A decide dismissed a misdemeanor prison cost in opposition to a New York nurse whose trial was set to start this week after she was accused of manhandling a new child child in an incident that was caught on video final yr by an alert guardian at Good Samaritan Hospital.
Throughout a preliminary listening to, the protection requested for a dismissal, and prosecutors with the Suffolk County district lawyer’s workplace admitted they may not show the case past an affordable doubt, permitting Amanda Burke to stroll free on March 25, the day her trial was to start and greater than a yr after she was charged with endangering the welfare of a kid.
Burke was fired the identical day of the February 2023 incident, which shocked the Lengthy Island group when video emerged of the nurse roughing up a new child child.
A father recorded her by means of a window of Good Samaritan’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the place he witnessed the nurse slamming his 2-day-old son face down into his bassinet, in response to the Suffolk County district lawyer.
Burke later admitted to mishandling the infant when she flipped the toddler by its diaper, however denied that she meant to abuse or harm the kid.
On Monday, protection lawyer Robert Gottlieb welcomed the dismissal after sustaining Burke’s innocence since he took her case in February 2023, saying, “Amanda ought to by no means have been charged.”
“Essentially the most they may say was that turning the infant over by the diaper was negligence, nevertheless it didn’t even rise to the extent to challenge a warning to sanction her in any method, and the case was closed,” Gottlieb defined, noting that the infant wasn’t harmed in the course of the incident.
“The newborn was cleared, was not injured, didn’t even react. Didn’t even cry,” Gottlieb stated.
Following the decide’s determination, Burke hugged her lawyer and relations, and expressed reduction that her ordeal was lastly over.
“I’m simply blissful it’s over,” she stated, describing a few of the struggles she’s handled over the previous yr whereas going through critical prison fees. “It was a nightmare. I used to be harassed. Folks at my door, emails. I’ve an 8-year-old. I felt like she was in peril. It was a nightmare.”
Burke stated she felt assured from the beginning that she could be exonerated.
“I by no means questioned myself. Issues occur within the hospital day-after-day,” she stated.
Throughout a preliminary listening to, prosecutors shared {that a} little one advocacy skilled was “profoundly disgusted and shocked” over Burke’s tough dealing with of the kid, however finally concluded that the nurse didn’t intend to hurt the toddler.
“Sadly, regardless of the disturbing video … the NYS Division of Licensing discovered the defendant didn’t act with gross negligence,” the Suffolk County DA stated in a press release. “As such, we couldn’t show the cost past an affordable doubt.”
The result of the case didn’t sit nicely with the household of Fidel Sinclair and Consuelo Saravia, the dad and mom who claimed Burke abused their new child son, Nikko.
Whereas Gottlieb praised Burke as a “nice individual,” relations of the purported sufferer expressed anger on the decide for letting Burke off the hook.
“We’re very upset with this disgusting state of affairs and determination… about my grandson and this terrible lady nonetheless working as a caregiver,” the infant’s grandmother stated, in response to reviews.
There have been no safety cameras within the ward, so the incident would seemingly have by no means come to mild if Sinclair had not been standing outdoors the room filming his son.
The boy was finally discharged from the hospital and is reportedly rising up in good well being.
Burke nonetheless has her license to observe and is at present working as a registered nurse, however is barred from employment with Catholic Well being, which operates the ability the place she was fired.
The dad and mom by no means filed a civil lawsuit within the matter.
