State owes Barahona twin who survived horrific child abuse $3.75M. Maybe this year.

TALLAHASSEE -- A House committee Tuesday moved closer to paying $3.75 million in legal damages owed to the surviving victim of one of the most horrific child abuse cases in state history.　

Victor Barahona, the surviving twin brother of Nubia Barahona, would receive the money as part of a legal settlement with the Department of Children and Families which admitted negligence after Victor was found near death and covered with pesticides alongside his sister’s decomposing body on Interstate 95 in Palm Beach County in 2011. They were 10 years old.

“The adoptive parents systematically tortured these kids,” said Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, R-Miami, sponsor of the House bill, HB 6523, describing the abuse as “mind-numbing.”

“At every step of the way there were errors, or flags, or issues. There were things that DCF should have seen — starting from the very beginning when family members actually reached out to the state and asked if they could adopt the children,” he said.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article142590449.html