NEW YORK, July 30 (UPI) -- A woman who admitted stealing a sick baby from a New York hospital and raising her as her own was sentenced Monday to 12 years in prison.
Ann Pettway kidnapped Carlina White from her Harlem Hospital crib in 1987 and raised her in Connecticut as Nejdra Nance for 23 years.
Pettway apologized for her actions.
"This was not a crime of greed, or a crime of vengeance," Judge Kevin Castel said in passing sentence. "But it was an act of selfishness.
"You inflicted a parent's worst nightmare on a young couple, who were only concerned about the health of their baby."
White's father, Carl Tyson, 47, told the New York Daily News the sentence "should have been longer." Prosecutors wanted Pettway to serve 20 years. But White's mother, Joy White, 41, said the sentence is immaterial because it can never "make up for the time she was gone."
Carlina White was kidnapped Aug. 5, 1987, from the hospital where she was being treated for a fever of 104.
"I love my daughter, and I want to be there for her," Joy White said. "But it breaks my hearts listening to her speak about her 'auntie' or her 'little brother,' when in fact she is not talking about our family, but another family that has claimed her as their own."
