A New York City woman has been sentenced to 17 years in prison in the beating death of her 2-year-old daughter.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown says Ashley Diaz of Far Rockaway was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty to assault and manslaughter.
Her daughter, Kevasia Edwards, had massive injuries, new and old, when she died in February 2014.
Police were called to the 28-year-old's home in February 2014 and found Kevasia unconscious and unresponsive, prosecutors said.
The child was was taken to St. John's Episcopal Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Prosecutors say the mother of five had a neighbor watch her sleeping toddler for about 20 minutes the evening of Feb. 3 while she went to buy food. The neighbor later told authorities that the girl seemed pale and lethargic.
Local
Later that night, the neighbor received a call from Diaz saying her daughter wasn't breathing and wasn't responsive, prosecutors say. The neighbor returned to Diaz's apartment to find the toddler's face red and bruised, her lip bleeding and her teeth pushed out, jutting in different directions, and missing.
The neighbor performed CPR on the girl while her sister called 911.
Kevasia arrived at the hospital in cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead just after midnight Feb. 4, prosecutors say. The child allegedly had old and fresh bruising on her face, legs and torso, two rib fractures and scarring on her right foot consistent with a previous burn.
An autopsy report from the medical examiner's office found the bruises, cuts and burns were "consistent with abusive head trauma with multiple, violent impacts to her head and body."
The Administration for Children's Services had visited Diaz's Far Rockaway home at least four times in the past few years, police said, though three of the visits proved unfounded.
