Mom allegedly poisoned baby to get dad's attention

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A 25-year-old former medical assistant on probation for a similar crime laced her breast milk with morphine and fed it to her 2-month-old daughter in an effort to attract the attention of the child's father, authorities alleged Thursday.

Sarah Rose Dillard-Lubin, of Aloha, was on probation from California for feeding her son, who was 10 months old at the time, two opiate pills, officials said.

Both children survived.

In both cases, Dillard-Lubin was trying to attract the attention of the child's father — a different man in each case, said Sgt. David Thompson of the Washington County sheriff's office.

Dillard-Lubin was indicted Wednesday. She pleaded not guilty to assault charges on Thursday, said her lawyer, Dean Smith. He said he could not comment further.

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, Jane Robison, said Dillard-Lubin pleaded no contest to a count of child abuse in 2006.

In the Oregon case, Thompson said, the father of the 2-month-old didn't come to the hospital with Dillard-Lubin when she took the child to the emergency room.

``He hadn't paid attention to her and the child that she expected,' Thompson said.

He said the Los Angeles case involved a similar motive. Robison said she couldn't immediately confirm that.

Dillard-Lubin's former husband said he never got an answer from her that meshed with the Los Angeles investigators' theory, or that made sense to him.

``Many conversations we had before we divorced ... she never told me why,' said Clifford Lubin, a 33-year-old restaurant manager. ``She was a master of skirting around things.'

Lubin said the two were together for a few years before their marriage, which lasted a year. He now has custody of their child. He said the boy is doing well.

At St. Vincent's Hospital in June, doctors admitted the 2-month-old for observation, although they couldn't detect the fever that Dillard-Lubin said she had. The next morning, a nurse found the child barely breathing. The baby survived, but her condition puzzled doctors until toxicology tests came back positive for opiates.

Dillard-Lubin told the hospital that she was on a pain killer and the opiates must have come through her breast milk, Thompson said. But lab tests of her milk turned up a high level of morphine, he said, indicating the drug had been added to it after pumping.

Thompson said Oregon child welfare workers took custody of the 2-month-old daughter.

Dr. Rupa Shah of the Oregon Pediatrics clinic said Dillard-Lubin was fired a few months ago for spending too much time on the telephone. Dillard-Lubin had worked at the clinic for more than a year checking patients' weight, height and blood pressure and escorting them to examination rooms, she said.

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