A Utah mother is suing a local school district after she says her 5-year-old daughter was released into the care of a total stranger. Emilee Winston filed a lawsuit against Iron County School District seeking $300,000 over the bizarre 2020 ordeal, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. “I can’t get over what happened,” Winston told the Tribune. She said the incident occurred that November, when she had contracted COVID and had asked a babysitter she’d known for a few months to take care of her 5-month-old son, 2-year-old daughter, and 5-year-old daughter so they wouldn’t be exposed. Unbeknownst to her at the time, the babysitter had allegedly been paying a woman Winston did not know to stand in for her, and it was that woman who allegedly picked up her daughter from school. Winston says that when she confronted the school about the mistake, they told her “maybe you need to fix your schedule” to handle pick-up better. Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes has reportedly filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, citing a state statute that makes the school district immune to claims over mental distress. The babysitter, Emily Luciano, is also accused of trying to sell Winston’s 5-month-old son to a Colorado adoption agency around the same time the alleged stranger was taking care of the other kids. She’s currently behind bars and facing felony kidnapping charges.
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