A Montgomery Village father will serve seven years in prison after pleading guilty to child neglect charges related to his six children, the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office said Friday in a statement.
During a sentencing hearing Thursday in Montgomery County Circuit Court in Rockville, Judge Jill Cummins sentenced Dominique Moore, 47, to 30 years in prison, suspending all but seven years to serve, the statement said. He will also serve five years of supervised probation upon his release.
Moore’s attorney, Andre Mahasa, did not immediately respond to Bethesda Today’s phone request for comment Friday afternoon.
The sentencing stems from the May 2023 arrest of Moore and his wife, Cynthia Moore, which came about a year after police and paramedics had responded to their Montgomery Village home for an “unresponsive” teen. First responders found the family, including six other children, the youngest of whom was 4 years old, had been “living in squalor” with toilets that did not appear functional and animal feces on the floor throughout the home, police said in a May 2023 press release.
The Moores’ 17-year-old was later pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
After the Moores’ arrest, they were indicted on charges of second-degree depraved-heart murder, involuntary manslaughter and child neglect. The parents separately appeared in the county Circuit Court in early October and November and both faced up to 30 years in prison.
Cynthia Moore was convicted by Cummins in October on six counts of child neglect of her six children following a seven-day bench trial – a trial in which there is no jury and charges are handled by a judge. She also was acquitted of the murder and involuntary manslaughter charges.
Cummins ruled on Oct. 16 that the charges for each parent were not supported by Maryland law, according to The Washington Post. She noted that the cause of the 17-year-old’s death was an “essential element” to convict the parents, and cited testimony for physicians who could not definitively determine the cause of death, the Post reported.
In late February, Cynthia Moore was sentenced to serve 21 years in prison and five additional years of supervised probation upon release. In November, Cummins accepted Dominique Moore’s guilty plea on six counts of child neglect and the charges related to murder and involuntary manslaughter were dropped.
State’s Attorney John McCarthy has described the Moores’ case as “one of the worst cases of child neglect that we have seen in the county.”
“Under the guise of homeschooling, the parents were able to operate without any outside supervision or intervention from the community. The children’s basic human needs and necessities went ignored,” he said in a November statement emailed to Bethesda Today.
On Friday, McCarthy said in a statement emailed to Bethesda Today that the case was “emotionally charged” for all involved.
“Our hearts go out to the surviving children,” McCarthy said. “The prolonged trauma and neglect they experienced was unimaginable.”
‘Unsafe and unsanitary’ living conditions
On May 10, 2022, Montgomery County police officers and Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service crews responded to the 9400 block of Quill Place near North Creek Community Center in Montgomery Village for a report of a “working code in progress.” According to police spokesperson Shiera Goff, the term is used to describe a person in cardiac arrest who has stopped breathing and whom someone is attempting to resuscitate.
Responding officers discovered the Moores’ 17-year-old child unresponsive. According to charging documents, Cynthia Moore told officers the teen had multiple sclerosis and diabetes and had been dealing with the side effects of COVID-19. In addition, the mother said the teen had not seen a doctor since the age of 15.
The paramedics who responded performed CPR on the 17-year-old and pronounced the teen dead at the scene.
A responding officer noted in the charging documents that the teen “appeared emaciated” and an autopsy later said the teen’s body weighed 79 pounds clothed. According to charging documents, the pathologist wrote the teen was not provided with the necessary “adequate care” for their medical condition.
The charging documents also detailed the “unsafe and unsanitary” conditions found at the Moores’ home. An officer at the scene noted animal feces on the floor throughout the house, electricity not functioning in “most areas of the home,” a refrigerator with little food inside, non-functioning toilets, windows covered with blankets and not enough beds for all family members, according to charging documents.
More details about the neglect were uncovered during Cynthia Moore’s trial. The Washington Post reported the refrigerator was kept locked and the children were not taught how to bathe, according to testimony during the trial.
According to charging documents, the six children were removed by Child Welfare Services and placed into foster care following the police investigation of the 17-year-old’s death.
After Cynthia Moore’s sentencing, her public defenders said in a statement emailed to Bethesda Today that Moore “never intended for the tragedy here.”
“She made misguided decisions based on her own tragic life experiences and without support from Mr. Moore, who was able-bodied and capable of working to help, or from the systems that should have provided oversight and assistance,” the statement said.
The attorneys said the state’s attorney’s office “wanted and obtained an exceptionally harsh sentence” for Moore despite her being acquitted of the murder charge.
