Woman caught with stolen baby to be sentenced today

Anniesha Ramsay, the young woman who was found with a stolen baby five years ago, was taken into custody yesterday for sentencing today in the Home Circuit Court, where she will learn her fate.

Justice Leighton Pusey will hand down the sentence. Ramsay’s lawyer, Kayon Thompson, has asked for a non-custodial sentence.

The 26-year-old administrative assistant, who pleaded guilty to child stealing in January, has maintained that she had agreed to adopt the baby for $500,000 but did not know that the infant had been stolen.

Ramsay also indicated that before realising the baby had been stolen, she told her friend several times to come back for the baby after encountering difficulties with the payment and the collection of documents for the infant. However, he told her that the mother was not interested in taking back the baby.

The then five-week-old baby, Nyyear Frank, was snatched while his mother was walking with him along Rousseau Road in St Andrew on the afternoon of October 13, 2019. The mother was reportedly forced into a vehicle with her baby by men who later took the infant and released her.

On January 22, 2020, the baby was found in Ramsay’s care at her home in Flinch Crescent, Kingston 11.

Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Jeremy Taylor, after outlining the facts in the case, shared the contents of a caution statement that Ramsay gave to the police.

Ramsay said that before the incident, she had suffered a miscarriage and had left home. She said she was in a “bad place” and had kept her miscarriage a secret. However, she confided in one of her friends, “Jae”, who told her he had a friend in the “adoption business”. She expressed an interest in getting a baby and her friend told her he would handle it but that she would need to get some money from her family to pay the mother.

Ramsay said they lost contact for a while, and when they resumed communication sometime in October, Jae informed her that he had the baby and that it would cost $500,000. Ramsay said she told him she did not have that kind of money because she was not working, but he told her that she could have the baby and that they would work out a payment plan.

She said they later met at Pavilion Mall in Kingston and she collected the baby, but shortly after, she told him to return for the baby and to keep him until she could pay as he kept asking for the money. Jae informed her, however, that the mother did not want the child, so she had to keep the baby.

About two to three weeks later, Ramsay said she returned to her family home and introduced the baby as her own. Sometime after, she was on social media when she saw images of the ‘missing’ child and contacted the mother, who indicated that she could not talk at the time.

Ramsay said she questioned Jae about the baby’s whereabouts and was told that the mother had given up the baby. She said Jae insisted that the mother had given up the baby willingly. Jae also told her to ignore the story on social media, claiming that the mother wanted money and had to build a story.

Ramsay said she asked for the mother’s contact information so she could get the documents, but Jae maintained that the mother did not want the baby and kept asking for the money. She said she demanded the documents, and about two days later, they had a conference call with a woman who claimed to be the baby’s mother and indicated then that everything was fine.

“At that point, he kept asking for the money. I told him I didn’t have any money, so I told him to come back for the baby. He said he’s not going to come back for the baby.

‘If I don’t want the baby, I should take the baby to the police station or do whatever I want, but they don’t want the baby back. They want the money. He kept asking me for the money. Then I told him to come back for the baby since I didn’t have the money,” Ramsay said in the statement.

‘BIG THING’ ON SOCIAL MEDIA

According to her, it became a “big thing on social media”, and as a result, she kept asking questions about the baby as she saw stories diferent to what she had been told. She said after seeing the baby on ‘Dear Dream’, she again called them to come for the baby, but Jae said he “Caa bada,” and she should keep the baby.

Following an argument, she said Jae blocked her, and she could not reach either him or the baby’s mother and was stuck with the baby.

“So in about late November, I began following up on the post about the baby. But I still thought the mother had given up the child and had to build a story. So I was stuck with the baby. I wasn’t hearing from them, and I never knew what to do,” Ramsay said further in her statement.

Thompson, in her plea in mitigation, asked the judge to bear in mind that Ramsay was not the person who had physically stolen the baby and to impose a non-custodial sentence. She also asked the judge to consider that Ramsay had suffered a miscarriage, was experiencing post-partum depression, and had genuinely believed her friend that the mother was giving up the child willingly.

The lawyer further submitted that her client was very remorseful and embarrassed about the incident and sorry for the pain and suffering that she caused to the child’s parents.

She also asked the judge to note that Ramsay did not waste the court’s time and pleaded guilty at the first opportunity, as well as fully cooperated with the police.

“My Lord, at the time, she was young and naive and depressed and did not know that what she was engaging in was a criminal offence,” Thompson said while pointing out that Ramsay is now a mother and sole provider to a two-year-old son.

Pusey, in the meantime, informed the court that he needed to read the caution statement before handing down the sentence.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com