Mother convicted of endangering teen

A Suffolk Superior Court jury , despite a 14-year-old girl's testimony supporting her mother, convicted the woman of child endangerment yesterday after the teen nearly died last year from an untreated infection caused by a navel piercing.

Deborah Robinson, 39, could face a maximum of five years in prison when she is sentenced on Oct. 26 on the felony conviction of recklessly or wantonly permitting substantial bodily injury to a child. She has already spent 14 months in jail awaiting trial.

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said prison is a possibility but declined to say what sentence prosecutors will recommend.

Conley said he was not surprised the jury convicted Robinson, despite dramatic testimony on Monday in which the daughter said that she was not in pain while she was ill and that her mother was caring for her.

``It was pretty clear that Ms. Robinson was not oblivious at all to her daughter's condition: She had lost 40 pounds. She had been on the couch for weeks. She didn't have the strength to move. She was incontinent," Conley said in an interview. ``It really doesn't matter that the victim forgives her mother from our perspective. . . . Under the law and in a moral sense Deborah Robinson's inaction was wrong, and we were obligated to hold her accountable."

Prosecutors alleged that Robinson stood by idly as her daughter languished on a couch, dwindling from 115 pounds to 75 pounds over the course of two to four weeks. Robinson purchased adult diapers when the girl became incontinent, prosecutors said, but did not seek medical help until her daughter was gravely ill.

Robinson's lawyer, Janet MacNab, said her client has never been arrested before, raised two children alone, and is a loving mother who made the wrong decision because of ignorance, not malice. ``These kids are great -- you don't get kids like that if you're a bad mother," MacNab said.

She said Robinson is impoverished and uneducated and did not know how sick her daughter had become.

``I can't tell you enough how the system has utterly failed this woman," she said. ``This case never belonged in criminal court."

David E. Frank, a former prosecutor with experience in child-abuse cases who is now a writer for Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly said it is not unusual for a jury to ignore testimony from victims of domestic violence or neglect if other evidence points to guilt.

``Jurors are going to understand that a young child is not going to want to be coming into court and pointing a finger at her mother," Frank said. ``Some of the most compelling evidence in this case came from the people who responded to the scene and saw the victim lying on a couch in an adult diaper and T-shirt."

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Social Services, Denise Monteiro, said the girl and her 16-year-old brother are in a foster home together, and the state will move to make the placement permanent. She said that after several surgeries the girl has recovered fully.

``She's an all-A student," Monteiro said. ``She can have a full, healthy life."

Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com