9-yr sentence for J’can woman who abused adopted child

A Jamaican woman will have to spend nine years behind bars after pleading guilty to abusing her adopted daughter in Maryland.

According to court documents Hyacinth Morgan, 48, locked the 11-year-old girl in a laundry room, forced her to use a bucket for a toilet, and beat her with extension cords reinforced with duct tape.

In court on Thursday, Morgan was silent as Richard Finci, her defense attorney, showed numerous slides and videos of the girl and her two sisters enjoying a swim in the family's backyard pool.

Mr. Finci said the girl, who was adopted from an orphanage in Colombia, was increasingly defiant and difficult.

He said bad things were done to her that his client regrets, and painted a picture of a woman struggling to deal with a difficult child.

After hours of detailed testimony, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Durke Thompson sentenced Morgan to nine years.

She will be put on supervised probation for five years after her release.