Director of Mexican Youth Shelter 'Completely and Absolutely' Denies Abuse Agencia EFE
go to original August 5, 2014

Video image broadcast by TVZ television on July 16, 2014, showing the director of the La Gran Familia shelter, Rosa Verduzco. (EFE)

MEXICO CITY - The founder of the shelter in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, where authorities found some 500 children living in squalid conditions last month, "categorically" denied sexually abusing the kids there.

"It's completely false that I engaged in sexual relations with any of those who were in La Gran Familia. I never did it," Rosa del Carmen Verduzco, 81, said in a paid ad placed in several leading Mexican newspapers.

"Therefore, I ... categorically, completely and absolutely deny what is claimed in the anonymous statement that is circulating with the pseudonym 'Claudia,' as well as everything that could appear, because I never engaged in such conduct with anyone," the text of the ad concludes.

Federal and state authorities raided La Gran Familia last month after receiving more than 50 complaints regarding the precarious situation in which the people - some 500 minors and about 100 adults - there were living.

Authorities arrested nine people, including Verduzco, and prosecutors have charged six of them with racketeering, kidnapping and human trafficking, among other offenses.

The director of La Gran Familia, known as "Mama Rosa," managed to avoid prosecution due to her advanced age.

Read the rest at La Prensa

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!