Lincoln mother found guilty of child abuse for not getting son treatment

A jury has found a Lincoln mother guilty of negligent child abuse for not getting her son treatment for her son's rare form of cancer. 

A jury has found a Lincoln mother guilty of negligent child abuse for not getting her son treatment for her son’s rare form of cancer.

The verdict against Abak Rehan was delivered Thursday, according to court documents.

Rehan was originally charged with felony child abuse last year on allegations she didn’t follow through with the recommended treatments from doctors for her four-year-old son.

Investigators said a social worker at an Omaha hospital had reported the boy had missed several appointments for treatment of Rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer that forms in the soft tissue. Authorities say the social worker reported that the child could become more resistant to treatment if left untreated, decreasing his chances of remission, and that he could die within six months to a year if left untreated.

Rehan told Channel 8 Eyewitness News she took her son at first, but didn’t like the side effects the treatments had.

She took him to Tennessee to get a second opinion and says she told the doctors but they kept making appointments. While there, she says she was arrested at gunpoint – her son taken back to Nebraska while she sat in jail.

“I wanted to go and find a second opinion,” Rehan said. “They did not want me to do that and I think that’s why they reacted so fast.”

Rehan told Channel 8 Eyewitness News she wanted to help her son “the best way possible.”

“What ever we have to do get him better that’s what we want to do,” she said in an interview last November.

The jury had the option of finding Rehan guilty of intentional child abuse, but instead chose negligent child abuse.

Rehan’s sentencing is scheduled for September.