Del Mar

The mother of twin boys allegedly abandoned, molested and abused at a Del Mar hotel pleaded guilty Tuesday to child endangerment.

Dorothy DeSimone, 25, of Oceanside made the plea on the day her preliminary hearing was to begin. Charges of child abandonment and corporal injury upon a child were dismissed.

San Diego Municipal Judge Lillian Quon told DeSimone that she faces a maximum sentence of six years in state prison and a $10,000 fine at her sentencing June 19.

However, Deputy Dist. Atty. Harry Elias said his office would not recommend a prison term, indicating that he might suggest a sentence of one year or less in local custody.

DeSimone’s former boyfriend, Charles Thomas McCoy, 27, also of Oceanside, has a preliminary hearing on molestation, abandonment and abuse charges set for June 16.

It was McCoy who is believed to have checked into the Del Mar Inn on March 23 with the boys, who will be 3 years old this month. Two days later, they were found abandoned, bruised and wandering the inn’s hallways in their underwear.

DeSimone agreed in a court document that she endangered the boys’ safety by not keeping her children away from McCoy.

However, McCoy’s lawyer, Nancy Rosenfeld, disputed DeSimone’s statement by saying that DeSimone is responsible for bruising the children.

DeSimone’s attorney, Kirk Migdal, said his client “never touched those children and the (district attorney) knows it.”

“Her feeling for Mr. McCoy interfered with her judgment. In the past she felt very much in love with the man,” Migdal said.

Prosecutor Elias said DeSimone did not hurt the twins directly, but “she had something to do with it because she put them in that position.”

McCoy is also charged with a January, 1988, incident in which one of the boys suffered a broken leg. McCoy was arrested in Las Vegas last month and has pleaded innocent to six charges. He remains in County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail.

The boys have been placed in a foster home.