Woman pleads guilty in New York baby-snatching case

Ann Pettway pleaded guilty to charges of kidnapping, saying: .. "I went to the hospital, I took a child was a" mistake

A woman who snatched a newborn at a hospital in New York in 1987, then raised the child as his own for over two decades, pleaded guilty to a charge of abduction Friday , while the real mother of the girl crying in the courtroom.

Ann Pettway, 51, entered his guilty plea in federal court in Manhattan. His voice was as flat as she briefly told how he took a train from his home in Connecticut to Harlem Hospital, where Carlina White was collected, a baby three weeks old that was brought to the emergency room their parents .

"I went to the hospital. I took a child, "he said. "It was a mistake."

Pettway said little during the hearing, and provided no explanation for his actions. As part of his plea, prosecutors agreed to recommend 10 to 12 years in prison, although the actual duration is set by a judge.

As Pettway pleaded guilty, the birth mother Carlina, Joy White, cried quietly in the courtroom gallery. After he told reporters he was shocked by the guilty plea, and I felt a decade in prison would be too light a punishment for the woman who had stolen so cruelly. Justice said, would be a period of 23 years, one for each year that has been separated from her daughter.

"I lost 23 years of being with my daughter," he said, adding that these decades were filled with pain and anguish.

White said he still remembers Pettway is in the hospital the day her daughter disappeared. She said the hijacker was dressed as a nurse. "She approached me and said," Do not cry. Your daughter will be well. "

A judge set a sentencing date of principle on May 14

The mystery of the sensational kidnapping of the baby was the one who had frustrated police for decades. Ultimately, the case was settled for Carlina itself.

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