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By Jeff Proctor
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Friday, 01 August 2008 03:44 |
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Viola Trevino pleaded guilty this morning to numerous felony counts stemming from a multi-faceted scam in which she invented an imaginary child to swindle her ex-husband out of thousands of dollars in child support.
State District Judge Albert S. "Pat" Murdoch accepted a deal in which Trevino, 55, pleaded guilty to 13 total counts: one count of false imprisonment, five counts of perjury and seven other charges including fraud, Medicaid fraud and evidence tampering. Murdoch ordered a pre-sentence report, which Trevino and prosecutors will review before sentencing on Oct. 14. Her maximum prison-time exposure is 21 years. Trevino is accused of persuading a judge to force her exhusband, Steve Barreras, to pay child support by faking the existence of a child through phony DNA evidence and forged Social Security numbers and birth and baptismal certificates. The couple divorced in August 1999; the child was supposed to have been born the next month — despite court records indicating that Trevino had undergone a tubal ligation in 1978 and Barreras had a vasectomy in 1998. The ruse took on an even stranger bent when Trevino arrived at court in December 2004 with a 2-year-old girl she claimed as her own. According to court documents, Trevino had picked up the girl and the girl’s grandmother in the South Valley and promised the girl a trip to see Santa Claus, lunch and $50, taking her to court instead. The ruse was uncovered when the grandmother followed Trevino and the girl into the courtroom.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 01 August 2008 03:58 )
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