Local News in Brief : Mother Arrested Again

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 for 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 a 5-year-old son. They were taken by juvenile authorities after her arrest Monday on suspicion of cocaine possession and child endangerment.

Torres, a native of Colombia, was sentenced June 17, 1985, to five years’ probation after pleading guilty to failing to report currency and giving a false statement to a government agency. She had been arrested three months earlier by U.S. Customs agents at Los Angeles International Airport when she attempted to board a plane headed for Vancouver, Canada, and then Chile, with $146,237 in cash.

On Monday, Torres’ daughter found a golf ball-size chunk of cocaine in her school backpack and shared it with eight friends at Canoga Park Lutheran School.