By Josh Hafenbrack
Tallahassee Bureau
May 7, 2008
Tallahassee
When she was 2, Marissa Amora was so badly abused at her Lake Worth home she suffered catastrophic brain damage that requires her to eat through a feeding tube.
Seven years later, she looked on at the Governor's Mansion as Gov. Charlie Crist signed a settlement Tuesday giving her $18.2 million for the role negligent child-abuse investigators played in her case.
"Justice is important," Crist said. "That's exactly what is happening today."
Crist's signature ends a long bureaucratic and legal battle that began in 2000, when Marissa was released from a Miami hospital room to her mother, even though Department of Children & Families investigators had inspected her apartment in Lake Worth and suspected child abuse. Hospital workers begged the investigators not to release the child, but they did not listen.
Less than one month after Marissa's release, she suffered permanent brain damage when her mother's live-in boyfriend reportedly swung the toddler by her arms and legs into the wall and floor. The boyfriend was never found and has not been charged. Marissa's mother was stripped of her parental rights.
In 2005, a Palm Beach County jury awarded Marissa $35 million and found the state and DCF responsible for 75 percent of the damages. But the Legislature and Crist had to sign off on the settlement in what's known as a "claims bill."
This spring, legislators and Crist agreed to give Marissa and her family, who now live in the Panhandle town of Marianna, $1.2 million this year and then $1.7 million installments the next 10 years.
"It's been a long journey and a hell of a fight," said Dawn Amora, Marissa's adoptive mother who cares for six other special-needs children. She ran a home for special-needs children in Loxahatchee before moving to a farmhouse on five acres in Marianna.
Marissa, dressed in pink, fidgeted in her wheelchair as some of the Capitol's most powerful politicians talked about the tragedy of her case. Incoming Senate President Jeff Atwater, R- North Palm Beach, pulled out a stick-figure drawing she'd made of him during a prior meeting.
The money will help pay for Marissa's back surgery scheduled in the coming weeks, as well as therapies and care to ensure she doesn't end up in a nursing home, Dawn Amora said.
"She's going to have a dignity to her life now that she wasn't able to have before," she said. "We've fought and struggled and re-mortgaged and refinanced — we're just so over our heads and crushed with the medical issues."
Marissa's case is believed to be the largest compensation award approved by the Legislature in at least a decade.
"I've got so much emotion, that we're going to give Marissa a better quality of life," said Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee.
Josh Hafenbrack can be reached at jhafenbrack@sun-sentinel.com or 850-224-6214.
Tallahassee Bureau
May 7, 2008
Tallahassee
When she was 2, Marissa Amora was so badly abused at her Lake Worth home she suffered catastrophic brain damage that requires her to eat through a feeding tube.
Seven years later, she looked on at the Governor's Mansion as Gov. Charlie Crist signed a settlement Tuesday giving her $18.2 million for the role negligent child-abuse investigators played in her case.
"Justice is important," Crist said. "That's exactly what is happening today."
Crist's signature ends a long bureaucratic and legal battle that began in 2000, when Marissa was released from a Miami hospital room to her mother, even though Department of Children & Families investigators had inspected her apartment in Lake Worth and suspected child abuse. Hospital workers begged the investigators not to release the child, but they did not listen.
Less than one month after Marissa's release, she suffered permanent brain damage when her mother's live-in boyfriend reportedly swung the toddler by her arms and legs into the wall and floor. The boyfriend was never found and has not been charged. Marissa's mother was stripped of her parental rights.
In 2005, a Palm Beach County jury awarded Marissa $35 million and found the state and DCF responsible for 75 percent of the damages. But the Legislature and Crist had to sign off on the settlement in what's known as a "claims bill."
This spring, legislators and Crist agreed to give Marissa and her family, who now live in the Panhandle town of Marianna, $1.2 million this year and then $1.7 million installments the next 10 years.
"It's been a long journey and a hell of a fight," said Dawn Amora, Marissa's adoptive mother who cares for six other special-needs children. She ran a home for special-needs children in Loxahatchee before moving to a farmhouse on five acres in Marianna.
Marissa, dressed in pink, fidgeted in her wheelchair as some of the Capitol's most powerful politicians talked about the tragedy of her case. Incoming Senate President Jeff Atwater, R- North Palm Beach, pulled out a stick-figure drawing she'd made of him during a prior meeting.
The money will help pay for Marissa's back surgery scheduled in the coming weeks, as well as therapies and care to ensure she doesn't end up in a nursing home, Dawn Amora said.
"She's going to have a dignity to her life now that she wasn't able to have before," she said. "We've fought and struggled and re-mortgaged and refinanced — we're just so over our heads and crushed with the medical issues."
Marissa's case is believed to be the largest compensation award approved by the Legislature in at least a decade.
"I've got so much emotion, that we're going to give Marissa a better quality of life," said Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee.
Josh Hafenbrack can be reached at jhafenbrack@sun-sentinel.com or 850-224-6214.
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