Boyfriend Sentenced For Watching, Laughing As Woman Burned Toddler With Cigarettes
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- He begged the court for mercy, but the judge said what he did was "incomprehensible."
Anna Russell, 20, and her boyfriend Enrique Soto, 26, were both scheduled to be sentenced by Judge David Cashman Friday, but only Soto would learn of his fate: three to six years in prison and five years probation after his release.
Soto and Russell admitted to burning Russell's 19-month-old boy with cigarettes back in 2015 in East Pittsburgh.
The toddler's grandmother noticed scabs over the child's body. Doctors would determine those wounds, at least 15 of them, across the boy's face, chest, neck, back, arms and legs were cigarette burns.
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The boy's sister, who was 3-years-old at the time, told a case worker: "My mom burned my brother with cigarettes." She also said her mother's boyfriend, Soto, "laughed the whole time and said 'he is still alive.'"
In court, Soto withdrew his guilty plea, asking the judge for mercy.
Judge Cashman told him he was worse than Russell because he watched as the child was burned and did nothing and that the two of them had planned it.
Judge Cashman then asked how he could stand by, watch and do nothing.
Sources say Russell was in the hospital and will be sentenced next month.
Judge Cashman says he did not hand down a harsher sentence for fear it would not hold, since Soto was not a participant.
