FORT MORGAN — Amanda Holbert, whose baby drowned in a bathtub last summer in Log Lane Village, has been sentenced to probation.
Judge Kevin Hoyer issued a sentence Tuesday in Morgan County District Court of four years of intensive supervision probation.
He also imposed 100 hours of community service — with at least 30 of it to be talking to domestic violence victims and parenting groups — a $128 genetic marking fee and costs of $6,341.30.
Holbert, 23, had pleaded guilty in March to reckless manslaughter. The original charge of negligent child abuse resulting in death was dismissed.
Hoyer did not impose jail time as a condition of probation. He said there was nothing to indicate she abused or neglected her children.
“It seems to me that this was a loving and caring mother who made a mistake,” the judge said.
Holbert’s son Isaiah Perez, age 9 months, died July 27, 2008. She has another young son, Severio.
A grand jury investigated the matter before Holbert was charged. Prosecutor James Bartkus pointed out that the district attorney’s office could have sought first-degree murder charges but decided not to do so.
Bartkus asked the court to impose an eight-year sentence to community corrections.
It was up to the people to speak for Isaiah, he said.
“He looked to one person to protect him, and that person did not,” Bartkus said.
Holbert elected to spend about 20 minutes on the telephone instead of watching her child in the tub, he added.
“She thought she had turned off the water in the tub, and she had not,” defense attorney A.C. Lusby said.
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