The disturbed mother who allegedly tried to keep her teenage boys “babies forever” had $0 in her bank account and was $300,000 in debt shortly before her Bronx home of horrors was discovered, court records show.
Lissette Soto Domenech, 64, lived in dire financial straits for years and filed for bankruptcy three times between 2023 and 2025, records show. Meanwhile, she was able to post $25,000 bail following her child molestation charge earlier this week.
The bankruptcy records paint a picture that fits neighbors’ accounts of Domenech’s life falling apart and self-isolation in her sixth-floor Riverdale apartment, which tragically became a prison for her twin boys.
“She looked like a little witch,” said a neighbor who lived on Domenech’s floor. “If you go near her door, she closes it.”
An ill-fated visit by Administration of Children’s Services officials on Oct. 15 — after several failed attempts to gain entry, sources said — finally ripped open Domenech’s door and revealed her alleged secrets.
Sources said Domenech kept her boys in diapers and fed them with baby bottles in an effort to keep them as newborns. As one neighbor chillingly said, “She wanted them to stay babies forever and never lose them.”
Another neighbor who lived below Domenech said she heard the boys running and crying all night, along with their mother’s screams. Six years ago, she finally complained directly, forcing Domenech to open the door to talk, revealing two children who seemed much younger than their age.
“I thought they were babies. They looked very small and skinny, they were probably 8 years old at the time,” said the downstairs neighbor. “I thought they were younger. They were very pale. Most of us thought they were babies.”
The now 14-year-old boys are currently in foster care after three months in the hospital following an alleged nine years of abuse and a baby food-based starvation diet that left them weighing just over 50 pounds each, sources said.
Domenech pleaded not guilty this week to child molestation and was released on $25,000 bond, court records show.
How Domenech managed to post the five-figure bail — or even 10% of it, which is typically offered by the courts — was unclear, as bankruptcy records show she repeatedly claimed to have no real income and significant debts, much of it from the adjacent apartments she owned in the co-op building on Mosholu Avenue.
The trail of court documents shows that Domenech filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2023, claiming less than $50,000 in credit card debt that she hoped to liquidate.
However, the case was dismissed a few months later after she failed to provide a full list of creditors and essentially misled the court.
Domenech returned to bankruptcy court in 2024, this time filing a Chapter 13 plan that allowed her to reorganize her finances.
Once again, Domenech was unable to comply and the case was dismissed after she failed to pay, records show.
In June of the following year, Domenech again filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in a file full of details about the household’s problems.
The Bronx mother claimed more than $300,000 in debt, $50 in cash and no money in her bank account, according to the filing.
She reported no income except $3,345 a month from her unnamed husband’s work as a deli delivery boy and Uber driver, including an unspecified monthly $650 “family support” payment he received.
Neighbors said Domenech’s husband was Yosef Green, a kind man who evicted them from their home but still came by with bags of food. He recently died of cancer, they said.
Hubby’s hard work left Domenech and her then-13-year-old boys with just $591 after monthly expenses, according to the filing.
The bulk of Domenech’s debt — about $287,000 — came from the mortgage on her house, plus another apartment next door where neighbors said Green had lived.
The filing shows a handful of other assets, such as a $400 wedding ring, as well as $6,000 in debt from a pair of lawsuits filed by the co-op board.
While Domemech proposed a repayment plan that would see her hand over her entire household’s net income to creditors, they rejected the idea, arguing that one of her apartments would have to be sold to pay off their loan.
A judge agreed with the bank, signing an order in December — about two months after the children were removed from the home — greenlighting their right to enforce their mortgage on the alleged house of horrors and submit it for foreclosure or sale.
The order also granted a two-year ban on bankruptcy filings for the property, and assessed Domemech with more than $2,000 in legal fees and costs.
Police visited the apartment twice in December 2024 and March 2025 after receiving calls about a foul odor, sources said. The first visit was recorded as unwarranted, while police took unspecified action during the second, the sources said.
On Friday, a faint odor was still coming from the closed door of the apartment. One resident had placed an air purifier outside the apartment.
Domenech could not be reached for comment.
When The Post visited a Harlem apartment Friday that about a dozen neighbors said was the home of Domenech’s family, a woman refused to open the door.
She denied that anyone with the family’s name lived in the house.
Additional reporting by Desheania Andrews and Larry Celona
