Former Socorro resident Dana Trujillo, 30 -- whose 7-year-old daughter died last December in Colorado when another daughter and a boyfriend were acting out a "Mortal Kombat" video game -- pleaded guilty in Socorro last week to child abandonment from a 2003 incident, El Defensor Chieftain reported today on its Web site.

According to police reports, Trujillo left her three children, then aged 3, 5 and 12, with a babysitter in November 2003 and didn't come home for an extended period of time because she had been drinking, El Defensor Chieftain reported.

She was charged at the time with three counts of abandoning a child resulting in death or great bodily harm, the paper reported.

But Trujillo on March 12 pleaded guilty to one of the counts while prosecutors dismissed two counts as part of a plea agreement, according to El Defensor Chieftain.

Magistrate Judge Jim Naranjo suspended a 364-day jail sentence as well as a $1,000 fine, allowing Trujillo to serve 364 days of supervised probation in Colorado, the paper said.

Trujillo's old case came to light when her 7-year-old daughter Zoe died in Johnstown, Colo. on Dec. 6 after Zoe's half-sister, 16-year-old Heather Trujillo and her 17-year-old boyfriend Lamar Roberts allegedly beat the child while acting out the video game, El Defensor Chieftain said.

Zoe's father, David Garcia, earlier told the Socorro paper that he and and Trujillo had shared custody of their children but that Trujillo had moved out of state without leaving an address.

Trujillo was arrested in Colorado in January on a bench warrant for failure to appear in Socorro in 2004 and was brought back to New Mexico to face the old charges, according to an earlier El Defensor Chieftain report. 

Trujillo's attorney Stephen Kortemeier said his client was already undergoing grief counseling and parenting skills counseling in Colorado, the paper said.

Naranjo ordered Trujillo to complete that counseling and said she would need to provide the court with proof of completion or a warrant would be issued for her arrest, El Defensor Chieftain reported. 

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