Macabre child abuse scandal: Girl, 6, in dad’s protective custody
More charges were filed against the adoptive father accused of abusing his son. And a judge barred some family members from the 6-year-old who reported the abuse.
The would-be hero in a macabre child abuse scandal was ordered into the protective custody of her father Friday as police in two counties continued to piece together the tragic final days of 10-year-old Nubia Doctor.
At a child custody hearing in Miami on Friday, Circuit Judge Sandy Karlan ordered that the 6-year-old girl — who blew the whistle on the grisly abuse of Nubia and her twin brother, Victor — must remain with her father, Yovani Perez.
Karlan didn’t stop there.
She ordered that neither the girl’s mother, Jennifer Perez, nor any members of her family have any contact with the child, now being considered a child abuse victim herself. The girl, child welfare administrators say, witnessed what could be months-long abuse heaped on the twins, who were adopted by the child’s grandparents, Jorge and Carmen Barahona.
“I want to know if I can at least speak with my daughter,’’ Perez asked .
“No,’’ Karlan replied in a hearing requested by Yovani Perez .
“I may not speak to her?’’
“You will have no contact at this point,” Karlan said. “We need to know the details of the allegations, and they are pretty horrific. I’m sure you are well aware at this point. No good can come of it at this point.’’
The child’s mother and grandparents are at the center of one of the state’s most grisly child abuse scandals in recent memory.
Victor was found convulsing in the cab of Jorge Barahona’s red pickup on the shoulder of Interstate 95 in West Palm Beach on Feb. 14. He had been doused with abrasive chemicals — authorities think they may have been pesticides — and sustained serious burns. Hours after Victor and Jorge Barahona were found, Nubia’s body was discovered in the truck’s flatbed stuffed in a bag and also steeped in chemicals. The twins had been adopted by the Barahonas.
“This is a pretty terrible case,’’ Karlan said to Jennifer Perez. “It’s pretty awful.’’
The state Department of Children & Families announced Friday that it will seek to strip Perez of her parental rights immediately, meaning the woman would be allowed no contact with the girl until she reaches adulthood.
“She became embroiled in something much bigger than her,’’ DCF regional administrator Jacqui Colyer said of the girl. “She was big enough, even as a 6-year-old, to report the abuse and do something about it.’’
The scene in Karlan’s courtroom Friday reprised one that had played out Wednesday in another courtroom when Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman ordered Carmen Barahona to have no contact with her three surviving adoptive children.
On Feb. 10, DCF’s child abuse hotline received a report that Victor and Nubia were being bound hand-and-foot and kept for hours in a bathtub.
Before a state investigator could find the children, authorities discovered Victor in the truck along with Jorge Barahona. Hours later, police and a hazardous materials team discovered Nubia’s body awash in chemicals.
Authorities have yet to disclose the cause of Nubia’s death. Sources told The Miami Herald the autopsy showed Nubia died from blunt force trauma, but because her corpse was in such bad shape, investigators still do not know when the fatal blows were inflicted.
DCF administrators say they do not yet know when Nubia was killed, or whether their investigator could have saved her even if the children had been located immediately.
The Feb. 10 hotline call had been made by Lisa Reiss, a therapist who had spoken with the 6-year-old girl at her father’s insistence.
Esther Jacobo, DCF’s top child welfare lawyer in Miami, told Karlan at Friday’s hearing that an investigator later tried to speak with the child, but the girl’s mother hindered their efforts. The child cried when the investigator tried to speak with her.
The 6-year-old later was taken to be interviewed by members of the state’s Department of Health’s Child Protection Team, which evaluates children for signs of abuse. The CPT prepared an eight-page report on her, authorities said in court, but declined to disclose details.
Colyer said the 6-year-old suffered from having watched her grandparents torment the young twins. Witnessing child abuse, Colyer said, can be enormously traumatic for a small child.
Karlan, the judge, said any further contact with any members of the Barahona family might lead to additional trauma.
“I do not want you to contact your daughter,’’ Karlan said to Jennifer Perez at the hearing. “I do not want any members of your family to contact her. Do not make an effort to contact her father. Do not try to get in touch with anyone in any way. Do not seek contact through any one else or a note slipped under the door. That would be a violation of my order and subject to contempt of court.’’
Yovani Perez declined to speak with reporters as he left court. . “It was very tragic,’’ he said. “She’s a gift from God,’’ he said of his daughter.
Late Wednesday, Palm Beach County prosecutors filed attempted first-degree murder charges against Jorge Barahona, who had been in the county jail since his pickup was found Monday night. The attempted murder charges are in addition to aggravated child abuse charges filed earlier.
Barahona was granted no bond on the attempted murder charges. Prosecutors said he “admitted to placing [a] caustic substance on the child after which he was intending to kill himself.’’ They called him a flight risk.