Blue Grass woman sentenced to probation after child suffers chemical burns

Publish date: 2024-04-15

A woman from Blue Grass has been sentenced for her role in a 2023 incident that left a child with third degree chemical burns.

Janey Loper entered into an agreement to plead guilty to a lesser charge of child endangerment causing bodily injury, a class D felony, which was filed electronically on November 28, 2023. She had been originally charged with child endangerment causing serious injury, a class C forcible felony. The state refrained from giving a sentence recommendation and Beau Bergmann, Loper’s attorney, asked for a suspended sentence and probation. As part of the agreement, she was sentenced to five years in prison, which was suspended by Judge Patrick McElyea, but she must serve three years of probation.

While reviewing the pre-sentence investigation documents, Judge McElyea noted that Loper had been attending several parenting classes since the incident, was seeking employment and receiving counseling. He applauded her efforts, saying “I can tell you have remorse.”

Loper agreed. “This was an accident; I feel very horrible about it.”

The incident

Sometime on October 14 or 15, 2023, a child suffered third degree chemical burns on the buttocks after slipping and falling into chemicals that had been brought home by Eugene White and spilled. Arrest affidavits say Loper and White, both of Blue Grass, did not immediately take the child for medical treatment. Over 24 hours later, the child was taken for treatment and transferred to University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City, where the child underwent skin grafts. While in Iowa City, a drug test was performed on the child, who tested positive for methamphetamine.

White pled guilty to charges of child endangerment – bodily injury, a felony, and child endangerment, an aggravated misdemeanor. He was sentenced to probation in Scott County Court on January 11, 2024.

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