Polish Adoptee Stabs Younger Brother

“A 15-year-old accused of stabbing her 12-year-old brother and attempting to stab her younger sister as part of a plot to kill her family and run away with her 23-year-old boyfriend appeared in court in Detroit on Thursday.

Roksana Sikorski has had her bail set at $1 million and has been charged as an adult with four counts of conspiracy to commit murder and one count of assault after putting in action her plot, encouraged by boyfriend, Michael Rivera.

The ‘truly haunting’ attack began at 2am last Friday at the family’s Detroit home when Sikorski attacked her younger sibling’s first and then allegedly planned to kill her parents while Rivera sat outside in his car giving instructions via text.

Rivera, who wore a red jumpsuit in court, faces the same charges as well as a felonious assault charge. He was ordered held on $1 million bond Sunday.

The girl’s parents said she and Rivera were in a sexual relationship.

The Detroit prosecutor’s office said that after Sikorski stabbed her brother in the throat his screams alerted her parents, who rushed to his aid.

He was taken to the Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor and is expected to recover after surgery.

Sikorski and Rivera fled the scene and police found them at a home in Detroit’s southwest side and took them into custody at 8am on Friday morning.

He was using her to do his dirty work. She was under this man’s spell,’ the girl’s mother told reporters after the hearing.

The parents said the girl met Rivera earlier this year through social media. They said they first learned about the relationship after their daughter ran away from home this summer.

‘I think it was a big secret. I didn’t know about him,’ her mother said.

According to ClickDetroit, Sikorski’s parents, Laurene and Jeff, told the court they have a ‘strong bond’ with their daughter and want to be there for her through these ‘difficult times.

‘I think she just thought this guy loved her and she wanted to do whatever he told her, and she was very vulnerable and she has a mental disorder and she needs help,’ said Laurene Sikorski. ‘I want to make sure she gets help.’

The couple said they adopted the girl and her two younger siblings from Poland when she was 4½ years old. They said she had been receiving treatment for depression and ADHD.

‘She’s never been violent in the past. We had no clue this was going to happen,’ her mother said. ‘She’s getting psychiatric counseling. She’s on medications. We’ve done everything in our power to help her.’

Defense attorney Leslie Posner told reporters that the girl and her siblings were physically abused in Poland, eventually removed from their home in that country and later adopted by the Michigan family.

‘They came from a very, very, very bad background,’ the lawyer said, referring to the abuse that allegedly came from the children’s biological parents. ‘They were locked in closets. They were beaten.’

The parents in Michigan said they are supporting their daughter despite the charges. If released on bond, the judge said the girl can’t have any contact with her siblings and must wear a GPS monitor.

She made eye contact with her parents several times during the hearing.

‘Your honor, we have a very strong bond with our daughter,’ her mother said.

Court records did not list a lawyer for Rivera on Thursday.

Preliminary hearings for both him and the girl are scheduled for Oct. 31. ”

Girl, 15, slashed her younger brother’s throat and planned to kill her parents so she could run away with her 23-year-old boyfriend[Daily Mail 10/23/14 by James Nye]

“A Michigan couple is standing by their adopted 15-year-old daughter after she allegedly conspired with her older boyfriend to kill them and stabbed her kid brother.

Prosecutors have charged Roksana Sikorski as an adult for the Oct. 17 attack, but her parents say she suffers from mental illness and was under the sway of 23-year-old Michael Rivera

The girl is being held on $1 million bond. She can see her parents but was ordered to have no contact with her siblings — including the 12-year-old brother who was stabbed in the throat. The boy survived.

The Sikorskis adopted all three children from Poland, where they lived in an abusive and neglectful home. “They suffered horribly,” said the teen’s lawyer, Leslie Posner.

Roksana was an ideal child who began to act out when she hit adolescence, according to Posner. She was diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and put on medication, the attorney said.

Last spring, she met Rivera on Facebook, and her misbehavior spiked as she began sneaking around with him, Posner said. She ran away for a couple of days over the summer and was found at his house.

Her parents filed a statutory rape complaint against Rivera — which prosecutors now plan to dismiss “pending further investigation.”

“The reason he wanted her to murder her family is the family was pursuing rape charges,” said Posner.

On the night of Oct. 17, according to prosecutors, Rivera allegedly planted himself outside the family’s Plymouth Township home at around 2 a.m. and texted his underage girlfriend instructions on what to do.

“He was telling her how to cut the brother’s jugular vein,” the lawyer said.

The teen stabbed 12-year-old Lucas in the throat, then tried to knife her sister before fleeing the house. She was nabbed at Rivera’s Detroit home and told cops that they were planning to marry, Posner said.

Rivera was arraigned Sunday on seven criminal counts, including conspiracy to commit murder. He does not yet have an attorney.

Prosecutors said they decided to charge Roksana as an adult because of the cold-blooded nature of the crime.

“Bluntly, it is rare for this office to charge a 15-year-old as an adult. However, the alleged facts in this case strongly warrant this decision. The alleged actions of this defendant and her co-defendant, to conspire to kill her entire family, are truly haunting,” Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Kym Worthy said.

Posner called the move “unthinkable” and said her client needs treatment, not a possible life sentence.

She believes the teen suffers from Reactive Attachment Disorder, which some experts say is more prevalent among adopted children. “For some reason, that night she got really carried away,” she said.

She hopes to get the teen’s case severed from Rivera’s. “They’re trying to make them look like Bonnie and Clyde,” she said of prosecutors.

Posner said she was hired by the Sikorski parents.

“They’re not going to throw her under the bus,” she said.”

Roksana Sikorski, 15, Backed by Parents She Allegedly Plotted to Kill[NBC NEWS 10/23/14 by Tracy Connor]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update: “The 17-year-old girl adopted from Poland cried as she faced the judge in an orange jail jumpsuit and apologized for plotting to kill her family the morning of Oct. 17, 2014.

“I would like to apologize to my family for not being the daughter they wished I would be,” said Roksana Sikorski of Plymouth Township on Monday. “And I promise that I will get better, no matter what happens … I’m sorry.”

Despite claims the teen intended to kill her family and stabbed her 12-year-old brother in the throat, Sikorski’s mother spoke on behalf of her daughter during Monday’s sentencing hearing.

“We miss her and would some day like to return to being a whole family again,” her mother told the court.

Wayne County Circuit Judge James A. Callahan sentenced the teen to a minimum of 10 years in prison on a conviction of attempted murder.”

“The Wayne County Prosecutor’s office charged Sikorski as an adult. She faced possible life in prison and entered into a deal that dismissed several other charges in exchange for her guilty plea to the attempted murder count.

Callahan called the case “extremely bizarre,” adding that Sikorski had been “swayed by an older person” and had “second thoughts” while the murder plot was in action.

She’s “making good strides” at the juvenile detention center and I hope she “suitable psychiatric assistant” is provided to her, Callahan said.

Sikorski will remain in the juvenile facility until she is 18.

The teen, who celebrated her birthday from that juvenile detention center last week, was 15 when investigators say she was influenced by her 24-year-old boyfriend Michael A. Rivera, with whom she had an illegal sexual relationship, to enter her family’s home armed with a knife and murderous intent.

Police said Sikorski intended to kill her family and run away with Rivera, whom her parents forbid her from seeing.

Rivera, who was convicted for his role and sentenced to life in prison, waited outside during the attack on Sikorski’s family and sent “text messages with instructions and pictures, directing his 15-year-old girlfriend while she was inside the home,” prosecutors said.

Wayne County online court records show Rivera was charged with three counts of criminal sexual assault and accosting a minor for immoral purposes in July of 2014, but the charges were dismissed Oct. 31, 2014, weeks after the attack.

While facing charges stemming from the attack on Sikorski’s family, Rivera was also convicted on a third-degree criminal sexual conduct charge for which he was sentenced in January.

Sikorski’s attorney, Leslie Posner, previously said the her client suffered repressed trauma caused by neglect early in her life while living in a Polish orphanage, from where she, her brother and a sister were adopted.

Since the prosecution began, Sikorski’s parents have publicly supported their daughter and believe Rivera manipulated her into committing the crimes.”

Adopted teen apologizes for plotting to kill family, cutting brother’s throat [M Live 3/28/16 by Gus Burns]