WHAT A HEEL!: Adopted Children Abused
Judith Leekin, 63, pleaded guilty to using fake names to adopt 11 disabled children in NYC between 1988 and 1996 to collect $1.68 million in subsidies, reports The Associated Press. After moving to Port St. Lucie, FL, in 1998, she allegedly kept the children handcuffed to their beds with plastic ties, beat them and deprived them of food and medicine. Leekin, who could get up to eight years in prison on federal mail and wire fraud charges for sending NYC officials falsified school report cards to keep the payments coming, will be returned to FL after sentencing in mid-July to face child abuse charges. The adoptees, many of whom have both physical and mental handicaps, now range in age from 16 to 28. Nine have been placed in foster or group homes, and a 10th is living independently FL. The whereabouts of an 11th child are unknown, and police suspect that Leekin may have killed him.
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