Veronica Cirella, 31, of Plainview, New York, did the unthinkable last summer, when she fed peanut M&M’s to her disabled and allergic 8-year-old daughter, Julie, causing her to die the day before a cousin’s wedding.
Cirella pleaded not guilty today to a charge of second-degree murder in the child’s death and was ordered to be held without bail.
According to ABC News, attorney William Keahon implored the Nassau County judge to release his client on bail, contending an autopsy has failed to determine a cause of death.
But the judge cited Cirella’s suicide attempt the day her daughter died and the fact that Cirella is now facing a potential life sentence as reasons to hold her in custody until her trial.
Keahon told reporters outside the Long Island courthouse:
“I’ve never seen an indictment for murder, intentional murder, where the medical examiner cannot even give a causation of death, nor can he even say it’s a homicide. It’s bizarre.”
After Cirella’s arrest last summer, Assistant District Attorney Zeena Abdi said that young Julie, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as an infant and was confined to a wheelchair, had suffered an allergic reaction to something she was fed. A suicide note written by Cirella, found in court documents, showed that the mother admitted feeding M&M’s to her daughter the night before she died as a special treat for her participation as a flower girl in the wedding the following day.
