Ana Maria Cardona, right, reacts after being found guilty of 1st degree murder of her son, Lazaro. Photo / AP
Ana Maria Cardona, right, reacts after being found guilty of 1st degree murder of her son, Lazaro. Photo / AP
A Florida mother has been convicted for a third time of brutally abusing her toddler before fatally beating the boy who became known as "Baby Lollipops" in a case that riveted Miami decades ago.
Jurors found 56-year-old Ana Maria Cardona guilty of murder and aggravated child abuse on Wednesday in the killing of three-year-old Lazaro Figueroa, whose emaciated body was found hidden in bushes in Miami Beach in November 1990.
The boy was beaten throughout his short life and was starving to death, weighing just 8.1kg, the Daily Mail reports.
Ana Maria Cardona, right, has an emotional outburst while addressing the court as she claims her innocence after being found guilty of 1st degree murder of her son. Photo / AP
His body was covered in bumps and bruises and cigarette burns. His skull had been fractured, and his left arm was permanently bent at a 90-degree angle. The medical examiner called it child torture, trial testimony shows.
"After suffering years, months, days of continuous abuse by her, under her watch, Lazaro inevitably withered and died. And lay in the dirt until his little heart stopped beating," prosecutor Reid Rubin said in a closing argument.
"It was only a matter of time before he wound up dead because of her," Rubin added.
Cardona was twice sentenced to death in previous trials.
After her first trial in 1992, Cardona became the first woman in Florida history to be sentenced to capital punishment for killing her own child.
But both convictions were overturned by the Florida Supreme Court, leading to this third trial.
Circuit Judge Miguel M de la O immediately sentenced Cardona to a life prison sentence. Prosecutors opted not to seek the death penalty a third time.
Lazaro was beaten throughout his short life and was starving to death, weighing just 8.1kg.
"I don't think you will be meeting Lazaro in the afterlife," he told Cardona at the sentencing.
"Your actions were monstrous.
"My mind recoils at the hellish existence you put Lazaro through that last year of his life.
"There are wild beasts that show more empathy for their offspring than you showed Lazaro."
Trial evidence showed that Cardona had other children she did not abuse.
The reason for Lazaro's suffering, Rubin said, was that his father had been a drug dealer who was slain by rivals - and with his death, Cardona lost a lavish lifestyle she had been enjoying until then.
"She became angry and spiteful, and she took it out on an innocent young child who became her personal whipping boy. It escalated, more and more," the prosecutor said.
Cardona testified in her own defence that her female lover, Olivia Gonzalez, was responsible for Lazaro's death.
Defence attorney Steven Yermish gives his closing statement at Ana Maria Cardona's trial for the 1990 murder of her son, Lazaro. Photo / AP
"I didn't kill my son," she told the court in Spanish. "I didn't torture my son. Maybe you don't believe me. You don't feel my pain. Nobody could love my child more than me."
She claimed that Gonzalez had beat her son with a baseball bat after taking him from her home.
Trial evidence showed that Gonzalez and Cardona fled to central Florida after the boy died, even enjoying a trip to Disney World, before their arrests.
Defence attorney Steve Yermish said in his closing argument that Cardona was a poor mother and may have taken actions against Lazaro that amounted to child abuse. But he said she did not kill her son.
Ana Maria Cardona, right, has an emotional outburst while addressing the court as she claims her innocence after being found guilty of 1st degree murder of her son. Photo / AP
"I can only assume that you are angry at Ana Cardona. And you have every right to be," Yermish said. "Ana was a lousy mother. She failed as a mother. But you can't decide this case because you or I or anyone is angry at Ana for her failures.
"The charge of aggravated child abuse may have been proven. The charge of murder has not."
Unable to identify him initially, officers called the boy "Baby Lollipops" after the T-shirt he was wearing.
It took more than a month for investigators to learn Lazaro's identity and track down the two women.
Their big break came when a neighbour who had occasionally cared for Lazaro recognised him from police flyers.
Prosecutor Reid Ruben gives his closing statement and points to Ana Maria Cardona during Cardona's murder trial at the Miami Criminal Court. Photo / AP
Eventually, the investigation led Miami Beach detectives to Cardona, who had moved with her other two children and her companion to a motel in Osceola County.
Gonzalez testified in previous trials, but not this time.
She served 14 years in prison for her role in Lazaro's mistreatment when living with Cardona. She was never charged with killing him.
Cardona told investigators after her arrest that Lazaro hit his head falling out of bed, and that she hid his body hoping not to lose custody of her other children. This week, she said that was not the truth.
