By Stephen Stirling
Lucilia Rojas, 25, was being held in custody pending arraignment in Queens Criminal Court in Kew Gardens, where she will be formally charged with second-degree murder, tampering with evidence and disposing of a body without a permit, according to the DA. Rojas, of 2006 Cross Bronx Expressway, faces between 25 years and life in prison if convicted of killing her weeks-old son, Anthony, the DA said. “The defendant's alleged suffocation of her innocent and helpless child is both heartless and heartbreaking,” Brown said. Queens homicide detectives were conducting an intensive search at the Pennsylvania landfill where the trash from the Jackson Heights dumpster would have been taken, but as of Tuesday evening had not found any sign of young Anthony Rojas' body, according to police. The DA said that on Dec. 31, Rojas signed her child out of Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, where he had been receiving medical care after being born prematurely two weeks earlier. The DA said Rojas then allegedly placed a blanket over Anthony's face to prevent him from breathing and took a MTA bus to Jackson Heights, where she placed the boy's body in a plastic bag and left him in a dumpster near the corner of Northern Boulevard and 100th Street. Police said just after 1:30 p.m. Monday, Rojas walked into Jacobi Hospital where she originally told hospital officials and then investigators that a gun-wielding man had accosted her and taken her child. The DA said that Rojas allegedly changed her story several times after being repeatedly interrogated by police, before finally telling them she had left the child's body in Queens. According to Brown, Rojas told investigators that she was raped in Mexico and she became pregnant with the child, Anthony, as a result of that incident. Reach reporter Stephen Stirling by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at (718)229-0300 Ext. 162.
