A TV reporter couple have been charged after their four-month-old girl tested positive to cocaine.
Parents Som and Krystin Lisaius have been charged with child abuse after traces of cocaine was found in their baby’s system when the baby was rushed to Oro Valley Hospital, in Arizona in the US on May 15 after she wouldn’t wake up and her eyes rolled back into her head, the Tuscon Weekly reported.
Records from the Oro Valley Police Department stated that the couple and two friends went back to their house after attending the birthday party of a friend’s child on May 14. The baby went to sleep after drinking breast milk her mother had pumped earlier that day. Krystin didn’t breastfeed her baby again until around 8 am the next day.
Reports say that Krystin, who worked as a reporter at KGUN Channel 9 two years ago, tried to wake the baby later that morning, but she was like a “rag doll” and her eyes rolled back into her head and the couple rushed her to hospital.
Hospital staff said that the couple refused most lab tests, including a blood test of the baby but the couple denied this claim.
Krystin initially denied using cocaine and claimed she didn’t know how her baby had been exposed to the drug. She then later admitted to snorting cocaine, the reports stated.
Meanwhile, when it was revealed to Som, who is a TV reporter for the Arizona, USA news station KOLD News 13, whose employment has been terminated since the incident happened, that his baby’s urine tested positive for cocaine, he denied using the drug. But when police told him about his wife’s confession, he admitted that “he had used cocaine on Saturday and that he uses cocaine himself every six weeks or so,” the report said.
Police officers discovered about 1.8 grams of cocaine in a desk drawer during a search at the couple’s house, as well as white residue on a Safeway Club Card in the name of Krystin Sorich, her maiden name, and a rolled-up dollar bill inside a Tiffany jewellery box.
The couple’s attorney, Michael Piccarreta, said the baby was placed with her maternal grandmother once she was released from the hospital by the state’s Department of Child Safety.
The couple’s next court hearing is scheduled for July 28.
Source: Kidspot.com.au