WHITE PLAINS – A White Plains woman was sentenced on Monday to six months in jail for the reckless assault of a three-month-old baby in her care while she worked as a nanny.
Westchester District Attorney Miriam Rocah said Nija Woodbury, 23, pled guilty last July to reckless assault of a child as a felony. In addition to her jail time, she was sentenced to five years of probation.
It was around 5 p.m. on January 10, 2023 that Woodbury, who employed as a nanny for a Mount Pleasant family, aggressively shook and bounced the infant without supporting his head.
After the nanny placed the baby back in his crib, the victim’s mother noticed on the baby monitor that the child was in a strange position.
When she realized the baby was seizing, turning blue and unresponsive, the mother called 911.
Woodbury was present during that time and said nothing about what she had done earlier to the child.
The victim was rushed to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla where he continued to seize and vomit. CT scans revealed bilateral subdural hematomas and bilateral retinal hemorrhages, indicators of a shaken baby.
The infant was treated for abusive head trauma for a week in the pediatric intensive care unit.
The district attorney’s office conducted forensic analysis of Woodbury’s phone and retrieved deleted text messages from earlier in the day of the incident that indicated her frustration when the baby would not stop crying.
Once confronted with her deleted messages, she admitted to police she had bounced and shaken the baby in a manner that she knew was not safe.
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