A western Michigan woman faces prison time after pleading guilty to perjury related to the investigation into the beating death of her 4-year-old son and child abuse.
Sonja Hernandez entered the pleas this week in Kent County Circuit Court in Grand Rapids just before her trial was supposed to start. Sentencing is scheduled for July 19 and an agreement calls for prosecutors to recommend 29 and 57 months behind bars.
Her boyfriend Elis Ortiz-Nieves was sentenced in January to life in prison without parole after being convicted of felony murder and first-degree child abuse in the June 2017 death of Giovanni Mejias in Gaines Township.
An autopsy showed the boy died from internal bleeding. He also suffered seven blows to his head, and cigarettes were extinguished on his body.
