A Los Angeles woman was charged Friday with torturing and abusing her two stepdaughters.
Sonia Marquez, 52, pleaded not guilty in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom to two counts of torture and two counts of child abuse under circumstances or conditions likely to cause great bodily injury involving the two girls, along with an allegation that she personally inflicted great bodily injury to the girls, according to Jonathan Hatami, assistant head deputy of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office’s Complex Child Abuse Section and Family Violence Division North County.
Marquez is also charged with a third count of child abuse under circumstances or conditions likely to cause great bodily injury that does not include an allegation that she personally inflicted injury on that girl, who was identified by Hatami as the woman’s biological daughter.
The criminal complaint alleges that the crimes occurred between Feb. 1 and Wednesday.
The alleged victims are 9, 11 and 12, according to Hatami.
Marquez was arrested Wednesday by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollenbeck Community Police Station and she has remained behind bars since then, according to jail records.
She was ordered to be held in lieu of just over $2 million bail while awaiting her next court appearance Oct. 7, Hatami said.