A Santa Fe woman who had been charged with reckless child abuse resulting the death of her infant son pleaded guilty to lesser charges Thursday after a prosecutor said the state does not believe she is the one who fatally injured the child.
Miranda Rabago, 29, was arrested in November 2016 after she brought her 18-month-old son to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center with a fractured skull and multiple broken bones in various stages of healing. The boy later died from his injuries.
She pleaded guilty Thursday to five third-degree felony counts of child abuse for failing to prevent the boy, Ares Baroz, from being injured and failing to seek medical care for him.
“We do not believe Ms. Rabago is the one, after further investigation, who inflicted these injuries,” Assistant District Attorney Mary V. Carmack-Altwies said during the plea hearing.
Under the terms of her plea deal with prosecutors, Rabago could be sent to prison for six years to 15 years.
Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Padgett Macias said after the hearing that the state has not charged anyone else in the case.
“I would be curious to hear what the police have to say about the investigation,” Rabago’s public defender, Stephen Taylor, said. “There is no doubt the injuries that ended up killing her child were intentionally inflicted … and the person who killed that child has not been brought to justice.”
Assistant District Attorney Susan Stinson told the Washington Post in January 2017 that authorities found a picture on Rabago’s cellphone of Ares with the words “thug life” written in black marker across his stomach and a fake tattoo of the word “loco” on his forehead.
According to court records, Rabago had three children at the time her youngest died in 2016 and has since given birth to two more.
Taylor said that at the time of Ares’ death, Rabago was pregnant with a child fathered by her then boyfriend, and that child was born in 2017.
That child and Rabago’s two eldest children live with Rabago’s mother, the lawyer said.
Taylor said Rabago became pregnant by another man while on electronic monitoring awaiting trial in this case, and this child, born in 2018, is in the custody of the state Children, Youth and Families Department.