Woman indicted for child abuse after allegedly injecting son with insulin
Jerusalem ultra-Orthodox mother of 10 charged with five counts of suspected assault of 1-year-old
A Jerusalem woman was indicted Sunday for allegedly injecting her one-year-old son with insulin even though he did not have diabetes.
The woman, a 30-year-old ultra-Orthodox mother of 10, was charged at the Jerusalem District Court with abuse of a minor or helpless person by a guardian, and five counts of assaulting a minor or helpless person.
The indictment only dealt with suspected child abuse. When details of the case were cleared for publication last month, police said the woman was suspected of creating the appearance that five of her children have diabetes in order to falsely claim welfare benefits.
Police said at the time that the woman and her husband, who was also arrested but later released, received some NIS 800,000 ($220,000) in total and that the benefit claim would be investigated. According to Hebrew daily Haaretz, the financial aspect of the investigation is still ongoing.
According to the incident, after the toddler — who suffers from a number of medical issues — was hospitalized in serious condition, the mother told the family’s doctor in June that her son had hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar.
The doctor then ordered the child be checked for diabetes and a day later the woman brought the toddler to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center with low blood sugar.
While the child was hospitalized, the woman injected him with insulin at least five times between June 16 and 27, the incitement said, causing his blood sugar to drop to hypoglycemic levels.
After one such incident, doctors hooked up the toddler to an infusion device, but the mother turned it off and later bit a hole in the tube connecting it to her son in order to prevent it from working, according to the indictment.
“In her aforementioned actions, the defendant commitment acts of physical abuse against a minor for who she is responsible, attacking the helpless minor and giving him injuries that resulted in dangerous injury, or that harmed or were likely to badly or permanently harm the health of injured person,” the indictment said.
Prosecutors requested the woman be held in custody until the end of the trial.
The mother has denied any wrongdoing, claiming that she treated her children in the belief they were diabetic.
