Thread: Guat mom abandons disabled son at Wal-Mart

jconline.com

December 23, 2008

Mom gets 2 years for abandoning son

Prosecutor describes the neglect as 'cold, callous and calculated'

By SOPHIA VORAVONG
svoravong@jconline.com

FRANKFORT -- During an interview with investigators following her arrest for neglect of a dependent, Julia Ornelas gave a host of reasons why she abandoned her 3-year-old son at Frankfort's Wal-Mart Supercenter in June.

The 39-year-old Tipton woman said she was depressed, on several medications and told by a witch doctor in Mexico to get rid of the boy, Maj. Jeff Ward, a detective with the Frankfort Police Department, testified Monday during Ornelas' sentencing hearing.

What authorities believe, however, is that Ornelas saw Julian Ornelas as a burden because of a medical condition in which the boy's head is too small for his body.

"Julian was a special-needs child. I believe this was an indirect way of saying Julian was just an inconvenience to you," said Judge Kathy Smith of Clinton Superior Court.

She ordered that Ornelas serve two years in prison and one year on probation for neglect of a dependent by abandonment, a Class D felony. Ornelas had faced between six months and three years imprisonment, though her attorney, Brad Mohler, argued for 18 months of home detention.

"Home? Where Julian was not good enough to be?" Smith asked Ornelas. "But you are?"

Julian remains in the care of the Indiana Department of Child Services.

Ornelas pleaded guilty last month to neglect by abandonment, admitting that she left Julian at Wal-Mart on June 13 with a backpack that contained some personal items and a handwritten note in Spanish.

Based on the note, investigators believed that Julian's name was MartÃ*n and that his mother was an immigrant from Guatemala who could no longer afford to care for him.

Ornelas, through a Spanish-language interpreter, testified Monday that she could not remember why she chose to drive to Frankfort's Wal-Mart, about 25 minutes from her home in Tipton, or what happened once inside the store.

But she admitted to writing the note and including information that misled investigators for several weeks.

Ornelas testified that Julian has "little veins in his head that paralyzed half of his legs and his side" that required medical treatment. Ward testified that one of the medical visits was with a specialist at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis.

"I was desperate at the time," Ornelas said. "It got to the point where I felt I could not take care of him. ... I thought that someone would pick him up. I could find another job ... and find him again."

At the time Julian was abandoned, Ornelas was unemployed.

She said her only source of income was a monthly Supplemental Security Income check for Julian.

Ward said she cashed one of those checks, worth $542 and dated July 1, on July 8.

Julian's abandonment this summer prompted widespread attention, with Ward appearing on several television news outlets, including some broadcast nationwide.

A break in the case came when a relative of the boy in Texas saw Ward on a news program July 8 on the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision. The relative called police the next day.

Clinton County Prosecutor Tony Sommer argued Monday that Ornelas should receive the full three years in prison allowed under Indiana law. He questioned why Ornelas failed to disclose her son's health conditions in the note if she truly wanted a stranger to care for him.

"Given the potential jeopardy to this child, a Class D felony hardly seems sufficient. Hardly," he said. "This ... was cold, callous and calculated."

Mohler, Ornelas' attorney, said afterward that his client had asked that he not further discuss the case with news reporters. But he said he expected to speak with Ornelas about the sentence.

He said Ornelas will comply with related but separate proceedings regarding Julian in juvenile court.

http://jconline.com/article/20081223/NEWS03/812230320

I am off key and out of sorts, so I have had to edit my own reply, but all I can truly think is that her plan to have an anchor baby, father or no, backfired on her when she found she had a child with special needs, and the care was greater than what she had wanted. Seems she did not mind having the SS Supplemental income coming in for him, since she cashed the check, after she abandoned him. DEPORT HER!

The report does not say if she came here legally (which I doubt) The sentence she received was way to lttle for what she did,Then she cashes a check that was meant for his care. Now how about that for family values ??? I am so sick of these OBL lobbist that I can hardley see straight any more..
Ahhh Heck she just didn't know whatshe was doing at the time depressed and out of a jobs .. How Friggin many American citizens are out of jobs because of these people ??

Agreed 100%, and none of us have walked out on our families, we stick it out and do what it takes to make it.

This is just wrong on sooo many levels. The first thing that struck me is she said she went to a witch doctor??? Is this the "new American"??????

Then she wants home detention? Her lawyer should be slapped for even suggesting such a thing! And I like the judge's response. The home that wasn't good enough for her baby but was good enough for her to be punished in???

Three years was much too light a sentence on this waste of skin.

I'm so sorry her anchor baby scheme didn't work out as well as she hoped....that b$&^*(

She said her only source of income was a monthly Supplemental Security Income check for Julian.

Is the woman legal? And if not, then why is she getting social security income? It burns me up to think we are supplemeting illegal aliens.l I dont want to hear he was born in the country so that makes him an American because thats alot of bs. Deport ALL illegal aliens regardless of their age or where they were born because they are not Americans.

Originally Posted by AE

I am off key and out of sorts, so I have had to edit my own reply, but all I can truly think is that her plan to have an anchor baby, father or no, backfired on her when she found she had a child with special needs, and the care was greater than what she had wanted. Seems she did not mind having the SS Supplemental income coming in for him, since she cashed the check, after she abandoned him. DEPORT HER!

Which proves that these anchor babies weren't born out of the act of love but from an act of dishonesty..poor children..they are worth far more than their deceiptfull parents. They don't love these children, they are using them. This woman is scum.

butterbean wrote:

It doesn't sound like he was an illegal, or I would have thought he would have been deported already...OH well he will be now!

Sounds like the lady is the mother of an anchor baby.

Why is there no mention of deportation after her prison sentence is served?

oh my lord no ... why is it that children are always the ones that pay for the parents horrible decissions

Any parent who acts in this way should lose permanent parental rights.

No child deserves to be put in this position, and he is so small yet, I pray someone will come along, take him into their lives and show him real love.