Saturday, March 23, 2002
LISBON -- A former baby sitter was sentenced to six months in a corrections facility for endangering a child she was watching.
Susan Foster, 45, of Cannons Mill Road, East Liverpool, was given the sentence Friday by Judge C. Ashley Pike of Columbiana County Common Pleas Court.
She will serve the time in a minimum-security facility that focuses on rehabilitation.
Foster pleaded guilty in December to endangering, a fourth-degree felony bearing a maximum 18-month sentence.
The plea was part of a deal reached with prosecutors, who recommended the six-month sentence.
Foster originally was accused of rape, a first-degree felony. But the indictment was reduced to gross sexual imposition, a third-degree felony, as a result of changes in Ohio law that redefines what constitutes sexual conduct.
Authorities, who never detailed what they believed Foster did, said she abused a child she was watching from April 1994 until October 1995. The girl was about 4 when the abuse began.