Trial to Start for Woman Accused of Abusing Child : Courts: Defense attorney says the Westlake homemaker was trying to do what was best. Prosecutors believe that she did more than attempt to help her daughter.

Is Charlotte Russo a caring Westlake homemaker who adopted a young girl to give her a better life?

Or is the 51-year-old woman an abusive parent who made the girl sleep inside the bathroom of a small back-yard racquetball facility for months on end to keep her from raiding the kitchen and violating her salt-free diet?

Today, 10 months after she was arrested on suspicion of child abuse, Russo is scheduled to go on trial in Ventura County Superior Court.

Charged with one count of felony child abuse and one count of misdemeanor child abuse, Russo faces a maximum of three years in state prison if convicted.

Her husband, Richard, a 49-year-old stockbroker, pleaded guilty in September to misdemeanor child abuse in connection with the case. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and placed on three years probation.

Charlotte Russo’s attorney said prosecutors and sheriff’s investigators fail to realize the extent of the Russos’ love for the girl and how they were only doing what was best for her. The Russos adopted the girl, who is now 16, when she was 1. The couple have five biological children and one other adopted child.

“This is not a case of child neglect or abuse,” defense attorney James M. Farley argued. “It’s a case of a mother who is trying desperately to have her daughter, who has some serious medical problems, do what is proper.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona said prosecutors believe that Russo did more than simply try to help her daughter.

“She’s being prosecuted for abusing her child, and that’s what the prosecution believes she did,” Corona said.

During the preliminary hearing in which Russo was ordered to stand trial, sheriff’s investigators recalled how the case came to their attention.

On May 24, some of Russo’s neighbors on Outlook Circle heard screaming as they were walking by the family’s residence.

The neighbors could see Charlotte Russo, her husband and their daughter--who was 15 at the time--in the garage, investigators said.

The neighbors told investigators that they watched for about five minutes as Charlotte Russo battered the child with her fist and Richard Russo yelled at the girl. After about five minutes, the child fell to the ground, the neighbors told investigators. The girl moaned and appeared to vomit, said the neighbors, who rushed home and phoned the Sheriff’s Department.

Deputies took the girl to the station. Her face appeared swollen and was scratched, Sheriff’s Detective Robert LeMay testified during a preliminary hearing in Municipal Court. She also had numerous marks on her arms, including bite marks, he said.

The child told detectives that her mother frequently bit her. She also said that her parents were upset with her and that her mother took out the frustration by “battering her, biting her and scratching her,” LeMay testified.

LeMay testified that the girl told him that for nearly two years, she lived in the bathroom of the $75,000 racquetball facility, which has linoleum-tile flooring, a sink, a toilet and no windows. The racquetball court is behind the house.

In court, LeMay described the bathroom as being seven feet by four feet. He said that the girl slept on a mattress on the floor and that her blankets, pillows and mattress would be taken away “as the level of discipline increased.”

What would she sleep on in those cases, Corona asked in court?

“Nothing,” was LeMay’s reply.

The girl, who was in the 10th grade at the time in a home-study program, told investigators that she had first been ordered to sleep in the racquetball court’s bathroom 2 1/2 years earlier. She said she had slept there on a regular basis for nearly a year before the neighbors reported abuse in the home.

She also said the bathroom locked from the inside, but that Richard Russo changed the lock to work from the outside and effectively kept her incarcerated.

But the worst part, she told investigators, would come on the weekends.

“There were occasions when the family had gatherings at the residence there on Sunday where she was also locked . . . in the racquetball court, incidents when her parents would go away for the day and choose not to take her and keep her locked in the racquetball court,” LeMay testified. “And she also related that, as a form of punishment, she spent the entire week in there during one period without having the opportunity to leave.”

Mostly, the girl did her homework while locked in the bathroom, investigators said, unless her father disconnected the light.

On most days, according to investigators, Charlotte Russo would let the girl out of the racquetball court. She would escort her to the side of the house, make her disrobe and, once naked, rinse her down with a garden hose.

After the girl lathered up using “dishwashing soap,” her mother would rinse her again before ordering her to dress without drying off, investigators testified.

The girl would then go inside the main house and do chores before being confined to the racquetball court bathroom after she was done.

Investigators also testified that the girl was given the same meal every day, four times a day--oatmeal, eggs and orange juice.

And she was not allowed to watch television or use the phone.

The girl has a heart condition, and Farley said she was on a special diet to keep her away from salty foods. “Salt causes her to blow up like a balloon,” he said.

Other attorneys who have represented the Russos at various times have also said the case has been blown out of proportion.

They have pointed out that a day before the neighbors called the Sheriff’s Department, the girl had been arrested for three break-ins at Westlake High. They have also said the girl is a juvenile delinquent who is lying about being abused to avoid prosecution for the break-ins.

One lawyer, Joseph Hackett, said at the preliminary hearing that the Russos were justified in locking the girl out of the house because they were worried that if she ate too much salt, she would have a seizure, as she had in the past.

The girl also admitted to detectives that she broke into the campus store at Westlake High to steal candy and that she slept on the sidewalk outside the school the night of the break-ins because she had been thrown out of her house.

“I think this whole thing has been misread by the authorities,” Farley said. “It’s blown tremendously out of proportion. This is a case that does not deserve this type of attention. If there was an error, counseling could have solved it and not felony prosecution.”

Jury selection is expected to begin today before Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell.