Aggravated assault on child results in jail sentence

Anger over spilt milk will cost a Springfield woman a year in jail.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20140217/NEWS02/702179931

Published February 17, 2014 in the Rutland Herald Aggravated assault on child results in jail sentence By ERIC FRANCIS CORRESPONDENT WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Anger over spilt milk will cost a Springfield woman a year in jail. Amber Ambrose, 22, pleaded no contest to felony aggravated assault and was sentenced Wednesday to a total of 2-to-10 years with all but one year of that time suspended for hitting her 10-year-old cousin by marriage in the face with a glass in August while she was babysitting the girl and several other children at her home. The victim, Aspen Gravel, a Massachusetts resident, told investigators she had asked Ambrose for help pouring herself a glass of milk because the gallon container was full and when some of the milk spilled, Aspen said, Ambrose reacted by smashing her glass into the side of Aspen’s face with a twisting motion. The glass shattered in the process. Photos were shown in court Wednesday that had been taken in the Springfield Hospital emergency room the day of the incident. They showed deep lacerations across the girl’s cheekbones and around the orbit of her right eye with smaller cuts near her ear. Doctors reported the glass had lacerated her tear duct, and she was transferred that afternoon to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center so facial plastic surgeons could save her right eye. The eye was threatened by severe swelling caused by the injury. Police looking at the photographs commented that they initially thought they were being shown the results of an especially bad mauling by a dog. Family members told police that from the beginning, Ambrose was crying with remorse over what had happened, but they said she also characterized it as strictly an accident that she said was caused in part when Aspen grabbed her arm after the milk spilled, supposedly causing a “snapping motion” that caused the glass to flip into her head. Aspen’s mother, Georgi Jones, 36, told police that when she described Ambrose’s account to emergency room doctors at DHMC “the doctors said the injuries did not fit the story told” and, in their opinion, much greater force would have had to have been deliberately applied to account for the length of the wounds and the severity of the slashing the child had suffered. Jones wrote in a sworn statement to police that when her daughter was out of surgery and heard Ambrose’s version of events, Aspen immediately said, “That is a lie!” Jones said other children who were in the home at the time described what had happened to relatives in terms of Ambrose having gotten angry, saying that she had “smashed” the glass into Aspen’s face as a result. During Wednesday’s court proceedings, a victim’s advocate read an impact statement aloud in court that the 10-year-old had written in the form of a letter to Ambrose describing her ordeal during the past five months as a result of the attack. “I don’t know why this had to happen,” Aspen began her letter. “I get frustrated every time I look in the mirror. It’s hard for me to get past the scars to see the old me. What you did to me has changed me. Sometimes, I get mad and, sometimes, I’m very sad. Why did you lie and say that this was an accident? Why didn’t you call me to see if I was OK? I’m only 10, and I’ve had two surgeries because of this.” Referring to Ambrose’s two young twins, Aspen wrote, “I miss the boys a lot. This whole thing has damaged our family’s relationship. It bothers me that things may never go back to normal. Your life may be normal again some day, but mine won’t. Every day, four times a day, I have to put drops in my eye so I won’t go blind. There will always be someone to ask me, ‘What happened to your face?’ It’s too soon to know if I will ever forgive you for what you did, but I can tell you that I wish I could forget every single day.” Speaking after the sentencing, Windsor County State’s Attorney Michael Kainen said deciding how to punish Ambrose took some thought. “It was a difficult case,” Kainen said, commenting, “This child was badly hurt with permanent nerve damage and she will have to use eye drops for the rest of her life or she could get a crack in her cornea. Normally, we’d look for more jail time if somebody did this, but while (Aspen’s family members) are angry at what happened, they are all family members (and Ambrose) herself has two 16-month-old twins” who were in the home when Aspen was injured. “This is going to be a resolution where (Ambrose) misses her twins growing up for a year, but at the same time, they are going to be deprived of having a mother as a result of this for the year,” Kainen said. Citing confidentiality rules, Kainen said there was not much he could shed light on as to what other consequences Ambrose sustained in the immediate wake of the assault, but he did say in open court that the Department of Children and Families had launched its own investigation into whether Ambrose was fit to be around children, including her own, following the incident. “She did absolutely everything DCF directed to do after this happened, including completing Anger Management counseling,” Kainen said, adding, “In addition to her sentence, she’s got five years of strict probation that follows h