2nd boy admits shopping cart push that critically injured New York woman
(CBS/AP) NEW YORK - A 12-year-old boy has admitted that he and a friend shoved a shopping cart off a fourth-floor walkway at a shopping center, an act that critically hurt a woman when the cart dropped onto her.
The boy pleaded guilty Wednesday to assault, as his now 13-year-old friend previously did last week. Both are in custody until court dates next month, when a judge is to decide their punishments.
Because of their ages, they could be ordered to spend up to 18 months in a juvenile facility, not jail, but their detention could be extended annually up to their 18th birthdays.
"Me and (the other boy) threw a shopping cart off the fourth story of the mall" Oct. 30, the 12-year-old told a judge Wednesday, with his mother and lawyer by his side. Like his friend, he acknowledged knowing that people on the ground could get hurt.
The cart landed on Marion Salmon Hedges, a real estate broker and volunteer with several charity organizations. She had gone to a discount store at the shopping plaza, in East Harlem, to purchase Halloween candy, her friends and family have said.
Hedges, 47, was in a medically induced coma for a time. Her husband has said she will need months of rehabilitation.
The 12-year-old has a history of being suspended from school, said city Law Department lawyer Leah S. Schmelzer, who represented the government in the Family Court case. But his lawyer, Sandeep Kandhari, said the boy has never been in legal trouble before.
"He understands the gravity of this," Kandhari told Judge Susan Larabee. "He understands that he has to take responsibility for his actions, and he's prepared to do so."
Kandhari asked the judge to let the boy go home for a few hours on Thanksgiving to his close-knit family; his parents, though not a couple anymore, live in the same household, his mother told the judge. Larabee declined to allow it.
The lawyer and the boy's mother declined to comment as they left the courtroom.
More on Crimesider
November 7, 2011 - Suspects in NYC shopping cart toss plead not guilty
November 2, 2011 - Husband of falling shopping cart victim Marion Hedges says her recovery will be difficult
November 1, 2011 - Woman hit by tossed shopping cart, pre-teens charged with assault