A mother in California received her sentencing of 25 years to life in prison on Friday, several years after police claim she hid her 11-year old son in a closet after sedating him before his death in 2016.
Veronica Aguilar, 46, pleaded no contest to the charge of assault on a child causing death. Her sentence came seven years after her son Yonatan Daniel Aguilar was found dead in a closet in his Los Angeles home in August 2016.
Yonatan only weighed 34 pounds at the time of his death and had pressure sores on his body.
“The type of sores he had are typically found on elderly nursing home patients, coma patients and those who use wheelchairs,” said authorities.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office reported the child died of the effects of multiple drugs, and had suffered from dehydration and generalized neglect.
Authorities claim the boy had been kept in his closet for 3 years before he died.
Police told the Los Angeles Superior Court in 2019 during a three-day preliminary hearing that the boy looked at least four years younger than his actual age when he was found, and was described as “a very gaunt, frail-looking child.”
Child abuse pediatrics specialist Dr. Janet Arnold-Clark said, “The boy was deprived of food for a very long time and the only way that could have happened, would have been malnourishment for several years.”
During Aguilar’s recent sentencing, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler called the case “tragic” and said the boy must have felt terror and fear.
Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott added, that the mother’s plea represents a significant and appropriate outcome reflective of the gravity of the crime committed and that the child’s life was tragically and unjustly cut short by the years of neglect and abuse at the hands of his mother.
During the 2019 hearing, Los Angeles Police Det. Sandra Platero said, “Aguilar said her son was pure evil when we investigated her. She gave the boy medicine to calm him down and had him sleep in the closet.”
Police also testified that the boy’s stepfather, who was previously unaware of the boy’s situation, had called 911 after discovering that his stepson had died. He told police that he thought that the boy had been living in Mexico with a family friend.
The boy’s step-father, Jose Pinzon, further added that despite consultations with psychologists, Yonatan had been having behavioural problems at school.
Testifying through interpreters he added, that Ms Aguilar had told him she had sent the boy back to Mexico where he would get better treatment, and that because she was undocumented in the United States she had felt helpless.
“She would cry a lot because she would say she didn’t know what to do,” Mr Pinzon said through translators.
Mr Pinzon said in the three years since the boy was confined to the closet, he had never seen any sign that the child was in the house. He explained that he worked 18 hours a day and when he was home he slept on the floor away from his wife and children.
When Ms Aguilar told him she had not sent the boy to Mexico, and that he was dead in their own house, Mr Pinzon had been baffled and distraught.
