Probation Ordered in Newborn’s Death
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A Newhall woman pleaded no contest Monday to a charge of voluntary manslaughter stemming from the drowning death of her newborn baby in a toilet.
Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Meredith Taylor placed Cheryl Iwai, 21, on three years probation and ordered her to return May 15 for a progress report hearing. At the hearing the court may decide to shorten or lengthen her sentence, a court clerk said.
After becoming pregnant while attending college in San Diego in 1994, Iwai moved back home with her parents in Newhall.
In July 1995, she gave birth to a full-term baby while sitting on a toilet and left the newborn to drown, prosecutors said.
Iwai was charged with one count of murdering a fetus, and one count of murder.
Such charges would have given a jury a choice of convicting Iwai of either crime.
A murder conviction would have brought a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
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