The father of an abused 7-year-old Brooklyn girl killed in 2006 by her stepfather has received a $750,000 settlement from the city after he alleged the city failed to protect her.
The girl, Nixzmary Brown, died in January 2006 when her stepfather Cesar Rodriguez beat her as a punishment for stealing yogurt. Both Rodriguez and the girl's mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, were acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter. Rodriguez is serving 29 years in prison, and Santiago up to 43 years.
The case hastened reforms in New York's child welfare agency and made the little girl's name synonymous with child abuse.
ACS Commissioner David Hansell said in a statement to News 4 Friday, "The death of Nixzmary Brown was a horrific tragedy that rightfully prompted deep reforms at ACS beginning a decade ago."
"We made progress on all, and sincerely hope that today's settlement brings some closure to those who knew and loved Nixzmary," he said.
Despite Rodriguez delivering the fatal blow to little Nixzmary, Santiago was sentenced to a longer prison term because, according to prosecutors, she failed to save her child's life by taking her to the hospital.
"Being held accountable is one and the same under the law," a prosecutor told reporters at the time of her sentencing. "It's not just you beat her and that's it."
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Evidence at her trial included grim crime-scene photos from the room where Nixzmary was bound to a chair, starved and forced to urinate in a litter box. Nixzmary was so malnourished when she died that she weighed only 36 pounds -- about half the weight of an average girl that age.
A defense attorney said Santiago tried twice to stop her husband from hitting the girl, and didn't know he continued beating her until she died. She said Santiago was a loving but overworked mother caring for five other children, and was afraid of her husband.
The case of Nixzmary Brown bears resemblance to that of Zymere Perkins, the 6-year-old boy who died last September from fatal child abuse syndrome. On the day he died, his mother's boyfriend allegedly beat him with a broomstick and hung him by his shirt over the back of the bathroom door, apparently enraged when the boy defecated in the living room of their Hamilton Heights apartment, court documents say.
His case sparked new scrutiny on ACS, and Gladys Carrion resigned as commissioner in the wake of Zymere's and other children's deaths. David Hansell was appointed as the new ACS commissioner last month.
