© The Associated Press/Wake County Bureau of Identification
Ann Pettway accused of kidnapping newborn baby Carlina White from Harlem Hospital in August 1987.
A woman who snatched a newborn baby from a New York City hospital in 1987, then raised the child as her own for more than two decades, pleaded guilty to a kidnapping charge Friday as the girl's true mother wept in the courtroom.
Ann Pettway, 51, appeared resigned to a life behind bars as she entered the plea at a federal courthouse in Manhattan. Her voice was flat as she briefly recounted how she took a train from her home in Bridgeport, Conn., to Harlem Hospital, where she scooped up Carlina White, a 3-week-old baby who had been brought to the emergency room by her parents.
"I went to the hospital. I took a child," she said. "It was wrong."
Pettway said little else during the hearing, and offered no explanation for why she would do such a thing. As part of her plea bargain, prosecutors agreed to recommend between 10 and 12½ years in prison, although the actual term will be set by a judge.
As Pettway admitted her guilt, Carlina's birth mother, Joy White, quietly cried in the courtroom gallery. Afterward, she told reporters that she was outraged at the plea bargain, and felt a decade in prison would be too light a punishment for the woman who had robbed her so cruelly. Justice, she said, would be a term of 23 years, one for every year she was separated from her daughter.
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Read Exploding Transformers - More than meets the eye? to learn more on the topic.