SAN ANTONIO – In September 2009, a teenage mother and her boyfriend left their dead 6-week-old daughter on the steps of a Westside fire station.
On Friday, the teen, Julie Navejar, 18, was sentenced to 12 years in prison as part of a plea agreement.
She was certified as an adult last year and will serve her time in an adult prison.
Navejar was 15 when she and her boyfriend, Ramiro De La Rosa, dropped the infant off. Both were heroin addicts, according to prosecutors.
Before she was sentenced, Navejar apologized and asked Judge Carmen Kelsey for probation.
Kelsey responded, saying, "What you have done is deplorable."
"I wish somehow I could do it all over again but I know I can't. I can only look forward now," Navejar told the judge.
Prosecutors opposed probation, noting the condition of the child, Jayda De La Rosa, when she was left at the fire station.
"Jayda had black fingers from gangrene (and) burn marks on her nose. She was underweight, she had bruising on her face, no body fat and layers of skin peeling from her feet," prosecutor Carla Riedl said.
The infant also had cocaine in her system and, according to the medical examiner, died from starvation and terminal pneumonia.
Navejar plead no contest to charges of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury by reckless omission. The maximum punishment she faced was 20 years in prison.
De La Rosa is charged with injury to a child, which is a first-degree felony and carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
His trial is scheduled for March 27.