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Mother given prison time for toddler son’s death

PLATTSBURGH — An AuSable Forks woman was given prison time Monday for the death of her 2-year-old son.

The Press-Republican of Plattsburgh reports that Clinton County Court Judge Keith Bruno sentenced 22-year-old Patricia Giddings to four to 12 years in prison Monday morning.

Giddings and her ex-boyfriend, Brandon Bushey, 25, of New Jersey, were responsible for 2-year-old Ellyah Elvidge on Aug. 9, 2016, when the boy died from asphyxiation in a home on state Route 9N in AuSable Forks. An investigation from the county district attorney’s office, state police Troop B Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Clinton County Children and Youth Services revealed the toddler caught his neck in a notch cut in a sheet of plywood, which had been installed in the doorway to keep him contained.

With the boy unresponsive, the two adults did not call 911 but did drive him to Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh. There, Judge Bruno said, Giddings did not give doctors and nurses all the information they requested about what had happened as they tried to save the boy’s life.

Giddings and Bushey were arrested in December 2016 and charged with criminally negligent homicide. They have been in Clinton County Jail since then. Later a grand jury indicted Giddings on more extensive charges including second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. In August she pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, a deal that satisfied the other charges.

Second-degree manslaughter carries a minimum sentence of one to three years in prison and a maximum of five to 15 years.

Bushey pleaded guilty in September to criminally negligent homicide and is scheduled for sentencing at the end of this month, according to the Press-Republican.

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