Monterey DA charges mother in Baby Angelita case, 14 year old gave birth in strawberry field

The Monterey County district attorney on Wednesday charged Ofelia Garcia Ortega, 36, with child endangerment, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and forged identification felonies. Prosecutors say Ortega put her daughter to work in farm fields at age 13 using falsified documents and kept her out of school.

The case centers on Ortega's 14 year old daughter, who was impregnated by her own father, Sergio Galvez Perez, 38. The girl allegedly gave birth around August 1 in a Moss Landing strawberry field and then drove over the newborn. The infant was found dead by the side of a road with crush injuries, and investigators have called the child Baby Angelita.

Perez fled with the girl to Mexico and was later arrested there. He faces charges of incest and lewd acts with a minor and now awaits extradition to the United States. The girl is in protective care in Mexico and has not been charged in the infant's death.

The charges against the mother add a new dimension to a case that already spans child labor, sexual abuse within a family and a newborn's death. Prosecutors allege Ortega's use of forged documents to place a 13 year old in field work was part of a pattern of decisions that left the girl unprotected. Ortega's arraignment will set the next stage of proceedings, while the extradition process for Perez moves forward through Mexican authorities.

Investigators named the newborn Baby Angelita after the infant's body was discovered, and the case has drawn sustained attention in Monterey County's farmworker communities, where child labor in the fields is a long running concern. The girl remains in protective care in Mexico as authorities on both sides of the border coordinate. No date has been set for Perez's extradition hearing, and Ortega remains in custody pending her next court appearance.