believed other evidence. [Citation.] [¶] 

Substantial evidence must be of ponderable legal significance. It 

5 Again, mother has filed no notice of appeal, and no issues 

have been raised implicating Lilianna or Izabelle.
10

is not synonymous with ‘any’ evidence. [Citation.] The evidence 

must be reasonable in nature, credible, and of solid value. 

[Citation.] The appellant has the burden of showing there is no 

evidence of a sufficiently substantial nature to support the 

finding or order.” (In re Dakota H. (2005) 132 Cal.App.4th 212, 

228.)

Father contends that the evidence before the juvenile court 

is insufficient to demonstrate either the existence of any risk to 

the children or any nexus between father’s conduct and that risk.

Father acknowledges that the record demonstrates that he was 

“selling drugs out of his garage and at his favorite local bar where 

he was arrested with drugs on his person.” Nevertheless, he 

argues, DCFS did not demonstrate that the children had ever 

suffered any injury or harm as a result of him selling drugs out of 

the family home before the children were detained. We disagree 

with father’s contentions.

In its reports to the juvenile court, DCFS identified 

evidence from father’s March 8, 2020 arrest indicating that father 

had been engaged in drug sales from at least January 2020 to 

March 2020. When deputies searched the family home after 

arresting father, he told them the contents of and directed them 

to the location of the backpack containing drugs and 

paraphernalia for packaging the drugs for sale, as well as a 

loaded gun capable of being fired.

DCFS argues that this case is similar to In re Yolanda L.

(2017) 7 Cal.App.5th 987 (Yolanda L.). In Yolanda L., the father 

of a four-year-old and a six-month-old was arrested as a result of 

a “narcotics investigation by a multi-agency task force including 

the Drug Enforcement Agency.” (Id. at p. 989.) Father was 

pulled over and officers found three pounds of crystal 
11

methamphetamine in father’s vehicle. (Id. at p. 990.) “Father 

told [an officer] that there was a gun in a bag in a hall closet at 

the family home.” (Ibid.) Officers found the loaded gun and 

ammunition in a closet in the family home. (Ibid.)

The Yolanda L. court pointed out that “section 300, 

subdivision (b) dependency jurisdiction was based on two forms of 

neglectful conduct by father: (1) storing a loaded handgun in a 

location that was accessible to the children and (2) possessing the 

three pounds of methamphetamine found in his car.” (Yolanda 

L., supra, 7 Cal.App.5th at p. 994.) “Both forms of neglectful 

conduct,” the court explained, “put the children at substantial 

risk of suffering serious physical harm. And although the 

conduct was discovered on September 29, 2015, there was 

substantial evidence from which the juvenile court could infer 

that the conduct was likely to recur and did not represent a 

momentary lapse in judgment.” (Ibid.)

The court in Yolanda L. rejected arguments similar to 

those father makes here. There, father argued that the children 

would not have been exposed to drugs that were found in father’s 

truck. The court explained, to the contrary, that “it was 

reasonable for the juvenile court to infer that father’s use of the 

truck to engage in large scale drug trafficking exposed the 

children to a risk of harm because they were sometimes in the 

truck. Further, from the evidence that father stored a loaded gun 

in an easily accessible location in the family home, and a police 

dog ‘alerted’ to a couch in the living room, the juvenile court could 

reasonably conclude that father’s drug trafficking activities did 

not occur only in the truck, but sometimes in the family home.” 

(Yolanda L., supra, 7 Cal.App.5th at p. 994.)
12

As to the loaded firearm, the court dismissed the father’s 

argument summarily: “It takes little to persuade us that a young 

child with access to a loaded gun is at substantial risk of serious 

physical harm.” (Yolanda L., supra, 7 Cal.App.5th at pp. 994-

995.)

In reply, father focuses exclusively on whether the children 

would have access to the loaded firearm deputies found in the 

family’s laundry room and largely ignores the Yolanda L. court’s 

discussion of father’s drug trafficking. “Jurisdiction does not lay 

without ready access to the gun,” father argues, citing In re C.V.

(2017) 15 Cal.App.5th 566, 572. In In re C.V., however, “the 

shotgun found in a backpack wedged between the mattress and 

the bedroom wall was not loaded. [And] the only child in the 

household[ ] was three months old when the police found the gun. 

Even an above-average three month old would be incapable of 

reaching the backpack or opening it to find the unloaded gun. 

Given his age, C.V. cannot be said to have had access to the 

unloaded shotgun in the backpack.” (Ibid.)

Father’s reliance on In re C.V. is misplaced. The youngest 

of the four children in father’s care—Adrian—was just shy of two 

years old when deputies found the loaded gun and bag full of 

drugs in the family’s laundry room. The oldest child in the home 

was 11. Although the two youngest children were too young at 

the time to make meaningful statements to DCFS, the two older 

children reported that they had access to the garage (and 

therefore to the laundry room attached to it) and that they were 

never told to stay out of the garage. The court may have 

reasonably inferred that the children had access to the laundry 

room, and that they could have accessed father’s loaded and 

operable firearm. Like the court in Yolanda L., “[i]t takes little to 
13

persuade us that a young child with access to a loaded gun is at 

substantial risk of serious physical harm.” (Yolanda L., supra, 7 

Cal.App.5th at pp. 994-995.)

Moreover, In re C.V. did not involve the added layer of 

father’s drug business. 

Father argues here that his drug business was operated 

from the garage and the children were not exposed to it. But 

again, we disagree. As the juvenile court pointed out, this case 

did not only involve drugs found in the family’s laundry room 

(where the children may well have been exposed to them), but 

father had them on his person when he was arrested. The 

juvenile court could reasonably have concluded that the drugs 

deputies found on father when he was arrested are not the only 

drugs he ever had on his person outside of the garage and in a 

context that, at the very least, implied the children were exposed 

to father’s drug business.

Father’s argument also emphasizes that DCFS “must be 

specific about the magnitude of the potential harm [to the 

children] and the likelihood of its occurrence.” Father’s argument 

overstates the level of specificity with which DCFS must identify 

the harm that may befall the children based on father’s choices. 

We have explained that DCFS’s inability to predict precisely how 

children will be harmed does not defeat jurisdiction; rather, it is 

sufficient that father’s drug trafficking creates a substantial risk 

of some serious physical harm to the children. (See In re Travis 

C. (2017) 13 Cal.App.5th 1219, 1227.)

Even if DCFS were required to operate at the level of 

specificity father urges, it did so here. DCFS identified with 

precise specificity the future harm in which father placed the 
14

children. In its detention report, DCFS identified the following 

risks to the children:

• “The father . . . continued to place the children . . . at risk 

by knowingly storing an[ ] estimate of 1⁄2 pound of meth and 

1⁄2 ounce of cocaine in his garage that was accessible to the 

children.

• “Additionally, a loaded firearm was found inside a . . . 

backpack inside the garage.

• “The amount of drugs and the amount of value of the drugs 

found . . . suggest that there is probability that this was not 

the first incident of father being involved in the possession of 

drugs.

• “This places the children at further risk of physical harm if 

released to the care of father as there is no guaranty that 

the children will be safe while in the care of father.

• “Furthermore, the children will be placed in danger as there 

could be a possibility of retaliation for the product that 

father lost as it was such a high amount of money that 

father no longer has in his possession.” (Italics added.)

Father’s actions did not represent a momentary lapse of 

judgment; his drug operation had been under surveillance for 

weeks before he was arrested. Father’s responses to DCFS’s 

inquiries during the pendency of its investigation minimized the 

effect of his choices on the children in his care and failed to 

provide any assurance that he both understood the significance of 

his choices and would avoid repeating them in the future. 

Furthermore, mother’s stated desire to reconcile with father—

even if she also voiced reservations—may have led the juvenile 

court to the reasonable conclusion that, absent juvenile court 
15

intervention, the children may well continue to be exposed to the 

risks inherent in father’s drug business.

Our review of the record reveals evidence sufficient to 

support the juvenile court’s conclusions that father’s actions 

created a substantial risk that the children would suffer serious 

physical harm. We do not view either the drug sales from the 

family home or the presence of a loaded firearm in the family 

home in isolation; we view them as part of the father’s drug 

business enterprise. DCFS met its burden in the juvenile court of 

identifying the risk of harm to the children. And the evidence 

supports the juvenile court’s conclusion that the risk of future 

harm continued to exist as of the date of the jurisdiction and 

disposition hearing.

DISPOSITION

The juvenile court’s orders are affirmed.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

CHANEY, J.

We concur:

ROTHSCHILD, P. J.

FEDERMAN, J.*

* Judge of the San Luis Obispo County Superior Court, 

assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of 

the California Constitution.