A 30-year-old Flushing woman who raised twin babies in a “house of horrors” received a 12-year prison sentence on Thursday for her role in repeated abuse that led to her 13-month-old daughter’s death and nearly killed her twin brother back in October 2018.
Tina Torabi, 30, of Ashby Avenue in the Auburndale section of Flushing pleaded guilty back in May to first-degree assault and second-degree manslaughter.
Her 13-month-old daughter, Elaina, died of injuries related to fatal child abuse syndrome, the Medical Examiner’s office determined. Elaina’s twin brother suffered a litany of injuries also related to child abuse syndrome — and nine months later, he is still recovering from them, according to acting Queens District Attorney John Ryan.
“The baby twins lived in a house of horrors with their siblings,” Ryan said on July 18. “The mother of these children had a responsibility — not just to provide food and clothing. She had an obligation to protect them from harm. Instead, the baby girl is dead as a result of profound physical abuse. The girl’s twin brother had a long list of ghastly injuries.”
Officers from the 111th Precinct and EMS units responded to the Torabi home at 10 p.m. on Oct. 3, 2018, after she called 911 to report that Elaina had lost consciousness. Upon arriving at their home, first responders found her five children — including her twin babies and three older siblings — living inside a dirty basement apartment.
Elaina was pronounced dead at the scene. Prosecutors said that an autopsy determined she had been dead for at least 24 hours before her mother called 911 for help. The baby’s death was ruled a homicide.
Paramedics rushed Elaina’s twin brother to a hospital on Long Island for treatment of numerous injuries related to child abuse, including multiple rib fractures, lung contusions, a fractured pelvis, a visibly healing bite mark, a tibia fracture and an adrenal hemorrhage.
The babies’ siblings — ages 5, 4 and 2 — were found unattended in the basement apartment. They were placed in the custody of the Administration for Children’s Services. They had been removed from Tina Torabi’s custody back in 2017 amid a drug use investigation, but later returned to their mother after the probe proved inconclusive.
Days after the child’s death, Mohammed Torabi — Tina’s estranged husband and the children’s father — jumped to his death from a Manhattan high-rise hotel. According to published reports, Tina allegedly told investigators that he had beaten the children, and police had been looking to question him for his role in the fatal child abuse.
On July 18, Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter ordered Tina Torabi to serve concurrent sentences of four to 12 years in prison for the manslaughter charge and 8 1/2 years behind bars for the assault count.
“The defendant will have a long time to dwell on her failures that led to her own child’s death and to the other baby’s extreme suffering,” Ryan added on July 18. “The sentence imposed by the Court today is more than warranted.”
