Madalina Cojocari’s Mother Has Entered a Guilty Plea to the Charge of Failing to Disclose Her Daughter’s Disappearance and May Be Deported

During the morning of Monday, Diana Cojocari, the mother of Madalina Cojocari, a girl who has been reported missing from North Carolina, entered a guilty plea to one count of failing to report a missing child.

On November 21, 2022, when Madalina was 12 years old, she was last seen stepping off a school bus in her hometown of Cornelius, which is located just north of Charlotte.

On Monday, Diana’s public defenders altered her plea to guilty and stated that she is eligible for 521 days of credit, which is equivalent to 17 months and four days, upon any sentence of incarceration. Additionally, they stated that she may be deported back to Moldova, which is her previous country of residence. At this time, Cojocari is residing in the United States on a green card. There has been communication between Fox News Digital and the attorneys representing Diana as well as the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office.

Diana and Christopher Palmiter, Madalina’s stepfather, did not report the missing girl, who was 11 years old at the time, to the police until several weeks later, on December 15, 2022. This was despite the fact that they had informed the authorities that the last time they saw their daughter was on the evening of November 23, 2022, when she was at home.

In spite of the fact that officials have been searching for the missing girl for almost two years, they have not been able to find any trace of her anywhere from the Charlotte area to the mountains in western North Carolina.

According to the documents filed in the court, Diana informed the officials at the school and the Cornelius Police Department that she had not seen her daughter, who was born in Moldova and was in the sixth grade at Bailey Middle School, since she went to her bedroom on the evening of November 23, 2022, around ten o’clock, after she and Palmiter and Palmiter had gotten into an argument.

Palmiter stated that on November 24, 2022, he drove to the residence of his relatives in Michigan “to recover some items” after he and his wife had a disagreement. An affidavit states that Diana walked into her daughter’s room at approximately 11:30 a.m. on that particular morning and discovered that her daughter, who was 11 years old at the time, had disappeared.

Upon Palmiter’s return to Cornelius on November 26, Diana reportedly inquired about the whereabouts of their daughter. It is said in the affidavit that Palmiter allegedly asked her the same question in reply.

On December 22nd, the Chicago Police Department made available to the general public a handwritten message that Madalina’s parents had written shortly after they reported her missing the previous year. In the note, they expressed their concern for the missing 11-year-old.

Both parents were taken into custody for failing to report a child who had gone missing. Despite the fact that Diana is still being held at the Mecklenburg County Jail, Palmiter was freed in August after posting bond.

During an interview that took place in August with WCNC, Madalina’s grandmother, Rodica Cojocari, who is also the mother of Diana, stated, via a translator, that her “granddaughter is alive, but she’s been kidnapped.”

Rodica, who is originally from Moldova, went on to accuse Palmiter of involved in the trafficking of Diana and Madalina for a sum of five million dollars.

According to phone records obtained by the Cornelius Police Department, search warrants that were unsealed earlier this year suggest that Diana and Rodica contacted a distant relative asking if he would help in “smuggling” Diana and Madalina from their Cornelius home, which is located just north of Charlotte. This was done before Madalina vanished.

“She told him she was in a bad relationship with co-defendant Christopher Palmiter and wanted a divorce,” the warrant states in its entirety.