Two Kentucky teenagers were sentenced to a year of supervised probation after leaving their newborn baby girl in a dumpster in July 2015.
The Lexington Herald Leader reports that Casside Cherry, 16, and 18-year-old Trevon Elmore of Paducah, Kentucky, were charged with attempted murder, criminal abuse, and tampering with evidence. But following a three-day trial in November 2015, the teens were found guilty of lesser charges that ultimately allowed them to avoid any jail time.
During sentencing on Thursday at the McCracken Circuit Court, McCracken Circuit Judge Craig Clymer said that teens would no longer be sentenced as adults since the charges had been reduced.
Trevon Elmore and Casside Cherry are charged with attempted murder, criminal abuse, and tampering with physical evidence.bit.ly/1RdKk8S
Posted by WPSD-TV on Friday, January 8, 2016
Two years ago, repair shop owner Daniel Hodge reported seeing two teens – who were later identified as Cherry and Elmore – putting something suspicious in a dumpster near the Fernwood Apartments and walking away.
When the man looked inside, he found garbage with a crying newborn baby girl inside with her umbilical cord still attached. Emergency medical services rushed the newborn baby to a local hospital, where she spent a week recuperating.
The child has since been released from the hospital and she is now in the care of Cherry’s sister, living in Iowa.
According to the Kentucky Revised Statute, Clymer was unable to sentence the teens to more than 90-days in a detention center.
Since Elmore had served an aggregate of 11 months in a juvenile detention center while Cherry served four months, the judge concluded that a 90-sentence would be ineffective. He sentenced the pair to 12 months of supervised and ordered them to complete a moral therapy program.
“The court could not have certified them… as adults on the crimes for which the jury found them guilty. So we then have to go back to the juvenile code and treat them as juveniles as far as the sentencing goes.”
The judge ordered both teens to find a job and help pay for the child’s expenses. Clymer also ordered the teens to “pay $150 monthly to the circuit clerk’s office,” which would go toward supporting the child.
