Judge tosses a 'House of Horrors' case
A U.S. District Court judge said Victoria Weston waited too long to file a civil suit against local government.
THE LATEST legal battle in the Tacony "House of Horrors" case was derailed yesterday, when a U.S. District Court judge threw out a civil suit filed by a victim's mother.
U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick dismissed a case filed by Victoria Weston against the city's Department of Human Services and other local government offices, on the grounds that she had waited too long to file it, letting the statute of limitations lapse. She should have sued in 2002, when her daughter, Beatrice, entered into the care of her sister Linda Ann Weston, the judge wrote in his opinion.
"We are all disappointed by the judge's decision," said Emeka Igwe, Victoria Weston's attorney. "We believe that in the interest of justice, my client should have had the chance to have the case put in front of a jury."
Prosecutors allege that Linda Ann Weston had forced her niece to live in deplorable conditions in her basement as part of a plot to hoard her Social Security benefits. Igwe contends that Weston only had confirmation of her daughter's abuse in 2011.