Infant Died From Shaken Baby Syndrome
A 28-year-old Corona woman was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Tuesday, Sept. 4 following her guilty plea to charges stemming from the death of a three-month-old infant whom she had been babysitting, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced.
Ana Delarosa, 28, of 39th Street in Corona, pleaded guilty in June to one count of second-degree manslaughter and one count of firstdegree assault before Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard L. Buchter, who sentenced her to three to nine years in prison on the manslaughter and 11 years in prison on the assault. The sentences will run concurrently.
Delarosa waived an appeal and will be deported to her native Mexico upon completion of the sentence.
According to the guilty plea, Delarosa, a family friend, was babysitting three-month-old Addison Reinoso-Xoyatla at her residence on Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2010, when, sometime after 11 a.m., the baby awoke and began crying.
Delarosa tried to console the infant but he continued to cry, at which point she repeatedly shook him hard and asked, “What is wrong with you? Why are you crying?” Delarosa shook the baby until he stopped crying and went limp, at which point she sought help.
The baby arrived at Elmhurst Hospital Center later that day in cardiac arrest and in an unresponsive and life-threatening condition. An examination of the child revealed that he suffered a severe brain injury, as well as bleeding around the nerves that connect the eyes to the brain, both of which are common markers of abusive head trauma (also known as shaken baby syndrome), which occurs when a baby is violently and repeatedly shaken.
The child died on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2011. Delarosa confessed to the po- lice that she violently shook the baby when she became frustrated because the child wouldn’t stop crying and was then arrested.
“Today’s sentencing will hopefully give some closure to the child’s parents and spare them from having to sit through the painful testimony of a trial,” District Attorney Brown said in a Sept. 4 statement. “Sadly, this is an incident in which the person entrusted to care for a child is instead responsible for his death. The fragility of a small child cannot be emphasized enough. There is no excuse for shaking a child.”
Senior Assistant District Attorney Leigh Bishop prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Marjory D. Fisher, bureau chief, and Kenneth M. Appelbaum and Lucinda C. Suarez, deputy bureau chiefs, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Charles A. Testagrossa and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.
