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WEST CHESTER — A former caregiver at a church-affiliated day care center in West Chester has been sentenced to probation on felony child endangerment charges, even as she dodged acknowledging legal responsibility for the injuries suffered by the toddler.
On Friday, Susan Miller Wright entered a plea of no contest to charges related to the 2022 incident at the United Methodist Children Center, a day care and religious education center run by the West Chester United Methodist Church.
The “nolo contendere” plea allows a defendant to resolve a criminal case against them without accepting guilt or agreeing with the facts of the case as presented by the prosecution. However, the sentencing judge can still impose punishment on the defendant and treat him or her as though they were guilty of the crimes alleged.
In this case, Common Pleas Judge Alita Rovito sentenced Wright, 56, of West Goshen, to two years of court-supervised probation on charges of endangering the welfare of a child, a third-degree felony, recklessly endangering another person, and simple assault, the last two charges graded as second-degree misdemeanors.
The terms of the sentence had been worked out prior to the hearing by the prosecution and Wright’s attorney.
Before calling the proceeding to order, Rovito met with attorneys involved in the case — Assistant District Attorney Zachary Yurick of the D.A.’s Child Abuse Unit, defense attorney Thomas Bellwoar, and Jeremiah Kane, the attorney representing the child’s parents — in her chambers to discuss the parameters of the no contest plea.
As part of her sentence, Wright agreed to have no future criminal contact with children, and to submit a DNA sample for a state data base. She was accompanied by about a dozen supporters who sat in the gallery as she was sentenced.
According to Yurick, the incident occurred on July 14 at the church day care, when Wright had the young boy in her care. Yurick said Wright “put (the child) down in such a way that he that he did sustain bumps and bruises.”
Asked by the judge whether she was accepting responsibility, Wright did not answer. Bellwoar, of the West Chester firm of Luongo Bellwoar, told Rovito that he had instructed her to stand mute on the question of accepting responsibility.
“I just want to put this behind me,” Wright said in response to Rovito’s question of whether she wanted to make a statement about the case.
Bellwoar agreed. “Mrs. Wright is happy to put this unfortunate incident behind her and she is grateful for the tremendous amount of support she received from friends, family and coworkers today,” he said in an email after the proceedings concluded.
The mother of the young boy, however, expressed anger at what had happened when he was being cared for the day of the incident. She said her son’s anxiety and fear over what happened to him lingers.
“I want you to understand the devastation you caused our family,” the woman told Wright, who stood nearby. She called the incident an example of “unspeakable abuse.
“You are a monster, and I cannot forgive you for what you’ve done,” the mother said, as her husband stood by her side. “I hope this haunts you for the rest of your life.” The Media News Group is withholding the name of the parents so as not to identify the child, who is now 18 months old.
Kane on Friday said the parents, “were shocked and surprised by the late news that it was going to be a (no contest) plea, but even more shocked when the defendant, when given a chance to address the court, said nothing about the harm she did to the child but only that she ‘wanted to put this behind her.’
“Her callousness towards the harm she did to the child and his family and the lack of a simple apology was galling as was the support shown by the amount of people who were with her in court from the church and day care, including people who knew about the actions of the defendant on the day in question and failed to inform the parents,” he said.
The incident occurred on July 14 in the baby’s room at the day care center on South High Street, adjacent to the United Methodist church.
According to an arrest affidavit filed in August by West Chester Detective John O’Hare, Wright had dropped the young boy on the floor of the center classroom where she was taking care of him and other children, such that the sound of him hitting the ground could be heard by a co-worker standing several feet away.
One of the other caregivers at the center told O’Hare that she was working with Wright when the alleged victim, a 10-month-old boy, was lying in a crib being fussy.
Wright allegedly went over to the baby and flipped him on his stomach and put a “boppy pillow” on his back. She eventually picked the child up and carried him to a changing table, where she laid him down and a put her hand over his mouth. She changed the boy’s diaper, all the while keeping her hand over his mouth.
According to the affidavit, Wright then picked the boy up and took him to his “cubby,” carrying him by the palm of her hand on his stomach. She lowered him to within three inches of the carpeted, tile floor, then dropped him on his head, according to the witness, who was not named in the account. The woman said she could hear the thud on the floor from 10 feet away. The child started to scream.
Wright then picked the boy up and put him in a “bouncy seat,” placing a pacifier in his mouth, The boy dropped the pacifier and continued to cry, until Wright walked towards him, put her hand on his chest, and shoved him backward, snapping his head in the seat, according to the complaint.
When the other woman and the school director checked on the child, they noticed a bump and rug burn on his head. The child was taken to Nemours Children’s Hospital in Delaware, where he was kept overnight for observation.
Earlier, Bellwoar said that his client was an experienced caregiver whose behavior had never been called into question in her decades-long career and that the charges filed against her were the result of a mistake by the lone witness.
“Mrs. Wright has been involved in child care, special education, and teaching for over 30 years,” Bellwoar said after Wright waived her preliminary hearing in September. “She never had any complaints, accusations or problems before now.”
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
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