Texas mom in starving case changes plea to guilty
Criminal Law
A mother whose three children were found starving after being shut away in a Dallas hotel bathroom for as long as nine months changed her plea to guilty Friday, bringing her trial to a sudden end.
Abneris Santiago's plea on the third day of her trial comes one day after she apologized to her 12-year-old daughter in a tearful courtroom reunion, saying she wasn't strong enough to stop the abuse.
Sentencing is expected to happen later Friday. She faces up to life in prison on one charge of injury to a child.
Police last summer rescued the then 11-year-old girl and her two younger half brothers from a bathroom in an extended-stay hotel along one of Dallas' busiest freeways.
The emaciated children, whose skeletal structures were visible beneath their flaky, stretched skin, were near death from chronic starvation. Authorities say the girl was repeatedly sexually assaulted by her mother's boyfriend.
Alfred Santiago was convicted Tuesday of injury to a child and continuous sexual abuse. He was sentenced to two 99-year prison terms, to be served concurrently.
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