A New York judge has sentenced a Haitian mother to 17 years in jail after she set her six-year-old daughter ablaze in a voodoo ritual

Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter scolded Marie Lauradin for lying to police and probation officers about how her daughter, Frantzcia Saintil, was set on fire, leaving her with life-altering scars over 25% of her body. After her February 2009 arrest, Lauradin told police that she accidentally spilled a pot of boiling water on the child when the youngster came up from behind her. She also told probation officers that she was rubbing alcohol on the child to soothe a fever when a candle ignited, setting the child ablaze. Lauradin, 31, has admitted to stripping the child naked and pouring an accelerant over her head and in a circle on the floor, a voodoo rite she described as "loa". Prosecutors said that Lauradin set the girl on fire and failed to get her medical attention for another 24 hours. Assistant District Attorney Leigh Bishop said that the child has scars on her face that her classmates tease her about. Frantzcia's foster mother told prosecutors that the child has been acting angrily toward other children as she adjusts to her disfigurement and life without her mother. After the attack, Frantzcia was placed in a medically-induced coma so that doctors could treat the burns that caused her skin to peel off her torso, legs and face. Lauradin's Haitian-born mother, Sylvenie Thessier, 72, has been sentenced to up to three years in prison for reckless endangerment for failing to get her granddaughter medical attention.