Jury convicts 49-year-old Auburn woman in abuse case

Published 3:25 pm Wednesday, March 25, 2015

A King County jury last month found a 49-year-old Auburn woman guilty of abusing a family that had stayed at her home for three years.

The jury found Maria Esquivel guilty of first-degree assault-domestic violence, second-degree rape DV and three counts of second-degree assault DV.

There were multiple aggravators on each count, including Esquivel’s history of domestic violence, her deliberate cruelty to the victims and her abuse of trust.

According to court records, Esquivel, a longtime family friend of the victims, took them into her home when they were most vulnerable. Over the course of three years she systematically controlled every aspect of their lives, took guardianship of all the children in the family to receive significant state benefits and severely neglected them by withholding food and basic hygiene.

According to court records, Esquivel, who claimed to be a healer, eventually began physically abusing all of them, including their disabled father and an autistic son, but she focused most of the abuse upon the father and the eldest daughter. They suffered almost daily abuse with rolling pins and metal kitchen utensils. Esquivel’s abuse of the family included the use of electrical cables, sexual assault with an instrument, and mutilated genitals. The father almost lost both legs and was blinded in one eye.

The state’s trial memorandum lays out the details.

“The defendant’s beatings of (the father and eldest daughter) were nothing short of savage. The defendant ruptured (the father’s) eye globe, caused him brain damage, broke several of his ribs, ruptured his spleen, beat his shins down to the bone, broke his nose, his fingers and macerated his penis.

“The defendant beat (the eldest daughter) until her face was unrecognizable. She punched her so hard that she lacerated her lip and ruptured her eardrum. The defendant doused (the daughter’s) vagina with a scrubber that contained pure alcohol,” and made her keep it inside her overnight,” allegedly to cure a malady, the memorandum states.

“She made (the father and daughter) take hundreds of strikes with her fists, belts and electrical cords to protect the youngest children from being beaten,” the memorandum states, adding that, “she warned them that things would get worse for them and their siblings if they reported the abuse to anyone.”

According to court records, “the cycle of violence and fear led to lies and cover ups” that shielded Esquivel from scrutiny for almost two years.

“They either said they were hurt on accident or that some other unknown suspect hurt them or hired thugs at the direction of (the father’s) ex-wife or the daughter’s ex-boyfriend,” the memorandum states.

Esquivel’s sentencing is at 9 a.m. April 20 before Judge James Cayce, at which time she faces a minimum sentence of 17 years and up to an indeterminate maximum of life in prison.