A Manhattan judge refused to drop a shoplifting charge against a teenager caught with a dead baby in her Victoria’s Secret shopping bag after she allegedly tried to steal from the lingerie boutique last October.
Defense lawyers for Tiona Rodriguez, 17, filed a motion to toss the case Tuesday in Manhattan Criminal Court, but Judge Erika Edwards denied it.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner still hasn’t ruled on a cause of death, according to law enforcement sources. The grisly find wasn’t mentioned at the brief court appearance.
Investigators believe Rodriguez killed her baby a day after it’s birth, a police source said.
But the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office won’t bring homicide charges until the medical examiner’s office makes its final determination on the cause of death.
“It’s under investigation and at this point all she’s charged with is misdemeanor shoplifting,” said her defense lawyer Genay Ann Leitman. “She maintains her innocence.”
Rodriguez is charged with petit larceny and possession of stolen property after swiping a pair of pants and a tote bag from a Herald Square Victoria’s Secret.
She was busted with her girlfriend Francis Estevez Oct. 18th after a security guard allegedly spotted them pilfering clothes.
When the guard peered inside the bag, he was greeted by a rancid smell and made the horrifying discovery of a tiny rotting corpse.
Rodriguez, who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn with her 2-year-old son, told the guard she had suffered a miscarriage.
Estevez copped to disorderly conduct Tuesday and was sentenced to two days of community service.