Mother Not Held in Contempt Over Use of Transplant Funds
A judge today spared Maria DeSillers a jail sentence for contempt of court, ruling that she could not be ordered to surrender records and items bought with donations for her late son Ronnie’s liver transplant.
Dade Circuit Judge Francis Christie said surrendering the items “would tend to incriminate her” in parallel criminal investigations.
“I’m very happy,” DeSillers said outside the courtroom. “People have forgotten what Ronnie went through,”
Ronnie, 7, died in April, 1987, while awaiting a fourth transplant at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
Christie had ruled that the thousands of donations for Ronnie belong in a trust to pay outstanding medical bills or to help sick, needy children. DeSillers this month surrendered her BMW car but nothing else, and a court-appointed estate curator asked the judge to hold her in contempt.
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