$500,000 bail is set in baby-slashing case

October 5, 2007

A 20-year-old Roslindale woman was ordered held on $500,000 bail yesterday during her arraignment in Suffolk Superior Court on charges of slashing an infant with an eyebrow razor this summer, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced. Mabel Rojas, was charged with one count each of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and of assault and battery causing bodily harm to a child under the age of 14 in the injuries to a friend's baby as the 3-month-old child lay sleeping in her crib. Rojas was also charged with filing a false police report by accusing a 31-year-old man of slashing the baby and was charged with assault and battery in allegedly slapping him across the face as police questioned him. The man was later cleared. The baby is recovering, officials said. Rojas is expected to return to court Oct. 18.

A man was sentenced yesterday to more than five years in jail for his role in a multistate insurance fraud scheme in which federal prosecutors said he and his wife intentionally ate glass fragments and collected more than $200,000 in compensation. Ronald Evano, 49, also was ordered to repay $340,000 for his role in defrauding restaurants, grocery stores, insurers, hospitals, and doctors in the scheme. Prosecutors said that Evano and his wife, Mary, who remains a fugitive, would say there was glass in the food they ate at restaurants and grocery stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Washington D.C. The two filed fraudulent insurance claims worth more than $200,000 and incurred more than $100,000 in unpaid medical bills in several states between 1997 and 2005, prosecutors say. In August, Evano pleaded guilty in federal court to 20 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, identity theft, making false statements on health care matters, and Social Security fraud. (AP)

Besides eliminating 1,000 state jobs, Governor Don Carcieri says his administration will cut $100 million in spending on state employee benefits and social programs. Carcieri made the announcement during a speech that outlined a work force and spending reduction plan that he plans to formally unveil Oct. 15. He said deep spending cuts were necessary to close a budget deficit that he estimates is around $200 million. Earlier this year, Carcieri said he would eliminate 1,000 state jobs, including outright layoff of some workers. (AP)

Brown University announced yesterday that it would join a national research project that will follow 100,000 randomly selected children from before birth to age 21. Researchers participating in the National Children's Study will study environmental effects on children's health to better understand how conditions such as diabetes, autism, and asthma develop. Investigators in Rhode Island will enroll 1,000 Providence County children in the study. Brown received a $14.1 million award to join the National Institutes of Health study. (AP)

Four firefighters and two residents were hurt yesterday in an apartment fire. The one-alarm blaze broke out on the third-story of an apartment building. James Taylor, chief of communications for the department, says firefighters had the blaze under control about 20 minutes after responding. Battalion Chief Peter Celani told The Providence Journal that one firefighter had a back injury and three others suffered heat exhaustion. At least two were taken to the hospital, as was one of the residents. (AP)

Three Wolcott High School students were killed in a car crash yesterday morning after they left a group breakfast with other teenagers, police said. The 17-year-old driver, his 14-year-old sister, and her 15-year-old friend died at about 8:30 a.m., Wolcott police Captain Domenic Angiolillo said. They were returning from breakfast after learning their school was closed for the day because of a water main break. The teenagers' Subaru was traveling north on East Street when it clipped the back portion of a boat being towed by another vehicle, which was turning into a parking lot. The car slid across the road's center line and struck a southbound utility truck, Angiolillo said. Police identified the 17-year-old driver as Wolcott High senior Anthony Apruzzese; the front seat passenger as his sister, freshman Jessica Apruzzese, 14; and the back seat passenger as freshman Thamara Correa, 15. (AP)