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Parents Fight Charges That They Didn't Live In Daughters School District

By Brad Segall

MONTGOMERY COUNTY Pa (CBS)  --  A Philadelphia couple accused of illegally sending their daughter to an elementary school in Montgomery County has hired a new attorney, and they contend their arrest was racially motivated.

Hamlet and Olesia Garcia reached out to a Cuban American attorney in Florida to defend them against charges they say were brought by the district attorney's office because of their ethnicity.

During a news conference Thursday in Miami, Hamlet Garcia told reporters his former attorneys in this area told him he wouldn't win the case because in Montgomery County they are very racist.

Steven Latzer is Chief of Staff for the District Attorney's office says, "we don't respond to accusations such as that in the press, we reserve our comments for the courtroom where they are appropriate."

Prosecutors filed theft of services charges claiming the couple sent their young daughter to Pine Road Elementary in Huntingdon Valley even though they didn't live there.

The family claims they separated and mom and daughter moved in with her father in Lower Moreland.

They reconciled but decided to leave their child in school.

They head back to court next month.

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