Under the agreement, Wendy Young could avoid all jail time
KCJJ Staff
02/28/19
A judge has accepted a new plea deal for an Iowa City woman accused of being drunk the day a child died at her day care.
Court records show Judge Sean McPartland on Monday agreed to the plea deal for Wendy Young, 49, of 3rd Avenue. Under the agreement, Young has entered an Alford plea to a Child Endangerment charge and was given a suspended two-year jail sentence, a suspended $625 fine and two years’ probation.
Police alleged Young admitted to having at least 10 beers in the hours leading up to several children age three-years-old or younger arriving at her in-home daycare on Oct. 18, 2017. At some point that day, a seven-month-old was found unresponsive and taken to the hospital, where the child later died.
When officers interviewed Young more than eight hours after the children had arrived at her home, they say she still had alcohol in her system.
This was the second plea agreement reached between prosecutors and Young’s attorney after an initial deal agreed to last fall was rejected by a judge. The terms of that agreement were similar to the one accepted by McPartland.
Young was initially charged with Neglect of a Dependent Person. Had she been convicted on that charge, she could have faced up to 10 years in prison.