Richardson police informed the court that she is a flight risk and may flee to India using a fake passport.
The bond of Sini Ann Mathews, mother of 3-year-old Indian girl Sherin Mathews who died in the US last month under suspicious circumstances, was reduced to $100000 in a hearing held on Monday.
According to a nbcdfw.com report, Dallas County Criminal District Court Judge Stephanie Fargo reduced the bond from $250,000 to $100,000 and ordered to put Mathews under house arrest and forced to wear an ankle monitor.
The court held a testimony about whether Mathews is a flight risk and should be bonded out of the jail.
Richardson police informed the court that she is a flight risk and may flee to India using a fake passport.
Richardson police Det. Jules Farmer said the department received information that Mathews had asked the pediatrician for shot records of her three-year-old biological daughter before she was arrested.
The police department argued that she may have planned to flee to India along with her daughter probably using a fake passport.
But, Mathews’ defense attorneys said she didn’t have any plan to go to India. She requested for shot records so the girl could be taken to stay with family in India. But, there is no sign she planned to fly to India using a fake passport.
They also requested to lower the bond since the normal bond schedule for someone with no priors was just $500.
The prosecution used strong words against Mathews before the judge made her decision.
“This woman is wicked enough to leave a 3-year-old in her house while she and her husband go to dinner,” said First Assistant Mike Snipes with the Dallas District Attorney Office. “That shows a level of depravity in this woman’s heart in and of itself”.
The court has also required Mathews surrender her passport.
Mathews was arrested this month after investigators said she and her husband left Sherin at home, without adult supervision, while they went to dinner with their biological 3-year-old daughter on Oct. 6.
Mathews has been charged with abandoning or endangering a child.
The biological daughter of Mathews was sent to a relative’s home last week after a family court judge in Dallas ordered to move her out of the foster care.
The girl has been in foster care from October 9 two days after Sherin Mathews went missing.
The 3-year-old girl from Texas went missing on October 7. Her adopted father, Wesley Mathews, had told police that he had made the girl stand in the back lane of their house at 3 a.m. as a punishment for not drinking milk. Mathews said when he went to check after 15 minutes, she was missing.
Upon investigation, Wesley Mathews changed his previous statement given to the police and said he watched the girl die as she choked while drinking milk in their home in Texas.