Nixzmary’s monstrous stepfather gets maximum sentence
April 7, 2008 by ElfNinosMom
Cesar Rodriquez, the stepfather of Nixzmary Brown, previously covered on this blog, has been sentenced to the 29 years maximum imprisonment.
Some excerpts from ABC News:
Jeffrey Schwartz said his client had been unjustly portrayed as a monster and was in fact an “angel” who tried to do the right thing when it came to his family.
Well, sure. I know that he’s an angel who did the right thing, because in the space of two and a half years, seven-year-old Nixzmary gained a whole pound.
Let’s be serious. How on earth can anyone portray this man as an “angel” when a child in his own home was being beaten and tortured, treated worse than an animal? Even though she wasn’t his child, he had a responsibility to protect her, and a responsibility to not viciously beat her. He failed miserably in his responsibilities. Far from being an angel, I suspect there’s a room in hell reserved for Cesar Rodriguez.
Prosecutor Ama Dwimoh had asked state Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Hall to impose the maximum sentence on Rodriguez, who sat stone-faced and motionless throughout the hearing.
She recounted Rodriguez’s troubled criminal past, saying “there is no end to Cesar Rodriguez’s violent ways.”
The case shocked the city and led to changes in New York City’s child welfare agency after caseworkers overlooked signs of abuse. The girl was so malnourished before she died that she weighed only 36 pounds — about half the weight of an average girl her age — and had gained only a pound in the previous 2 1/2 years.
Nixzmary’s mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, goes on trial later this year for the allegations involving her actions with regard to Nixzmary’s death. Cesar Rodriguez has blamed the mother, but then again, the monster blamed Nixzmary for her own death too.
not long enough.
I agree, Dee. Anyone who would treat a child like that should never be released from prison.
Then again, if the other inmates get wind of what he did, he may not ever get out, or at least not without a pine box.
I found a web site that had an 80 minute interview of the mother the day after the child died. It was so sad because she seemed so casual about the beating the little girl received before she died. She did tear up a couple of times, but in generel she told the story as if it was something not real. I guess that is the problem now days. So many parents think it is ok to hurt their children. She did tell the yogart story differently than what has been reported. Well I hope God has a special place in hell for people that do these kinds of things. My heart hurts knowing that so many children are treated this way, and they have no one to help them.