Puerto Rico’s Department of Justice filed 14 charges against five people in three separate child abuse and neglect cases in Caguas and San Lorenzo, Justice Secretary Lourdes L. Gómez Torres reported. The Caguas Court of First Instance found probable cause for arrest in all three cases and set preliminary hearings for November 17. In the first case, prosecutors filed six charges against María Guadalupe Vega Martínez and Ángel Gabriel Vega Berdecía, the mother and stepfather of two children aged six and four.
One child arrived at a Head Start center with severe bruises, and the other was later found with bruises too. Both said they were hit with a belt and sandals. The mother faces four charges (two for abuse, two for neglect) and the stepfather two for abuse.
Both were jailed after bail was set at $40,000 and $20,000, respectively. In the second case, Kenneth Santos Guzmán faces an abuse charge and Dannivette Rivera Vázquez a neglect charge involving a nine-year-old boy with autism. He arrived at school with bruises around both eyes and elsewhere on his body.
The stepfather admitted hitting him with a belt; the mother knew of the beatings and did not seek immediate medical care. Bail was set at $3,000 for each. Santos Guzmán was jailed and Rivera Vázquez will be under electronic monitoring.
In San Lorenzo, Rachelle Santiago Martínez, 27, faces six abuse charges after giving a bag with eight e-cigarettes to an eighth-grade student to distribute among classmates aged 13 and 14. She had access to the school because two of her children attended it, and she admitted the facts. Judge Karina Díaz Pérez set bail at $10,000, which she posted.
"In two of these cases, it was school and Head Start staff who saw the signs and activated the protocol," Gómez Torres said.