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By Andrea Lorenz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, June 13, 2008
Sara Amaya, 23, pleaded guilty to more than a dozen counts of felony child abuse against her three children. Her husband, who admitted beating and biting the children, received life in prison.
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Sara Amaya Husband was accused of biting 3 kids. |
SAN MARCOS — Sara Amaya, whose husband, Cesar Mojica Carmona, was convicted in April on 14 counts of injury to a child for biting and beating their three children, pleaded guilty Thursday to 14 counts of felony child abuse.
Amaya, 23, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on each count; the terms will be served concurrently.
Amaya's attorney Leslie Halasz did not return a call for comment Thursday afternoon.
Hays County District Attorney Sherri Tibbe said evidence showed that Amaya did not perpetrate the abuse on the couple's 4-year-old daughter and 3-year-old twins.
But she had a legal duty to protect them, Tibbe said.
"We feel like this is the end of this case, and now these kids can get on with their lives," Tibbe said.
A Hays County jury sentenced Mojica Carmona, 24, to life in prison after a trial during which he broke down when he told jurors about the abuses that he said he had suffered during his upbringing in Mexico and Illinois.
When workers from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services removed the children from the couple's Dripping Springs home in 2006, the children had several untreated broken bones and at least 72 bite marks among them. The twins were severely malnourished.
Amaya had worked as a custodian in the evening at a Dripping Springs school while Mojica Carmona took care of the children.
She had scolded her husband for biting the children, according to the transcript of a statement that Mojica Carmona gave police after he was arrested.
Last year, Amaya gave up her rights to the children and consented to being sterilized.
Mojica Carmona fought to keep his rights to the children but lost.
The three children, along with a fourth who was born after the couple was arrested, were adopted by their foster parents in May.
alorenz@statesman.com; (512) 392-8750
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/06/13/0613amaya.html
Emphasis added by H4K Editor |