The mother of a young Newton child who fell through an open second-story window at Woodland Heights Apartments on August 14th, was sentenced in a plea bargain Monday. Captain Chris Wing with the Newton Police Department said the child suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was treated in the Emergency Room at MercyOne Newton Medical Center. The child’s mother, Thirty-five-year-old Angelia Michele Varner, was facing a class C felony charge of Child Neglect. But she pleaded guilty to a lesser aggravated misdemeanor charge of child neglect. District Court Judge Charles Sinnard gave her a deferred judgement with two years of probation and an $855 civil penalty. 

According to Captain Wing, the child’s two-story fall to the ground was from an open bedroom window that had a significantly torn screen. The Newton Police Department’s joint investigation with the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services determined the child’s fall, shortly before 7 p.m. on August 14th, occurred while Varner was in the parking lot of the apartment building. 

Varner has a sentencing that’s expected to be finalized later this week in another felony case involving her children. In September, Newton Police allege Varner fell asleep in her bedroom with the door closed, leaving her three children unsupervised. Officers entered her Woodland Heights Apartment after Varner’s oldest child was found outside the apartment, attempting to get someone inside to open the door.