MIAMI — A Spanish-to-English translator helped a girl in a Miami-Dade County courtroom to testify against her alleged abuser on Wednesday.
The girl was 7 years old when her parents trusted Leonor Garcia, 62, to keep her safe and teach her how to speak English in 2023, according to prosecutors.
She ended up in the emergency room, and police officers stepped in to investigate.
“She would hit me in the head and on the shoulder ... She would hit me with a large spoon when I said a word wrong .... I tried to cry, but she would tell me not to because if I cried she would tell me she was going to hit me ... One time she threatened me with, like, pliers, and if I told my mother anything, she was going to pull my eye out.”
After the girl suffered a black eye, bruises on her shoulder, and swelling on the right side of her face, her mother confronted Garcia, according to prosecutors.
“She said, I was like that because I was doing somersaults,” the girl said.
When the girl was in the emergency room, a doctor diagnosed a subdural hematoma, which required draining fluid from her brain, according to prosecutors.
“Our opinion was that it was physical abuse,” Dr. Walter Lambert, a pediatrician, said during her testimony in court. “We use the word, severe physical abuse. That’s not a medical word. It’s our way of indicating this is a criminal abuse.”
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