Mother in Cocaine Case Arrested, Held Without Bail

A Topanga Canyon woman, jailed and released on bail this week after her 7-year-old daughter shared cocaine with schoolmates, was taken into custody again Thursday and ordered held without bail after she was accused of violating probation in an earlier federal case.

Maria Christina Torres, 39, was arrested in a courtroom in Los Angeles where she was attempting to regain custody of her daughter and 5-year-old son.

The children had been taken from Torres, who is separated from the children’s father, by juvenile authorities and placed in the custody of a relative after her arrest Monday on suspicion of cocaine possession and child endangerment. No charges have been filed.

Failed to Report Currency

Torres, a native of Colombia, was sentenced June 17, 1985, to five years’ probation by U.S. District Judge A. Andrew Hauk after pleading guilty to failing to report currency and giving a false statement to a government agency. Hauk on Wednesday issued a warrant for Torres’ arrest for allegedly violating her probation.

Torres, who had been free on $100,000 bail, was being held at Sybil Brand Institute. A probation revocation hearing is yet to be scheduled.

Torres was arrested March 18, 1985, by U.S. Customs agents at Los Angeles International Airport when she attempted to board a plane headed for Vancouver, Canada, and then Chile, authorities said.

Customs spokesman John Miller said Torres told inspectors at the airport she was taking $3,000 out of the country, but when she was searched, agents found $146,237 cash in several pockets of her jump suit.

“There was money stuffed in all over,” Miller said.

Authorities have until July 6 to file charges in Monday’s incident.

Torres’ daughter found a golf ball-size chunk of cocaine in her school backpack Monday and shared it with eight friends at Canoga Park Lutheran School. The children, who licked or bit off pieces of the substance they thought was candy, were briefly hospitalized after it was identified as cocaine.

Police said Torres went to the school and retrieved the cocaine, but discarded it before they were called. However, school administrators found a half-gram piece of the drug that had been discarded on the playground by one of the students, and turned it over to police. Torres was arrested at the school when she returned at the end of the day to pick up her daughter.

Torres was arrested Aug. 23, 1987, for shoplifting. That case is scheduled to go to trial July 20.

She also was arrested Feb. 24, 1987, and charged with possession of cocaine. In that case, police said they watched Torres take a package containing cocaine from a car they were watching in Woodland Hills.

Police said they began watching the vehicle after a nearby resident told a patrol officer that a woman had been removing packages from it that were similar to drug packages shown on the TV show “Miami Vice.”

The officer opened the unlocked car and found cocaine in it, police said. Police then put the car under surveillance and Torres was arrested.

Last week, a judge ruled that the suspicion of the resident and the patrol officer was not probable cause for searching the car and the case was dismissed.