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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A former day care owner convicted of shaking and badly injuring a young boy is free after new evidence showed the child could've been hurt earlier.
Maria Tiscareno won a second trial based on an erroneous jury instruction and the newly discovered evidence. Third District Judge Deno Himonas acquitted the 41-year-old woman of second-degree felony child abuse Thursday afternoon following a four-day trial without a jury.
She had been convicted of shaking Nathan Molineux, now 3, so hard in 2003 that the boy can now no longer walk, talk or swallow food.
The former owner of Abby's Child Care and mother of three says it's been hard for her to be accused of harming a child.
Her defense attorney discovered the new medical evidence while preparing for a civil suit filed by the boy's parents. It was a pathology report showing older bleeding in the child.
Prosecutors say they won't reopen the investigation into how the boy was first hurt unless they get new information.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
