KEW GARDENS — A 23−year−old homeless woman pleaded guilty Monday to manslaughter in the suffocation death of her 4−month−old son, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
Yoneli Rodriguez faces 15 years in prison at her sentencing May 22, the DA said.
By pleading guilty, Rodriguez admitted to placing a pillow over the face of the infant, Darnel Rodriguez, while staying at the Lincoln Motor Inn in Jamaica March 30, 2007. Despite the fact that the hotel is right across the street from Jamaica Hospital, Rodriguez took her child via taxi to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead five hours later.
“He, like all children, deserved the opportunity to have a full and rewarding life, but, unfortunately, his mother thought otherwise,” Brown said in a statement. “She will now have to live with what she did for the rest of her life.”
