The Manhattan mother charged with the dying of her burned, malnourished 4-year-old son was ordered held on bail at her Wednesday arraignment — as prosecutors revealed the little boy weighed simply 19 kilos when he died.
Authorities hit Nytavia Ragsdale, 26, with one second-degree manslaughter cost and three counts of endangering the welfare of a kid for allegedly letting younger Jahmeik Modlin slowly starve to dying, in response to a grievance filed in Manhattan Prison Court docket.
“This youngster’s weight doesn’t even seem inside the development percentiles,” Assistant District Lawyer Heather Buchanan mentioned in court docket. “He’s under any measurable percentile in comparison with different kids at his age. The kid had nearly no fats in his physique.”
“This situation was continual,” she continued. “This isn’t a situation that occurred over a brief time frame. It is a extended interval of deprivation endured by this youngster.”
The prosecution known as for her to be remanded; her protection legal professional, Naomi Oberman-Breindel, Neighborhood Defenders of Harlem, requested that she be reduce unfastened on supervised launch, or given a $5,000 bail.
As an alternative, Choose Jay Weiner set her bail at $100,000 money, $300,000 insurance coverage bond or $300,000 partially-secured surety bond
The boy’s father, Laron Modlin, 25, has additionally been charged with the identical crimes over his younger son’s disturbing Oct. 14 dying.
Modlin known as the cops the day earlier than at about 7:45 p.m. and advised them that one in all his kids had slipped into unconsciousness.
When police arrived on the condo off Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard close to West 144th Avenue, they discovered little Jahmeik at the back of an ambulance along with his mom.
EMS introduced him to Harlem Hospital, however medical doctors mentioned the boy was affected by extreme malnutrition and was “seemingly going to die inside the subsequent day or so,” the grievance mentioned.
Medical employees on the hospital additionally discovered a burn mark on the kid’s chest, and added that he suffered from hypothermia, police sources mentioned.
He was then delivered to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital for end-of-life care — and he died at about 5:50 a.m. the following morning, the grievance mentioned.
Though each mother and father declare they by no means denied Jahmeik or their different three children meals, the boy weighed solely 19 kilos when he died — 80 kilos lower than his mom believed.
She additionally mentioned he’d been vomiting up his meals for months — then consuming his personal vomit, the grievance mentioned. So she solely fed him “small parts at a time as a result of he can’t preserve meals down and has diarrhea a couple of occasions per week,” she advised police.
The daddy, Laron Modlin, advised police he at all times provides his children meals when they need it.
And he mentioned he “should not have observed the situation of his son as a result of he’s usually taking part in video video games or on his telephone,” in response to the grievance.
Medical doctors who examined the opposite children — ages 5, 6 and seven — mentioned they have been additionally “severely malnourished,” just like their departed brother.
Three of the 4 kids Modlin’s, the grievance mentioned — solely the 7-year-old isn’t his, although he claimed he considers him a son and cares for him as such.
Not one of the children have ever been vaccinated or attended college, the grievance mentioned.
All three surviving kids are within the hospital and on IV fluids as a result of they will’t eat actual meals, Buchanan, the prosecutor, mentioned in court docket.
“They’re not capable of maintain any solids at the moment,” she mentioned.
The decide additionally granted prosecutors a restraining order for the children, which limits the mother and father’ contact with their children solely to telephone calls.
Ragsdale’s subsequent court docket date is Oct. 18.
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