Malinda Lugin was indicted by a New Jersey grand jury after she was found to have forced her seven-year-old daughter into unnecessary surgeries.
A New Jersey mom has been indicted on charges that she forced her seven-year-old daughter to have unnecessary surgeries that could have been harmful to the child.
A grand jury in Sussex County indicted Malinda Lugin, 36, on a child endangerment charge.
According to the indictment, she persuaded doctors to perform invasive medical care on her daughter from her daughter's birth in November 2007 until April 2014.
At one point, the young girl had a feeding tube in her stomach, prosecutors say.
But authorities determined that the child was healthy, with the exception of a strawberry allergy, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said the claims suggest Munchausen syndrome by proxy, which is when a caretaker purposely harms a child in order to gain attention or sympathy. Physicians alerted authorities to the situation, the prosecutor's office has said.
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Lugin has been free on $20,000 bail since June 29 and if convicted of the charges, she could get as many as 10 years behind bars.
A message left for Lugin's attorney on Wednesday afternoon was not immediately returned.
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