Mother in Drug Case Rearrested

A mother accused of child endangerment after her 7-year-old daughter found what turned out to be cocaine in her backpack and shared a taste of it with eight other students was rearrested today when she arrived in Juvenile Court seeking to regain custody of her two children.

Maria Cristina Torres, 39, of Topanga Canyon had been released on $100,000 bail Monday after the nine students of Canoga Park Lutheran School became mildly ill after sampling the golf-ball-sized piece of the illegal drug. Torres was taken into custody today by a U.S. deputy marshal in the courtroom of Commissioner Jack Gold, where she was requesting that her 5-year-old son and her daughter be returned to her. They had been placed with relatives after her arrest. Late Wednesday, a no-bail warrant was issued after it was discovered that Torres was on probation for a 1985 conviction of trying to smuggle money out of the country.