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Ex-Jamaica Estates kidnap mom gets released early

By Courtney Dentch

A former Jamaica Estates woman who pleaded guilty in June to kidnapping the baby she thought she had adopted 22 years ago was released from prison last month, just two months into her six-month sentence.

Judith Smiley, 55, formerly of 80-51 190th St. and now living in Albuquerque, N.M., left Rikers Island Sept. 26 on a conditional discharge, said a spokesman for the Department of Corrections.

Smiley was incarcerated there July 30 after she was sentenced to six months in jail and four and 1/2 years probation for a custodial interference charge as part of a plea agreement with Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Smiley’s early release was part of a local conditional release program, which allows an independent three-member board to recommend inmates serving terms between three months and a year for release, said Jack Ryan, spokesman for the Department of Probation. The board and program are not a part of the city agency, he said. The board looks for prisoners who do not pose a threat to society, Ryan said.

“She’s an older woman who is confined to a wheelchair,” he said. “The board found no likelihood that she would commit any more crimes.”

The board also sought input from Brown’s office, which opposed the release, and the victim, the boy Smiley raised as her son, who approved the release, Ryan said.

Smiley’s husband, Barry, 56, pleaded guilty to a second-degree kidnapping charge and got a two- to six-year term.

The couple pleaded guilty in June as jury selection for their trial in state Supreme Court in Kew Gardens was beginning.

The Smileys had been living on the lam in New Mexico, using the aliases Mary and Bennett Propp, for more than 20 years. The Smileys returned to New York last year with the boy, who they raised as Matthew Propp, now 23, and surrendered to the Queens district attorney’s office in March 2001.

The Smileys fled New York in 1980 when they were ordered by a Queens Family Court judge to return Matthew to his biological parents, who claimed the adoption that put the 15-month-old in the care of the couple was not legal.

The newborn had been taken from the hospital by his maternal grandfather, who allegedly tricked his 19-year-old daughter, Deborah Gardner, into signing adoption papers. He then passed the newborn to an attorney who gave the child to the Smileys.

Months later, Gardner and her boyfriend, Anthony Russini, the child’s father, went to family court to get the boy back.

The Smileys said they had decided to tell Matthew about the kidnapping and give themselves up despite reports that they had been forced to confront the issue when he needed his birth certificate for a job.

The couple’s lawyers had been trying to reach a plea agreement with the district attorney for the first half of the year, but Russini had been adamant that the couple stand trial. The defendants’ health conditions and the emotions involved in the case prompted the deal in July.

Judith was offered an agreement for a lesser charge and sentence due to health problems, Brown said at the time of the agreement.

Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com, or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 138.