East Palo Alto mom convicted of abusing 18-month-old son
FILE - Generic gavel on wooden table.
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - An East Palo Alto mother faces more than a decade in prison after being convicted of abusing her 18-month-old child.
Head and abdominal injuries
What we know:
In San Mateo County Superior Court on Tuesday, a jury found 39-year-old Tamika Dawson guilty of felony child abuse and inflicting great bodily injury on a child under five years old.
Prosecutors said that on Jan. 5, 2019, Dawson brought her son to the emergency room at Stanford Hospital with multiple injuries, including head trauma, swelling to the back of his neck and cervical spine, a lacerated liver, and retinal hemorrhages in both eyes.
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The child required emergency surgery and sustained long-term neurological damage, prosecutors said.
Mom claimed son fell off bed
Dig deeper:
Dawson claimed the child was injured after falling off a bed. However, experts concluded the injuries were caused by "abusive head trauma and blunt abdominal trauma."
Dawson had been out of custody on supervised release, but after the guilty verdict was handed down, she was taken into custody.
She is scheduled to be sentenced on April 16 and faces up to 12 years in prison.
The Source: San Mateo County District Attorney's Office