Faces Up to 5 Years in Prison : Woman Found Guilty of Putting Drug in Daughter’s Backpack

A Topanga Canyon woman who was accused of placing a chunk of cocaine in her 7-year-old daughter’s school backpack was found guilty Friday of child endangerment and possession of cocaine for sale.

Maria Christina Torres, 40, was found guilty by a Van Nuys Superior Court jury on a misdemeanor charge of child endangerment and a felony charge of possession of cocaine for sale in the June 13 incident. Torres could have been found guilty of felony child endangerment, but the jury opted for the lesser charge.

Torres, a Colombian citizen, remains free on $100,000 bail but was ordered back to court June 16 for sentencing by Judge Alan B. Haber. Torres faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Torres was arrested after her daughter, a second-grader at Canoga Park Lutheran School, found a golf ball-sized chunk of cocaine in her backpack and passed it around to eight friends during a lunch break.

After the students tasted the powdery substance--including one who said it made her tongue hard--a sixth-grader grabbed the cocaine and turned it in to the principal’s office.

Cocaine Retrieved

Police said Torres went to the school and retrieved the cocaine, but discarded it before officers were called. However, school officials 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 later testified that the drug was put in the backpack by Denny Meyers, a longtime friend. Torres said she had lent her car to him the day before the drug was found.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Tracy J. Watson, who prosecuted the case, said that even if she could locate Meyers, she could not force him to testify against himself.

Torres’ attorney, Richard Walton, said his client would appeal the decision. “She doesn’t feel guilty,” Walton said.

Watson said outside the courtroom that she was satisfied with the verdict.