Florida Child-Protection Advocate Arrested For Abusing Child

MIAMI- A 20-year-old woman was arrested and charged with severely beating her daughter, less than five years after a jury awarded her and her sister $4.4 million for the abuse they suffered while in foster care. Yusimil Herrera was charged with aggravated child abuse after emergency workers found her daughter, Angel Hope Herrera, in their North Miami apartment Sunday evening, battered and unable to breath on her own, police said. Angel was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where she was on life support early Tuesday. She had severe head trauma and a broken arm, according to the arrest report. Herrera and her sister entered foster care in June 1986, after her mother left them alone in a park. A 1995 lawsuit alleged the two girls were beaten, molested, raped and forced to take drugs as they grew up in the state system. A Miami jury awarded them $4.4 million on Oct. 22, 1999. But an appeals court overturned that decision, and Herrera and her sister settled with the state earlier this year, said their lawyer Karen Gievers. Angel's godmother raised her until a few months ago, when she moved back into her mother's apartment, said Department of Children & Families spokesman Peter Coats. In February and March, the state's abuse hotline received three calls alleging Herrera was abusing her daughter, he said. DCF asked to take Angel into protective custody in March, but Miami-Dade Juvenile Court Judge Sarah Zabel found there were no grounds for the removal, said Chuck Hood, Miami district administrator for the agency.

(AP article here)