Results tagged “childprotectivestories”

A Queens Village mother and grandmother have been charged with assault and endangering the welfare of a child after permanently scarring a six-year-old girl in a Voodoo ritual where they engulfed her in flames. 29-year-old Marie Lauradin and 70-year-old Sylvenie Thessier are accused of pouring rum both onto the head of young Frantzcia Saintil and in a circle around her and then lighting both on fire. After performing the "Loa" ritual, the pair doused the girl in ice cold water and put her to bed. Lauradin, a recent Haitian immigrant, and her mother were allegedly helped by a friend named "Sketch," who has not been charged. The Daily News reports, "Lauradin initially claimed she was boiling rice in a pot when the girl 'startled' her, causing her to spill the scalding water on her." She could face up to 25 years if convicted.

The babysitter who was charged with child endangerment, a misdemeanor, for letting an eleven-month-old baby drown in a seven gallon bucket of water was in court yesterday. The infant's parents made it clear that they would like to see charges upped to negligent homicide after prosecutors claimed that 28-year-old sitter Kristal Khan was passed out on cold medicine during the incident. Khan was watching the victim, James Farrior III, along with her own two children out of the Richmond Hills house she used as an unlicensed day care center (none was required); the baby's mother, Chrisann Josiah, had found Khan through a craigslist ad. Josiah says that when Khan called her to say that Farrior had been taken away in an ambulance, the babysitter was "real calm." Josiah said to the News, "I was planning his birthday and now I'm planning his funeral." Yesterday in court, relatives of Farrior's screamed at Khan, leading the judge to have one of them removed. The Queens DA said charges may be upgraded once an autopsy is complete.

A complaint to child services led police to a home in Mastic Beach where seven children were being raised in conditions of utter squalor and prompted the arrests five adults who lived there. Newsday reports that the house had no heat along with "no running water, feces on the floor and bottles of urine around the house, with rotted food in the refrigerator." On top of that, "appliances and lights that were being run off a generator, a television was being charged with a car battery and cooking was being done indoors with propane." The seven children ranged from ages two to thirteen and are now in foster care with an order of protection from their former caretakers. One of the five adults was also charged with animal cruelty after the SPCA discovered two dogs and 14 cats. One neighbor told the paper that she refused to open windows in the side of her house that faced their home. A Suffolk County official said redundantly, "It was obviously a health hazard."