bloodrayne
08-21-2004, 01:14 PM
Couple Indicted On Charges Of Forcing Child To Care For Corpse
CLARK, N.J. -- A lawyer for a woman accused of having her foster child care for a corpse says the girl concealed the man's death because she feared being removed from her new home.
"She was so focused on that, she lost track of everything else," Thomas Plaia, attorney for Donna Keaveney, told The Star-Ledger of Newark in Thursday's newspapers.
Keaveney and her husband Kenneth Keaveney were indicted on child abuse and elder neglect charges by a Union County grand jury last Friday.
The charges relate to the couple's 13-year-old foster daughter and Donna Keaveney's 82-year-old father, Nicola Lombardi, who had Alzheimer's disease and lived in a room in the couple's Clark house.
The girl continued to bring Lombardi meals even though he had been dead as long as a month, investigators have said.
"The grandfather had passed away and was rotting to the point where the house truly reeked from the stench of death," said Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow.
He said the couple should not have entrusted the care of an aging, mentally ill man to an adolescent.
Plaia said the couple had no idea Lombardi was dead. But prosecutors said anyone inside the split-level house had to know something was terribly wrong.
The teen foster daughter, the Keaveneys' 4-year-old foster daughter and their adopted 11-year-old girl were taken into custody of the state Department of Youth and Family Services after a family member visited the home and authorities were finally contacted.
Plaia told the newspaper the charges could not be proved based on the evidence.
He said he would consider a plea bargain for his client.
CLARK, N.J. -- A lawyer for a woman accused of having her foster child care for a corpse says the girl concealed the man's death because she feared being removed from her new home.
"She was so focused on that, she lost track of everything else," Thomas Plaia, attorney for Donna Keaveney, told The Star-Ledger of Newark in Thursday's newspapers.
Keaveney and her husband Kenneth Keaveney were indicted on child abuse and elder neglect charges by a Union County grand jury last Friday.
The charges relate to the couple's 13-year-old foster daughter and Donna Keaveney's 82-year-old father, Nicola Lombardi, who had Alzheimer's disease and lived in a room in the couple's Clark house.
The girl continued to bring Lombardi meals even though he had been dead as long as a month, investigators have said.
"The grandfather had passed away and was rotting to the point where the house truly reeked from the stench of death," said Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow.
He said the couple should not have entrusted the care of an aging, mentally ill man to an adolescent.
Plaia said the couple had no idea Lombardi was dead. But prosecutors said anyone inside the split-level house had to know something was terribly wrong.
The teen foster daughter, the Keaveneys' 4-year-old foster daughter and their adopted 11-year-old girl were taken into custody of the state Department of Youth and Family Services after a family member visited the home and authorities were finally contacted.
Plaia told the newspaper the charges could not be proved based on the evidence.
He said he would consider a plea bargain for his client.