Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 4, 1995 TAG: 9511050004
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And that is why she was sentenced Friday to 2 1/2 years in prison.
It was what Harvey did not do - even after she learned that her son had been abused while a friend cared for him - that made her responsible for his injuries and guilty of felony child neglect, Roanoke Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Ann Gardner said.
Harvey shirked the most basic responsibility of a mother, Gardner said, when she left Anthony for three months at the Northwest Roanoke apartment of Tonya Basham, who received a 30-year-sentence Monday for inflicting the injuries.
"It's almost like someone who buys a cute little puppy in the window, then decides it's not worth the trouble ... and dumps it off on somebody else," she said. "She just couldn't be bothered with it, even after being alerted that something was wrong."
Gardner recommended a five-year sentence for Harvey. But Roanoke Circuit Judge Clifford Weckstein decided on 21/2 years after Assistant Public Defender William Fitzpatrick argued that Harvey was mentally retarded and too emotionally unfit to be a mother.
"I wonder, as I sentence you, whether you understand everything you did wrong," Weckstein told the 24-year-old woman.
Basham has said earlier that she agreed to care for Anthony because his mother was homeless and his father - who also is Basham's boyfriend - was in prison.
The child's many injuries were inflicted over three months, but the abuse came to the attention of authorities only after a blow to the head left him unconscious the morning of March 7 at Basham's Hunt Avenue apartment.
After Anthony was rushed to Community Hospital of the Roanoke Valley, doctors learned the full extent of his injuries - burns to his feet caused by scalding water; more burns to his buttocks and ear caused by a hot blow dryer; a bite wound to his left cheek; serious head injuries; bruises to his hands; and cocaine in his bloodstream.
Basham confessed to police that she caused the injuries, but said they were the result of misguided efforts to discipline the child.
Testimony showed that Harvey learned of some of the injuries during a visit to Basham's apartment. She told friends she would take her son to a hospital the next day, but she never returned.
Fitzpatrick, however, argued that a social services worker who saw the child at about the same time failed to notice the injuries. "It seems patently unfair to say we're going to hold an unsophisticated, mentally retarded individual more culpable" than a trained professional, he said.
Harvey's inability to care for her child was complicated further by cocaine use and the loss of her mother to a heart attack, Fitzpatrick said.
After spending several weeks in the hospital, Anthony was released to the care of foster parents. He is living with relatives, Gardner said, and is making a slow but steady recovery from his injuries.
As part of Harvey's sentence, Weckstein ordered her not to seek or obtain the custody of any child for the next 20 years. He also gave her another 21/2 years of suspended time and placed her on probation for five years.
While acknowledging that his client shared much of the blame for what happened, Fitzpatrick questioned whether authorities could have realized Anthony was at risk and removed him from Harvey's custody before he was injured.
"It's a shame this happened," he said. "But somebody should have been able to see this coming from a mile away."
by CNB