http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20090605/ai_n31968081/?tag=untagged
Gloria Velasco, the mother of Josue and Hernandez-Velasco, also lashed out at Gaucin-Canales, saying he was the prime mover behind the death of her son and that he forced her daughter to take part. "She wasn't able to control him -- he's an adult, a man.
"I know that I can't get my son Josue back," Velasco told Himonas. "I ask you for my daughter, Rebecca, to give her back to me."
However, Ron Yengich, defense attorney for Gaucin-Canales, said red flags should have popped up over earlier reports by schoolteachers to the Utah Division of Children and Family Services that the boy told them that his mother, Gloria Velasco, had punished him at home by putting him in ice water. The child allegedly also told teachers his mother hit him with a cord, a hairbrush and once hit him so hard in the face with her fist that it split his lip. There also was a report she chained Josue to a TV for hours while she worked a night shift.
None of those allegations were ever substantiated and no action was taken. Yengich later said the mother should be re-investigated and, if innocent, should be exonerated. But if she is guilty of lying about such abuse to the judge at the sentencing, she should be held accountable for what she did.
Gloria Velasco, the mother of Josue and Hernandez-Velasco, also lashed out at Gaucin-Canales, saying he was the prime mover behind the death of her son and that he forced her daughter to take part. "She wasn't able to control him -- he's an adult, a man.
"I know that I can't get my son Josue back," Velasco told Himonas. "I ask you for my daughter, Rebecca, to give her back to me."
However, Ron Yengich, defense attorney for Gaucin-Canales, said red flags should have popped up over earlier reports by schoolteachers to the Utah Division of Children and Family Services that the boy told them that his mother, Gloria Velasco, had punished him at home by putting him in ice water. The child allegedly also told teachers his mother hit him with a cord, a hairbrush and once hit him so hard in the face with her fist that it split his lip. There also was a report she chained Josue to a TV for hours while she worked a night shift.
None of those allegations were ever substantiated and no action was taken. Yengich later said the mother should be re-investigated and, if innocent, should be exonerated. But if she is guilty of lying about such abuse to the judge at the sentencing, she should be held accountable for what she did.
