GUILTY CA - Sylvia Vasquez for child abuse, Santa Barbara, 2010

jennirey

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"A local day care provider is in custody for allegedly locking three of her adopted children in cagelike quarters surrounded by rotting food, stopped-up toilets, and human and animal feces"

http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=LOCAL&ID=564662727054852166

"Sylvia Jovanna Vasquez, 50, pleaded not guilty Monday to three counts of felony child abuse and will appear before a Santa Barbara judge today, when Senior Deputy District Attorney Joyce Dudley plans to argue against any reduction in her $500,000 bail."



This is just horrible, How can people justify these actions.
 
I wonder why the children didnt tell anyone about the squalor and the cages. Seems like someone should have caught this a heck of a lot sooner... poor kids.
 
So she was a daycare provider? In other words, parents dropped their kids off each day and picked them up and they didn't notice any of this?
There has got to be warning signs.....like if she wouldn't let you very far into the house or something.

I just don't get how this can happen.
 
A Santa Barbara day-care provider has been arrested on suspicion of child cruelty for allegedly keeping two of her four adopted children in cages and forcing another to live in a filthy, locked room, authorities said Tuesday.

Sylvia Jovanna Vasquez, 50, was booked into jail by Santa Barbara County sheriff's deputies. Her children, ranging from ages 6 to 13, were placed in protective custody.

Acting on an anonymous tip, deputies said they went to Vasquez's house last week and found the children living in squalid conditions. A 12-year-old girl appeared to be well cared for but the others were "undernourished and had clothing that was soiled with urine and feces," according to a department news release.

The woman's 6-year-old daughter told social workers that she slept on a mattress in a 3-foot-by-5-foot "cage" mounted on a wall above her bed, the release said. Her 9-year-old sister slept in another bedroom inside a 4-foot-by-5-foot plywood chamber with a small wire-mesh window and a lock that worked only from the outside.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/l...8.story?coll=la-home-headlines&track=morenews
 
mysteriew said:
A Santa Barbara day-care provider has been arrested on suspicion of child cruelty for allegedly keeping two of her four adopted children in cages and forcing another to live in a filthy, locked room, authorities said Tuesday.

Sylvia Jovanna Vasquez, 50, was booked into jail by Santa Barbara County sheriff's deputies. Her children, ranging from ages 6 to 13, were placed in protective custody.

Acting on an anonymous tip, deputies said they went to Vasquez's house last week and found the children living in squalid conditions. A 12-year-old girl appeared to be well cared for but the others were "undernourished and had clothing that was soiled with urine and feces," according to a department news release.

The woman's 6-year-old daughter told social workers that she slept on a mattress in a 3-foot-by-5-foot "cage" mounted on a wall above her bed, the release said. Her 9-year-old sister slept in another bedroom inside a 4-foot-by-5-foot plywood chamber with a small wire-mesh window and a lock that worked only from the outside.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cage11jan11,0,2593748.story?coll=la-home-headlines&track=morenews
WTH??? Why do people treat children as if they are animals? Do they forget they were once children? How would they have liked it? I bet they wouldn't have. :furious:
 
Did you catch her profession??? DAY CARE PROVIDER!!!
 
Santa Barbara child abuse defendant released on $1 million bail




-Child abuse defendant Sylvia Jovanna Vasquez is free on bail after a judge lowered her bail despite her violation of a court order banning her from communicating with the alleged victims. -she had locked two of her adopted children in small, cage-like quarters and confined a third to a filthy room in the lower floor of her Foothill Road home. She also allegedly repeatedly injected one of the children with a puberty-blocking drug.
 
What the heck is a puberty blocking drug and what in the world would it be used for?
 
Linda7NJ said:
What the heck is a puberty blocking drug and what in the world would it be used for?

I can only imagine.Something dysfunctional families use for justification.
 
WTF?? They let her out?? When is the system going to realize you don't let animals like this free to roam the streets. Good God I hope someone is watching her. She could move anywhere now change her last name and wallah become a day care provider again or who knows what else...ugh sick idiot women I would love to see her locked up in a cage..a jail cell!! Forever! Putting small children in cages and letting them sit in their urine and feces is torture, the poor children I can't even imagine at such a young little age what they must of been thinking in their little minds. Matter of fact this lady needs the gas chamber I don't care.



Marie said:
Santa Barbara child abuse defendant released on $1 million bail




-Child abuse defendant Sylvia Jovanna Vasquez is free on bail after a judge lowered her bail despite her violation of a court order banning her from communicating with the alleged victims. -she had locked two of her adopted children in small, cage-like quarters and confined a third to a filthy room in the lower floor of her Foothill Road home. She also allegedly repeatedly injected one of the children with a puberty-blocking drug.
 
This is a very weird case. There are some sites that proclaim her innocence, but the information contained in this link is pretty awful. She pleaded guilty, so I'm having a little trouble believing she is innocent. Also, lots of interesting information on her background, which gives rise to questions about why this woman was allowed to adopt.
______________________________________________
snip

Insisting the felony charges stand, Ochoa ordered Vasquez hauled off to county jail-as part of a 10-year suspended sentence-on the Friday before Mother's Day . Ochoa was moved by the tearful testimony of the two child welfare workers who described the conditions uncovered in the Vasquez home as "cruelty" and "torture." There were the locked cages, the white plastic buckets two of the kids had to poop in, the cold rooms, the cold outside showers, substandard meals, and harsh punishments. For all but the favored child-a gifted violin prodigy-Ochoa found basic childhood needs, like exercise, could be secured only by writing long homework essays "filled with contrition, apology, self loathing, self blame, and self hate." And while Vasquez's favorite enjoyed the run of the house, she was also injected with a drug to block the onset of puberty . She was also the subject of nearly 100 nude and semi-nude photos. Even with the best of intentions, this was some weird stuff.

Much, much more at link:
http://independent.com/news/2007/jun/07/fighting-hand-bleeds-you/
 
This is a very weird case. There are some sites that proclaim her innocence, but the information contained in this link is pretty awful. She pleaded guilty, so I'm having a little trouble believing she is innocent. Also, lots of interesting information on her background, which gives rise to questions about why this woman was allowed to adopt.
______________________________________________
snip

Insisting the felony charges stand, Ochoa ordered Vasquez hauled off to county jail-as part of a 10-year suspended sentence-on the Friday before Mother's Day . Ochoa was moved by the tearful testimony of the two child welfare workers who described the conditions uncovered in the Vasquez home as "cruelty" and "torture." There were the locked cages, the white plastic buckets two of the kids had to poop in, the cold rooms, the cold outside showers, substandard meals, and harsh punishments. For all but the favored child-a gifted violin prodigy-Ochoa found basic childhood needs, like exercise, could be secured only by writing long homework essays "filled with contrition, apology, self loathing, self blame, and self hate." And while Vasquez's favorite enjoyed the run of the house, she was also injected with a drug to block the onset of puberty . She was also the subject of nearly 100 nude and semi-nude photos. Even with the best of intentions, this was some weird stuff.
Much, much more at link:
http://independent.com/news/2007/jun/07/fighting-hand-bleeds-you/

:eek:
 
January 2007:

A former day care operator charged with caging two of her four adopted children and keeping a third in filthy conditions unexpectedly pleaded no contest for abusing her kids.
Sylvia Jovanna Vasquez entered the plea Thursday as a jury was about to picked in her trial...

Superior Court Judge Frank Ochoa released her until sentencing in March...

Ochoa ruled that Vasquez could have contact with her children – ages 6, 9, 12, and 13 – under the supervision of child welfare officials. Vasquez will also be monitored electronically.

Besides the no contest pleas involving three of the children, Vasquez pleaded no contest to a fourth felony count of injecting one of the children with a puberty-blocking drug Lupron.

http://legacy.utsandiego.com/news/state/20070112-0734-ca-brf-centralcoast-childrenconfined.html
 
May 2007:

Just two days before Mothers Day, Judge Frank Ochoa ordered Sylvia Vasquez placed immediately behind bars for abusing her four adopted children, keeping three locked up for extended periods - one in his room, two in makeshift cages.

Although Ochoa sentenced Vasquez - who for years ran a successful and popular daycare facility out of her home on Foothill Road - to 10 years in prison, she will be required only to serve one year behind lock and key at the Santa Barbara County Jail. Ochoa struck a deal with Vasquez before the beginning of what turned into a drawn-out and contentious five-week sentencing hearing, allowing her to serve just one year if she agreed to plead guilty or no contest to four felony charges....


The key legal issue throughout the hearing was a motion made Vasquez's defense attorney, Robert Sanger, to have the four felony charges reduced to misdemeanors. On Friday, Ochoa rejected Sanger's motion out of hand, citing the severe neglect and psychological damage inflicted by Vasquez on the children. Ochoa was moved by the tears shed on the witness stand by two child welfare workers, who described the circumstances they witnessed as "the worst" of their professional careers. One worker, Ochoa recalled, used the word "torture" to describe the care Vasquez bestowed upon her charges. The other worker dubbed the conditions as "cruelty."...


Throughout the trial Sanger portrayed Vasquez as a heroic, if criminally misguided, adoptive parent, struggling to stand by her four emotionally damaged adopted children even as they acted out in more violent and upsetting ways. Yes, the cages were wrong, she acknowledged, but given the allegedly weird and sexually aggressive behavior of two children, they were needed..


Prosecutor Joyce Dudley insisted that these horrific incidents never actually happened, and charged Vasquez made them up. Vasquez's motive, according to Dudley, was to make herself a martyr in the cause of motherhood...

udley hammered home the point that Vasquez never obtained for her children the therapeutic help that all the experts she consulted said they needed. She also noted that for all the money Vasquez was paid as an adoptive mother - $173,637 over eight years - the second oldest girl lacked a single pair of shoes that fit.

http://m.independent.com/news/2007/may/11/judge-brings-hammer-down-caged-kids-case/?templates=mobile
 
February 2013:

Sylvia Vasquez has served about half of her 10-year probation sentence and wants the rest cut short.Vasquez has filed a motion to terminate her probation and to reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor.
Even if her request to end her probation is granted, she will have to pay the remainder of the restitution money she owes her former adopted children. That amount is about $10,000

http://m.keyt.com/news/Former-day-care-provider-wants-probation-cut-short/19081292
 
March 2013:

Judge Frank Ochoa refused Sylvia Vasquez's request that he cut in half both her fine and her term of probation
Vasquez — who also ran a popular day care facility out of her home — argued at the time that several of her foster children suffered from such severe emotional attachment disorders that they posed a physical and sexual threat to the others and had to be locked up....

During the trial, it emerged that state foster care officials had reason to be concerned Vasquez was psychologically unfit to be a foster parent but was allowed to “adopt” especially challenging kids anyway. Since her conviction, at least one of the locked up foster kids — now an adult — was found guilty for raping a woman in a public elevator in downtown Santa Barbara. In declining Vasquez's request that her probation be commuted, Judge Ochoa argued her crime had been too heinous and the damage inflicted too egregious.

http://m.independent.com/news/2013/...ster-mom-who-locked-kids-ca/?templates=mobile
 
The adopted son of Sylvia Vasquez who was convicted of rape in 2012 is Anthony Vasquez.

June 2012:

month after his no contest plea to rape of an unconscious person and felony sexual battery, Anthony Vasquez was sentenced Friday morning to four years and eight months in state prison. With his plea, he also admitted he violated probation and will be required to register as a sex offender...


Vasquez’s adoptive mother, Sylvia Jovanna Vasquez, maintained the opinion she expressed during her own trial for child abuse five years ago. She said that the system has continued to fail Anthony and he suffers from reactive attachment disorder. She said she has felt he was capable of violence since he was in his early teens and worried for her other children when he was under her care.

Because of the condition she believes he suffers from, Sylvia said her son needs psychiatric care and fears for potential future victims. She added that Anthony has told her he thinks he could be killed while he is incarcerated.

When asked about Sylvia's opinion, Waldman said she can’t possibly know what psychological impact Sylvia's treatment of Anthony had on him.
http://m.independent.com/news/2012/...ced-sexual-assault-elevator/?templates=mobile
 
More background info. May 2007:

Their diets consisted of peanut butter, mayonnaise, or butter sandwiches morning, noon, and night. Denied access to the bathroom, two were forced to urinate and defecate in buckets kept in their quarters. The clothes of these two reeked of urine and feces. And when one-an 11-year-old girl-got too dirty, she was given a shower in the yard, while still wearing her clothes...

Vasquez and Sanger presented a host of friends, supporters, and psychological experts who testified that if Vasquez resorted to extreme measures by locking up her children-which Vasquez has conceded was wrong-she was responding to extreme conditions.

Psychological experts testified that three of the adopted children had been diagnosed with RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder), which afflicts people who are denied the opportunity to bond with adults while in their infancy. Those with RAD can seem normal but terrorize their immediate family members behind closed doors...

Some of the prosecution witnesses actually bolstered Vasquez's claim that her children were extremely troubled. For example, the prior foster parents of the two oldest children-a San Bernardino County Sheriff and his wife-testified that the kids had been perfectly normal and wonderful children for the three years they lived together as a family. But they also acknowledged that the two had such serious food issues that they would eat dog food out of the trash or gorge themselves until they puked.

http://m.independent.com/news/2007/...nd-vasquezs-fate-judges-han/?templates=mobile
 

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