Jeanerette woman sentenced on cruelty to infant daughter charge

A 28-year-old Jeanerette woman, who confessed in 2012 to violently shaking her infant daughter, causing a traumatic head injury, has been sentenced to five years in jail and five years of supervised probation, Assistant District Attorney Erica Rose said in a news release.
On Tuesday, Roxanne Rivers, 28, of Jeanerette, was sentenced by District Judge Paul deMahy to the maximum sentence of 10 years at hard labor after Rivers pleaded guilty to one count of cruelty to a juvenile.
Rivers will serve five years in jail then be placed on supervised probation after her release for a period of five years. Special conditions of her probation include she has no custody or unsupervised visitation with any child under the age of 18, including her own children.
In January 2011, Rivers’ 5-month-old daughter was transported by helicopter to Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans, later being diagnosed with non-accidental traumatic head injury, Rose said.
On July 12, 2012, Rivers confessed to St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives that while her baby was strapped in a car seat, she shook the baby really hard at least three times because her baby would not stop crying, Rose said. The victim is now in the custody of her paternal grandmother, Rose said.