Series of Incidents Took Place Between March and June of 2014
WASHINGTON - A 27-year-old woman, of Washington D.C., was sentenced today to nine years in prison for physically abusing her son, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Vincent H. Cohen, Jr. and Cathy L. Lanier, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
The woman, who is not identified here to protect the privacy of the victim, pled guilty in March 2015, in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, to charges of aggravated assault against a minor, first-degree child cruelty while armed, and first-degree child cruelty. The plea, which was contingent upon the Court’s approval, called for the nine-year prison term. The Honorable Rhonda Reid Winston accepted the plea and sentenced the defendant accordingly. Following her prison term, the defendant will be placed on three years of supervised release.
According to the government’s evidence, between March 2014 and June 2014, the defendant and her boyfriend physically abused the defendant’s nine-year-old son in a variety of ways, including starving him, binding his limbs with duct tape, scalding him with hot water, and keeping him locked inside of a bedroom and bathroom for days at a time. The abuse was discovered in June 2014, when the defendant brought the boy to his biological father, who took the child to the emergency department at Children’s National Medical Center. The defendant’s boyfriend, 52, is awaiting trial in October 2015; he has pled not guilty to charges.
In announcing the sentence, Acting U.S. Attorney Cohen and Chief Lanier commended the work performed by detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Youth Investigations Division. They also recognized the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including former Victim/Witness Advocate Melissa Milam, Paralegal Specialist D’Yvonne Key; Child Forensic Interview Specialist Tracy Owusu, and Criminal Investigators Tommy Miller and Melissa Matthews.
Finally, they commended the work of Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Park, who prosecuted the case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
