A Bronx couple have been indicted on neglect charges after police found the woman’s two daughters naked a bruised in a locked room, eating pieces of a foam mattress.
The two girls, ages 3 and 4, were found in an apartment “with urine and feces about the place” and without adequate food, clothing, or clean diapers, Bronx District Attorney’s Office Darcel D. Clark said in a statement.
Clark said that Stephanie Grabowski, 40, and her boyfriend, 45-year-old Mark Russell, face two counts of kidnapping, two counts of unlawful imprisonment, burglary, two counts of endangering the welfare of a child for indidents that took place on May 3 in an apartment on East 138th Street where they were squatting. Additionally, Grabowski faces another kidnapping charge for conduct that occurred between November 14 and May 3 at that apartment an another on East 169th Street.
“The defendants allegedly kept these little girls in a house of horrors,” Clark said. “They illegally occupied an apartment and left the children alone without food or clothing. Fortunately, police rescued the girls, and a nurse discovered signs of abuse for which they are being treated. The situation is beyond the pale.”
Officers were vacating the apartment, occupied by known squatters, on May 3, when they found the girls. They found girls’ bedroom door tied shut to an adjacent closet door and kicked it in. They “found the two girls naked and bruised on a filthy spongelike mattress on the floor, and feces, dirty diapers and garbage throughout the room.” One officer noted that the children were eating pieces of the mattress.
The children were checked out by a nurse at the Children’s Advocacy Center on May 4 and found toe have “significant bruising and marks in various stages of healing, rashes throughout their bodies and difficulties walking, standing and speaking,” the district attorney’s office said.
Grabowski and Russell were arraigned on Monday and are due back in court on September 13.
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