Friday, December 21, 2001
LISBON -- A former baby-sitter faces a maximum 18-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to endangering a child she was watching.
Susan Foster, 45, of Cannons Mill Road, East Liverpool, entered the plea earlier this week before Judge C. Ashley Pike of Columbiana County Common Pleas Court. Judge Pike set sentencing for March 22.
Foster entered the plea as part of a deal with the county prosecutor's office, which is recommending that she receive a six-month sentence for the crime, a fourth-degree felony.
Foster originally was accused of rape, a first-degree felony. But the indictment was reduced to gross sexual imposition, a third-degree felony.
The reduced charge resulted from changes in Ohio law that redefines what constitutes sexual conduct, assistant county Prosecutor Tim McNicol explained Thursday.
As a result of the plea deal accusing Foster of endangering children, authorities say she abused a child she was watching from April 1994 until October 1995. The girl was four when the abuse began.