Ensley Elementary School worker faces abuse charges

Ensley Elementary School worker faces abuse charges

Woman charged with torturing daughter

9:50 PM, Dec 20, 2012 | Comments

Written by

Erin Kourkounis

A part-time Ensley Elementary School employee was arrested Thursday on child-abuse charges alleging she treated her adoptive daughter like a prisoner and overmedicated her to retain control at their home.

Dorothea Vega, 59, of the 3200 block of Idlewood Drive in Pensacola is in her second year as a temporary parent liaison and was taken from the school Thursday by Escambia County sheriff’s deputies.

She faces several domestic violence charges, including battery, torturing a child, caging a child and cruelty toward a child that could result in physical or mental injury. She is in the Escambia County Jail, being held without bond.

According to an arrest warrant, Vega gave her daughter large amounts of anti-psychotics and allergy medication. This was in an effort to control her, the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

The warrant, which says the abuse happened between Aug. 1 and Nov. 2, also said the girl was “not allowed to come out of her room except to eat or do chores,” and that alarms were put on the door that would sound if she left.

If the girl left, the report says, Vega would beat her. Deputies later went to the home and found the “deplorable” living conditions, the Sheriff’s Office said, which included “a dirty mattress on the floor, windows screwed shut and a dog cage with feces in it.”

The daughter told investigators that “her mother hits all of her body but mostly on her head and face ... (with) toilet plungers, brooms, sticks, shoes, rulers and wooden spoons along with an open or closed fist.” the report says. She also had to get permission to bathe and was sometimes not allowed to eat.

“(The girl) states she has to come to school and bathe in the bathroom to prepare for a full day of school,” the warrant says.

Escambia County Schools Superintendent Malcolm Thomas said Vega will not be allowed back on the school’s campus as long as she faces these charges.

“We always separate the individual from students until allegations are proven or until the case is completely tried,” Thomas said.

The report also says that Child Protective Services is looking into the case.