A mother who set fire to her young daughter in a voodoo ritual has been sentenced to 17 years in jail.
The New York Daily News reports:
Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter scolded Marie Lauradin for lying to cops and probation officers about how her daughter, Frantzcia Saintil, was set on fire, leaving her with life-altering scars over 25 percent of her body.
After her February 2009 arrest, Lauradin told cops she accidentally spilled a pot of boiling water on the child when the youngster came up from behind her. And she recently told probation officers she was rubbing alcohol on the child to soothe a fever when a candle ignited it. […]
When she returned she admitted -under questioning from Buchter stripping the child naked and pouring an accelerant over her head and in a circle on the floor – a voodoo rite known as “loa.”
She set the girl on fire and failed to get her medical attention for another 24 hours, prosecutors say.
Frantzcia suffered horrific injuries as a result of the ritual. 25 per cent of her body – including her face – was covered with second and third-degree burns.
‘She has so much anger and suffers at school from kids making fun of her,’ prosecutor Leigh Bishop read from an email sent from Frantzcia’s foster mother, Sunday Cruz.
Lauradin’s mother, Sylvenie Thessier, 70, was also present during the ritual.
She was sentenced to up to three years in prison in April after pleading guilty to reckless assault.
On setencing, the pair face deportation to Haiti.