1 hour ago
2
The twisted mom who allegedly tried to keep her teen boys “babies forever” had $0 in her bank account and was $300,000 in debt shortly before her Bronx house of horrors was discovered, court records show.
Lissette Soto Domenech, 64, lived in dire financial straits for years, filing for bankruptcy three times between 2023 and 2025, records show. Meanwhile, she was able to post $25,000 cash bail following her indictment on child abuse charges earlier this week.
The bankruptcy records paint a picture dovetailing with neighbors’ stories of Domenech’s life falling apart and isolating herself inside her sixth-floor Riverdale apartment that tragically became a prison for her twin boys.
“She was like a little witch,” said a neighbor who lived on Domenech’s floor. “If you go near her door, she’d close it.”
A fateful visit by Administration of Children’s Services workers on Oct. 15 — after several failed attempts to get inside, sources said — finally wrenched open Domenech’s door and exposed her alleged secrets.
Sources said Domenech kept her boys in diapers and fed them from baby bottles in a bid to keep them like newborns. As one neighbor chillingly said, “She wanted them to stay babies forever and never lose them.”
Another neighbor who lived below Domenech said she used to hear the boys running and crying all night, along with their mother yelling. She eventually directly complained six years ago, forcing Domenech to open the door to talk — revealing two children who appeared much younger than their age.
“I thought they were babies. They looked very tiny and skinny, they were probably 8 years old at the time,” the downstairs neighbor said. “I thought they were younger. They were very pale. Most of us thought they were babies.”
The now-14-year-old boys are currently in foster care following three months in the hospital after an alleged nine years of abuse and a baby food-based starvation diet that left them weighing just over 50 pounds each, sources said.
Domenech pleaded not guilty this week to child abuse charges and was freed on a $25,000 cash bond, court records show.
How Domenech managed to pony up the five-figure bail — or even 10% of it, which is typically offered by the courts — was unclear as bankruptcy records show she repeatedly claimed to have no real income and substantial debts, largely from the side-by-side apartments she owned inside the Mosholu Avenue co-op building.
The trail of court records show Domenech filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2023, claiming less than $50,000 in credit card debt that she hoped to liquidate.
The case, however, was dismissed a few months later after she failed to provide a full list of creditors and effectively ghosted the court.
Domenech returned to bankruptcy court in 2024, this time filing for Chapter 13 plan that would allow her reorganize her finances.
Yet again, Domenech couldn’t meet the requirements and the case was dismissed after she failed to make payments, records show.
By June the next year, Domenech again sought Chapter 13 bankruptcy in a filing rife with details of household distress.
The Bronx mom claimed more than $300,000 in debts, $50 in cash and no money in her bank account, according to the filing.
She reported no income besides $3,345 a month from her unnamed spouse’s work as a delivery man for a deli and an Uber driver, including an unspecified monthly $650 “family support” payment he received.
Neighbors said Domenech’s husband was Yosef Green, a kindly man whom she kicked out of their home but would still come by with bags of food. He recently died of cancer, they said.
The hubby’s hard work left Domenech and her then-13-year-old boys with just $591 after monthly expenses, according to the filing.
The majority of Domenech’s debt — roughly $287,000 — came from the mortgage on her home, plus another apartment next door where neighbors said Green had lived.
The filing shows a handful of other assets such as a $400 wedding band, as well as a $6,000 debt from a pair of lawsuits leveled by the co-op board.
While Domemech pitched a repayment plan where she would divert her entire household net income to creditors, they rejected the idea, arguing that one of her apartments must be sold to satisfy their loan.
A judge agreed with the bank, signing a December order — roughly two months after the children were taken from home — green-lighting their right to enforce their mortgage on the alleged house of horrors and to submit it for foreclosure or sale.
The order also granted a two-year ban on bankruptcy filings for the property, and slammed Domemech with over $2,000 in legal fees and costs.
Police visited the apartment twice in December 2024 and March 2025 after receiving calls about a foul odor, sources said. The first visit was recorded as unfounded, while cops took some unspecified action during the second, the sources said.
A faint odor still wafted from the apartment’s closed door Friday. One resident had put an air purifier outside the apartment.
Domenech couldn’t be reached for comment.
When The Post visited a Harlem apartment Friday that roughly a dozen neighbors said was Domenech’s family home, a woman refused to open the door.
She denied anyone with the family’s name lived in the home.
Additional reporting by Desheania Andrews and Larry Celona
English (US)