Mother Gets 1 Year in County Jail in Death of Infant

A 21-year-old Antelope Valley woman convicted of child abuse in the torture and drug overdose death of her 5-month-old daughter was sentenced Monday to one year in County Jail under a plea bargain in which she avoided a longer prison term.

Calling the death of Elizabeth Przybyszewski’s infant daughter the worst he has seen in his one year on the bench, Lancaster Superior Court Judge Thomas Stoever initially hesitated to accept the plea bargain.

“This was a case of torture. . . . That’s torture with a capital ‘T.’ And your client is partially responsible for that,” Stoever told defense attorney Avrum Harris. The judge also flatly rejected Harris’ request that Przybyszewski not serve any jail time.

But Stoever ultimately agreed to accept the one-year plea bargain, saying he believed that Przybyszewski was a “passive participant” in the acts that led to the infant’s death. Also, judges rarely overturn such plea bargains. Doing so could have undone the woman’s conviction.

Her sentence resolves the third of six Antelope Valley child-abuse deaths that occurred during a 13-month period ending in mid-1992. Since then, authorities have confirmed a seventh case and are investigating a possible eighth case.

Sabreena Przybyszewski died Feb. 20 of poisoning by the drug methamphetamine and of chronic physical abuse that included 12 broken ribs, burns on her leg and feet, and bruising around the wrists, suggesting that she had been tied, records show.

Christopher Daugherty, the infant’s father and Przybyszewski’s estranged boyfriend, was sentenced to 11 years in state prison Dec. 28. He had pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in exchange for prosecutors dropping the original murder charge.

In Przybyszewski’s case, she agreed to plead no contest to the felony child-abuse charge in exchange for a promise from prosecutors that she would face no more than one year in County Jail. Typical sentences for felony child abuse are two, four or six years in state prison.

Although the drug poisoning occurred while the infant was in Daugherty’s custody, prosecutors said they might have had difficulty in a trial proving who was responsible for the abuse that occurred during the child’s lifetime. Both parents were methamphetamine users.

Harris argued that Przybyszewski is remorseful and that jail time would only harm her efforts to reform her life. But Stoever said a sentence of no jail time “would be just wrong for the community” and cited the Antelope Valley’s reputation of having a severe child-abuse problem.