Oct 18, 2008 7:27 am US/Eastern
Nixzmary Brown's Mother Guilty Of Manslaughter
Jury Finds Nixzaliz Santiago Also Guity Of Assault And Other Related Charges
Defense Argued Santiago 'Never Understood What Happened'
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Nixzmary Brown was found dead on Jan. 11, 2006 inside her Brooklyn apartment.
AP
A state Supreme Court jury has found the mother of the 7-year-old Brooklyn girl who died a torturous death inside her apartment guilty of first-degree manslaughter, CBS 2 has learned.
Nixzaliz Santiago was also convicted of first and second degree assault, unlawful imprisonment, and endangering the welfare of a child. The manslaughter conviction carries a maximum sentence of 25 years, but the District Attorney is expected to ask the judge to add to that the prison time allotted for the other counts as well.
"So although Nixzmary in life didn't come first, didn't come second, she didn't even come in last. Because we know now, based on the evidence, she just didn't matter to Cesar Rodriguez and Nixzaliz Santiago," said Ama Dwimoh, Executive Assistant District Attorney of Brooklyn.
The jury of 10 women and two men delivered the verdict Friday after beginning deliberations Wednesday morning. On Thursday, the jury had requested to see tapes of Santiago's police interview.
"[She's] not well, she's very emotional, she's very upset. You can only imagine, she's a 20-something-year-old woman, she has other children and she was hoping the jury would have a better reaction," said Kathleen Mullin, Santiago's attorney.
During the trial's closing arguments, Mullin practically screamed at the jury yelling, pacing, coming to within a foot of the them as she claimed her client was innocent. Instead, she blamed Nixzmary's death squarely on Cesar Rodriguez, the girl's stepfather who had already been found guilty in an earlier trial for manslaughter.
"He took her from that bathroom; and he beat her in that back bedroom, away from Mrs. Santiago. She never knew, or never understood what happened to her daughter," Mullin said.
But prosecutors painted a different picture, billing Santiago as a mother who provoked her husband to abuse her 7-year-old daughter and did nothing to help as the battered, naked girl lay dying on their apartment floor.
The case has been one that has cast a negative light on the city's child welfare system.
The incident two years ago hastened reforms and made Nixzmary's name synonymous with child abuse. The girl was so malnourished when she died that she weighed only 36 pounds -- about half the weight of an average girl that age.
Rodriguez, was convicted of manslaughter for delivering the blow that killed the girl.
But defense lawyer Sammy Sanchez portrayed Santiago herself as a victim -- a loving but "unsophisticated" mother with a fifth-grade education who relied on men for support.
He also hinted that she had emotional problems, telling the jury how she took a miscarried fetus home from the hospital in a jar and put it in her bedroom.
Sanchez and Mullin both blamed Nixzmary's death on Rodriguez, who is serving up to 29 years in prison after being convicted in March. He was acquitted of a murder charge that could have sent him away for life.
Sanchez said Rodriguez became increasingly violent after losing his job in 2005, and Santiago had no choice to but to stay. "She didn't want to go back to a shelter. She had a dilemma," he said.
Prosecutor Ama Dwimoh, who also argued the case against Rodriguez, contrasted the two cases. She said Rodriguez's centered on what he did, while Santiago's was about what she didn't do.
"The last words of 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown, moaning in pain and gasping for air, were, 'Mommy, mommy, mommy,"' Dwimoh said. "She didn't love or comfort, and she didn't stop the beatings, and she didn't get any help."
Nixzmary died Jan. 11, 2006, of a vicious blow to the head while being punished for stealing yogurt. Santiago reported finding the child unconscious in the family's three-bedroom apartment.
Investigators discovered she had been a virtual prisoner, confined to a room with dirty mattresses, a broken radiator, a wooden chair to which she was bound with a rope, and a litter box she was forced to use instead of a toilet.
There had been warning signs for years before Nixzmary's death. School employees had reported that she had been absent for weeks the previous year. Neighbors noticed unexplained injuries and noted the child appeared underfed, though Sanchez has said she was just small for her age. Child welfare workers had been alerted twice but said they found no conclusive evidence of abuse.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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