Grandfather of Toddler Who Fell From Cruise Ship Charged with Negligent Homicide

The grandfather of a 1-year-old girl who fell to her death from a cruise ship earlier this year in Puerto Rico has been charged with negligent homicide, the Associated Press reports. A judge in Puerto Rico ordered the arrest of Salvatore Anello on Monday after prosecutors argued that his granddaughter, Chloe Wiegand, 18 months, fell and died after he lifted her up to an open window on the ship.

Anello, 51, was being held on an $80,000 bond, ABC News reports, but has since been released. He is scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 20, according to CNN.

Chloe died on July 7 after she fell more than 10 stories onto a concrete dock while in the children’s play area of a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. The family has previously disputed accounts that she fell from her grandfather’s arms.

The family’s attorney, Michael Winkleman, previously explained that Anello had put Chloe on the ledge of a window in the children’s area and that he was unaware the window was open. Winkleman said Chloe was used to being next to glass and had a habit of banging on the panels at the hockey rink at home while attending her brother’s games and practices.

“Essentially her grandfather lifts her up and puts her on a railing and where he thinks that there is glass there because it’s clear, but it turns out there was no glass there,” Winkleman said on the Today show over the summer. “She goes to bang on the glass like she would have at one of those hockey rinks, and the next thing you know, she’s gone.”

Chloe’s parents, Alan and Kimberly Wiegand, defended their child’s grandfather to the Today show in July. “He was extremely hysterical. The thing that he has repeatedly told us is, ‘I believed that there was glass,’” Kimberly said. “He will cry over and over and over. At no point ever — ever — has [he] ever put our kids in danger.”

Alan said Anello was “very distraught” to the point where you could “barely look at him without crying.”

“[Chloe] was his best friend,” he added, visibly shaken.

Kimberly said that she thinks the cruise line “[has] to be” held responsible for the incident. “This cannot happen to another family,” she said.

“We obviously blame [Royal Caribbean],” she said. “There are a million things that could’ve been done to make that safer. I know my mom was asking people, ‘Why on Earth is there a window open on the 11th floor without a screen or anything?’”

“And there response to that was, ‘We need ventilation,’” she claimed. “Well, to that I would say, ‘Get a fan. Come up with some other mechanism to make your guests comfortable, rather than creating a tremendous safety hazard that cost our child her life.’”

A spokesperson for Royal Caribbean previously told PEOPLE that they were “deeply saddened” by the incident, adding, “We’ve made our Care Team available to assist the family with any resource they need. Out of respect for their privacy, we do not plan to comment further on the incident.”