10-Year-Old Turned In Mother : D. A. Won’t File Drug Counts in Reseda Case

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office announced Tuesday that there is insufficient evidence to file drug charges against a Reseda woman whose 10-year-old daughter climbed out a first-floor window and called police from a pay phone to report that her mother was using cocaine.

A spokesman for the district attorney’s office said only a “trace amount” of cocaine was found at the home where the girl said her mother was “freebasing” the drug, not enough for a prosecution.

But the district attorney’s office referred the case to the city attorney’s office for consideration of misdemeanor charges of child endangerment against the mother and three others.

Mother Arrested Oct. 27

The mother, Barbara Jean Cortez, 46, was arrested Oct. 27 on suspicion of possessing cocaine after her daughter, Terah Beth, told police that her mother and sister were using a pipe to “freebase” cocaine. Terah gave police the address of her sister’s house in Reseda.

When police arrived, the girl led them to a side yard where they found freebasing equipment and a vial. The minute amount of cocaine in the vial was insufficient to file charges against Cortez, Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Diamond said.

The vial contained water, and investigators suspect it had been hurriedly rinsed out, Los Angeles Police Detective Bruce Stoughton said.

The district attorney’s office asked the city attorney’s office for consideration of misdemeanor charges of child endangerment against Cortez, her husband Ernest, 55, and Jeffrey Smith, 27, who lives with Barbara Cortez’s daughter, Chris Traposi.

A hearing will be held this month in Juvenile Dependency Court to determine whether Terah, who was taken into custody of the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services, should be returned to her parents. Traposi’s 5-year-old son, who also was taken into custody by the county agency, was returned to his mother.

Barbara Cortez, who was freed on $2,500 bail shortly after her arrest, could not be reached for comment.

The case was the latest in a series of incidents in which California children have informed on their parents for alleged drug use. In the first such case, a Tustin girl turned in her parents in August.