CLEVELAND, Texas – The mother of an 11-year-old girl police say was repeatedly raped by 19 men and boys in Cleveland sat down with KHOU 11 News this week to tell her family’s story.

It’s a case that’s divided the small, Liberty County town.

The mother, Maria, said she didn’t want to show her face, but she wanted people to know about her daughter.

Court documents say the victim’s trouble began last fall, when she was assaulted multiple times over several months.

The girl told police in one of the incidents, she was taken to an abandoned home on November 28 and forced to have sex with a group of men.

She said the suspects took pictures and videos of the assault with their cell phones, which were distributed at school.

Investigators later confiscated several of those cell phones as evidence.

The arrests began in February. Thirteen of the suspects have since pleaded not guilty. Five of the 19 arrested are juveniles.

The girl’s mother said her family moved to Cleveland 15 years ago hoping to raise their children in a safer environment.

"We lived on Kuykendall and one morning we woke up, my car didn’t have no wheels," she said.

But the mother said she got threatening phone calls after the arrests started.

"The last call that I got is like, b----. you ain’t gonna live too long, or something like that," she said.

The mother, her husband and their four children moved out of their Cleveland home for safety reasons, but the mother said after the charges came, there was more bad news. Her daughter was placed in foster care. CPS said they took the girl out of the home because they felt her parents were neglectful.

What’s more, the mother said her health is failing. She said she has diabetes, high blood pressure and tumors in her brain that need to be removed.

The mother was told that she and her husband need to attend counseling before they can have a chance of getting their daughter back.

"I don’t think I need it, I don’t see why I need it," she said.

Now, she only sees the girl for two hours, every two weeks.

She said they talk about "Just anything. Whatever," but the conversations are supervised by CPS workers.

"If we talk in Spanish, they will look at us right away, but her dad don’t speak English, so she has to speak, and if I call her we need to be on speaker," Maria said.

Maria admitted that her daughter disobeyed them by sneaking out of the house late at night, but said that she’s really a good, smart kid.

"She’s been doing good in school. Of course, she has always done good in school. In Cleveland, she was in GT classes," the mother said.

She said she hopes to get her daughter back, because the separation is painful for the family.

"We are mad because of what those guys did to her... and sad because we can’t see her," one of the girl’s sisters said.

The next court date for the suspects is in July.

http://www.khou.com/news/Mom-of-Cleveland-rape-victim-Our-family-has-been-torn-apart-
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Emphasis added by H4K Editor