LAZARO "Baby Lollipops" FIGUEROA (1990) - 3 yo - Miami FL

In an attempt to save Ana Maria Cardona from the death penalty, defense attorneys called several character witnesses Wednesday including the former warden of the Florida State Prison System.

Ron McAndrew testified in the death penalty trial for Cardona also known as the mother of "Baby Lollipops." He potrayed Cardona as a model inmate who earned the title of "trustee" meaning she was trusted with more responsibilities than other inmates.

"In my opinion Ms. Cardona is a well-adjusted offender," McAndrew said speaking to the jurors. "She learned long ago the importance of obeying rules and regulations. She learned long ago the importance of reaching out for help. She lost her family. She learned how valuable they were and what she had to do to maintain some kind of equilibrium. I think she's done an absolutely amazing job to adjusting to a life of incarceration."

A day earlier, jurors listened and watched gruesome images of the dead body of 3-year-old Lazaro Figueroa "Baby Lollipops.".

The same Miami-Dade jury that convicted Cardona earlier this year in the death of her son Lazaro will now decide if she should live out her days in prison or die by lethal injection.

On Tuesday, the state called Miami-Dade Chief Medical Examiner Bruce Hyma to the stand. He described to the jury the level of malnutrition Lazaro Figueroa suffered from prior to his death.

"He was 18 pounds at death," Hyma told jurors. "This child would be hungry."

Hyma also presented the jurors with images of the child's body describing the level of hunger pains he suffered from.

"Internally he has very little in his digestive tract," Hyma said.

The defense, however, plans to bring in 16 character witnesses and that included Cardona's inmate Beatriz Oliveras for the past 13 months as a character witness who described her as a sister and a friend.

"She gives people advice and she has this overwhelming sadness. She smiles at you she's polite. She helps wherever she can. There's no other participation. She's just sad just the best way to describe her," she said.

Defense attorneys told the jury during opening statements that the Cardona who sits before them today is not the same woman found guilty of killing her 3-year-old son. Instead, she has turned her life over to God and attends prison church services almost daily.

"As she sits here today, she has good in her heart," her defense attorney said.

They also said that by age 14, she had attempted suicide over a lack of parental affection. Defense attorneys also said she had been molested by her mother.

It's been a long process to get to this point.

Cardona's first conviction in 1992 was set aside because of procedural problems in the first trial. After hearing the evidence against her for the second time, a new jury found the mother of the baby boy who had been abused and beaten to death more than 20 years ago guilty.

Three-year-old Lazaro Figueroa was killed in November of 1990. His body was found dumped beneath a hedge in the yard of a Miami Beach home. The boy had been starved, beaten and burned. He weighed only 18 pounds when he was murdered, half the weight of what he should have been.

The boy, whose identity was not known when his body was discovered, was given the name "Baby Lollipops" because of the tiny white t-shirt he was found bearing an array of lollipops on the front. 



In her first trial, Cardona, was convicted murder and sentenced to die largely on the strength of testimony from her lover, Olivia Gonzalez Mendoza, who told the jury that Cardona tortured her son in the efficiency apartment they shared, starving the boy and leaving him tied up when she would go out to buy the crack cocaine she was addicted to. 



The Florida Supreme Court later overturned that conviction after ruling that prosecutors failed to share interviews with defense attorneys; the interviews with Gonzalez-Mendoza contradicted her own testimony at trial. 



In the retrial, the defense claimed Cardona gave her son to a baby sitter Gloria Pi months before his death. Originally Pi confessed to the murder, but later recanted her testimony. Pi testified in the retrial that she did not know Lazaro Figueroa, had never even seen the boy, and that her initial confession was the result of prompting by detectives who put words in her mouth. 


In the end, the jury convicted Cardona for a second time.

MIAMI — The South Florida mother twice convicted of killing the
3-year-old boy known as "Baby Lollipops" has been sentenced to death.
A Miami-Dade judge followed a jury's recommendation in
Friday's sentencing of 50-year-old Ana Maria Cardona. She was convicted
last July of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse for the 1990
death of Lazaro Figueroa.
Investigators initially unsure of the boy's identity called him "Baby Lollipops" because of a T-shirt he was wearing.
Cardona was first convicted in 1992 and sentenced to
death, but a new trial was ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. The
court found prosecutors failed to share with defense attorneys some
interviews with their main witness.
Cardona blamed the witness for the boy's death.http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/story/0de77e0470dc45d9bde6cad0c038ac9e/FL--Baby-Lollipops/

Mother given death sentence in 'Baby Lollipops' murder case appeals to Florida Supreme Court


Last Updated: July 28, 2011



TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A mother sentenced to death for killing her 3-year-old son known as "Baby Lollipops" 21 years ago is appealing to the Florida Supreme Court.

The justices issued a scheduling order and designated the case as high profile Thursday.

Fifty-year-old Ana Maria Cardona received the death sentence last month.

A Miami jury convicted her last July of first-degree murder for a second time in the 1990 death of Lazaro Figueroa.

Investigators initially were unsure of his identity. They called him Baby Lollipops because of the T-shirt he was wearing.

Cardona was first convicted and sentenced to death in 1992, but the Supreme Court ordered a new trial.

She blamed the death on another woman who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is free after serving 19 years in prison.



http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/2a9ce1f0500745c9a5471ef9627c34c3/FL--Baby-Lollipops/