Back In County

Foster mom and child daycare operator Sylvia Vasquez, charged
with neglect and abuse of her four adopted children, was back in
lock-up Tuesday morning after Judge Joseph Lodge increased her bail
from $1 to $5 million in response to allegations she defied the
court’s order against contacting her children. Vasquez allegedly
arranged to have a letter delivered to her 14-year-old son, now in
protective custody, despite having been ordered by Lodge not to
seek communication with her children after prosecutor Joyce Dudley
protested that such contact between defendant and witnesses was
improper and could contaminate the case. According to Dudley,
Vasquez wrote a letter to her son and gave it to one of his
classmates to deliver last Friday. Accused of keeping three of her
adopted children locked downstairs – two of them sometimes in
cages – Vasquez and her supporters have countered that three of the
kids suffer from Reactive Attachment Syndrome, claiming she
struggled heroically, if imperfectly, to deal with intense
behavioral problems.