A Connecticut mother lost her pet monkey to police after it scratched her 10-year-old daughter.
The marmoset monkey, named Aladdin, scratched the girl, which school officials noticed, prompting the school to contact police.
The mother Maria Morales said authorities demanded she give them the monkey. She said her sister brought him from her home in South Carolina, where the monkey is legal. The intent was just to keep her company while recovering from surgery for complications from her cancer diagnosis.
“I’m worried, and I’m heartbroken because they don’t care that he’s apart of the family. They just think it’s just a monkey. But it’s not just a monkey. For me, it’s not just a monkey,” said Morales.
Waterbury police determined that it’s illegal to have a monkey or other exotic animal in the house.
Morales is charged with risk of injury to a minor basd on the fact that she shouldn’t have had the animal in the house with the child and because she didn’t seek medical treatment for her child.
“I thought in my mind, as a mother, you get a scratch, what do you do? You put some Bacitracin on it and call it a day. She wasn’t bit,” said Morales.
Morales showed hospital documentation where doctors called her daughter’s injury an abrasion, not a bite, as well as records of Aladdin’s vaccinations. She’s promised to appear in court on the charges, some which she hopes will be dismissed.