SPRINGFIELD — Veronica Garcia has been charged with violation of probation because she didn't tell her probation officer she is pregnant – something she couldn't hide forever.

She is also charged with a violation of probation because she did not tell her probation officer she lived in a home with her boyfriend and his 7-year-old relative. She is charged with giving a false address of where she was living.



Not reporting her pregnancy and having unsupervised contact with children under 14 years old were forbidden to Garcia in the wake of a serious child abuse case to which she and her then-boyfriend pleaded guilty in 2008.



Garcia, 26 years old now, in 2008 in Hampden Superior Court pleaded guilty to four counts of assault and battery on a child with substantial injury.

State prison terms were imposed on Garcia and the father of her two children after they admitted responsibility for the beatings that left one infant daughter retarded and another blind. Both children were removed from their biological parents and adopted together.

Robert D. Beaulieu, the father, was sentenced to a 16- to 20-year state prison term in 2008. Garcia, who was living in Chicopee at the time, received a three- to five-year sentence.

Prosecutors said they believed that Beaulieu battered the babies and Garcia did not stop him or get appropriate medical help for their daughters.

Both Garcia and Beaulieu were also sentenced to 10 years probation after their prison terms.



During the 10 years probation Garcia was ordered to notify probation if she became pregnant and to have no unsupervised contact with children under the age of 14.



Garcia was visibly pregnant when she appeared before Hampden Superior Court Judge C. Jeffrey Kinder on Friday to have a lawyer appointed for the probation violation accusation.

Although the Probation Department asked that $2,500 bail be imposed, Garcia was released on her own recognizance. Her next court date for the probation violation is March 14.

At the 2008 plea session, the prosecution said one of the girls, at age 5 weeks, had sustained multiple skull fractures and a broken collar bone among other injuries, while her sister, also within weeks of birth, had sustained skull and rib fractures.

The woman who with her husband adopted the two children told the judge at the 2008 plea session one of the babies was a fighter, fighting for six months just to lift her head off the carpet.

“She has the spirit but not the capacity,” she said.

The woman said the other child is blind, is never expected to walk, and has uncontrollable seizures causing her to bang her head and scream. “She is so trapped in a body that does not work,” she said.

She spoke of the love she and her husband have for the girls.