Left: Yulia Storozhuk (Miami-Dade Corrections). Right: Storozhuk abusing her child (Sunny Isles Beach Police Department).
A woman in Florida caught on camera brutally abusing her toddler last year will avoid prison time after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors.
In October 2023, Yulia Storozhuk, 30, was charged with felony child abuse over the brutal treatment of her then-3-year-old son.
On Thursday, she was sentenced to three years of probation.
Prosecutors in Miami-Dade County brought charges against the woman after a neighbor turned over a video of her grabbing her child with both hands, lifting him off the ground and throwing him to the floor. But, police noted, that was only where the abuse began.
“While the victim is on the ground, defendant maliciously kicks the victim twice,” a complaint and arrest affidavit reads. “Defendant then grabs the victim by the face and pushes him to the ground as the victim is attempting to get up. Defendant repeatedly kicks the victim while exiting the camera view.”
A second Ring camera also recorded the abuse — showing the mother pushing her son “in the chest” and causing him “to fall back and hit the floor,” according to the complaint and affidavit.
Later, when asked to account for the footage, Storozhuk admitted her culpability and justified her rage on the boy’s desire to play.
“In a post Miranda recorded interview, defendant is shown the Ring camera footage and admits to being the person in the video,” police wrote. “Defendant discloses the reason why she pushed her son was punishment for insisting on going to the playground. Defendant went on to say that the son was being difficult and uncooperative.”
After months of legal wrangling, Storozhuk will avoid spending any time behind bars and is now a convicted felon.
And, there is hope the mother and child will be eventually reunited, according to a courtroom report by Miami-based NBC affiliate WTVJ.
“She was under an extreme amount of pressure when this happened,” her defense attorney told the TV station. “Again, we’re not condoning what she did. She knows. She’s accepted responsibility but at least now she can move on and not go to prison.”
Before that reunification happens, however, Storozhuk will have to take a parenting class and submit to a mental health evaluation. And, in the future, any additional child abuse will be treated harshly by the criminal justice system — the judge overseeing the case warned.
“If you lay a finger on this child, you’re coming back before me,” 11th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Carmen Cabarga said — stressing certain words and syllables as if to intone a certain level of severity and seriousness — as the defendant stood crying. “And the minimum, the maximum I can sentence you to is 10 years, the minimum I will sentence you to is 22.5 months in state prison. For a finger.”
While the angry judge called Storozhuk treatment of her child “horrible” and said the footage of the abuse “warrants jail time,” she took notice of a mental health expert’s opinion that reconciliation would benefit the child more in the long run.
But while the judge ultimately weighed in on the side of leniency, not everyone was accepting of the plea deal.
The convicted woman’s son is currently living with a foster family.
Storozhuk has an open dependency case in family court over custody of the boy. The child is currently represented by a dependency attorney. That dependency attorney appeared at the mother’s sentencing hearing to oppose the bargain, WTVJ reported.
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