DALLAS (AP) _ The trial has begun for a mother of three children who were found starving after being shut away in a hotel bathroom for as long as nine months.
In opening statements on Wednesday in Dallas, the attorney for Abneris Santiago portrayed his client as the victim of an abusive and controlling boyfriend.
The 31-year-old defendant is on trial for injury to a child. Police last summer rescued her emaciated children, whose skeletal structure was visible beneath their stretched skin.
The trial Wednesday was in the same courtroom where Santiago’s boyfriend, Alfred Santiago, was convicted and sentenced the previous day. He received a 99-year sentence and fines of $20,000 after being found guilty by a different jury of injury to a child and continuous sexual abuse.
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