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Orange County resident Nicole H. Layman, age 23, of Port Jervis, was sentenced to four to 15 years in prison on Monday, March 28 for the incident which took place in November 2019.
Layman pleaded guilty in December 2021 to manslaughter, said the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
On the night of Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019, City of Port Jervis Police officers responded to a report of a dead infant found in a vacant dirt lot adjacent to Hornbeck Avenue, in the City of Port Jervis, the DA's Office said.
Upon their arrival, officers found the body of a newborn. An investigation revealed that the baby girl had been born that night and had died of exposure to the elements, Port Jervis Police said at the time.
The child's umbilical cord was still attached and police, who flooded the area, were quickly able to locate Layman as the mother, police said.
At the time that Layman pleaded guilty, she admitted that she had just given birth to the infant and had left the newborn exposed to the elements without notifying anyone, the DA's Office said.
District Attorney Hoovler thanked the City of Port Jervis Police Department, for their investigation and the arrest of Layman, as well as the New York State Police and the Office of the Orange County Medical Examiner, who assisted in the investigation.
“While consigning an infant to die of exposure is, by definition, inexcusable, illegal, and barbaric, I believe that a sentence of five to fifteen years in state prison, in this case, would strike a just balance between the seriousness of the conduct, and some mitigating factors attributable to this particular defendant,” said District Attorney David Hoovler.
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