CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) – A St. Louis County woman subjected her 12-year-old daughter to unnecessary medical treatments and drug prescriptions for more than a decade, according to county prosecutors.
Patricia Lacoss-Arnold, 49, of unincorporated St. Louis County, was charged Tuesday with seven felony counts of child abuse or neglect.
Her attorney, Scott Rosenblum, said she will plead not guilty and “looks forward to being exonerated,” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The girl has visited 60 doctors or hospitals just in the last two years, including 14 trips to emergency rooms, according to charging documents. She has been taken to different doctors and specialists in several hospital systems since 2009, the documents say.
Lacoss-Arnold’s distortion of her daughter’s conditions led to unnecessary tests, radiation exposure and surgeries, St. Louis County police Detective Mike Petty wrote in a probable cause statement.
The girl is socially and mentally underdeveloped because of her mother’s treatment and has not attended in-person school, wrote Perry, who said the constant unnecessary medical treatment has caused “serious emotional injury to the victim.”
Missouri children’s services took the child into protective custody in June.
A judge set Lacoss-Arnold’s bail at $250,000 cash-only. She was not in custody Wednesday.
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