Andrea Zalewski Sentenced

Andrea Zalewski killed her baby daughter, Lola Lieb, on October 29, 2008.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 12, 2009:

A 26-year-old West Allis woman has been charged in the death of her 3-month-old daughter, who, investigators say, died of acute methadone intoxication after being given formula that was laced with the drug.

A criminal complaint filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court charges Andrea P. Zalewski with one count of child neglect resulting in death. If convicted, she faces fines of up to $100,000 and up to 25 years in prison.

According to the complaint, West Allis firefighters responded to a 911 call in the 1400 block of S. 81st St. on Oct. 29 of last year. They found the baby, Lola Lieb, without a pulse and not breathing.

Her mother, Zalewski, told investigators that the baby was on a sleep apnea monitor that went off before she found her baby was not breathing. Investigators, however, later learned from a download of the monitor's memory that it had last been used on Oct. 22 for six seconds, was turned off and not used after that, according to the complaint.

Police following up with the baby's pediatrician in January learned that the mother had been on methadone during her pregnancy and the child was born with a methadone addiction.

The baby went into detoxification after being born and was medicated with morphine and phenobarbital a month later, common for babies with a methadone addiction, according to the complaint. After her release from the hospital, she lived with her mother.

The doctor told investigators that he recommended to Zalewski that she not breastfeed to avoid transferring any drugs that might be in her system to the baby.

...An autopsy showed that the child died of acute methadone intoxication and that the bottle she had used before falling asleep on Oct. 29 was tested and had traces of methadone, according to the complaint.

Investigators also found a syringe in the area of the baby bottle with methadone in the syringe.

Milwaukee County Medical Examiner Christopher Happy told police in January that the amount of methadone in Lola's system was so high that it could not have come from breastfeeding. He told investigators that the baby formula had been mixed with methadone.

Zalewski told police in January that she is the only one who made formula for her daughter and "stated if Lola Lieb was given methadone she must have done it but she doesn't remember doing that."

She told police that on Oct. 28 she was on liquid methadone and kept it on top of the refrigerator close to the baby bottles.

Baby Lola died when she was just three months old.

Had her mother not given her so much methadone that it killed her, she would have celebrated her first birthday already. Lola would probably be walking now, or ready to take her first steps.

Yesterday, Zalewski was sentenced in her daughter Lola's death.

A 27-year-old West Allis woman who killed her infant daughter by feeding her methadone-laced formula was sentenced Friday to a year in state prison and eight years of extended supervision.

Andrea Zalewski, described by her parents and attorney as severely troubled and mentally challenged, was charged in March with the death of Lola Lieb, who died in October, three months after she was born addicted to the same drug her mother had been fighting.

Zalewski, who has been out on bail and living with her parents, pleaded guilty in June to child neglect resulting in death, punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

Zalewski was sentenced to only one year for her crime, about the age Lola would be now.

She killed her baby and she faces a year in prison. That's all.

That's not enough.

...Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey A. Conen said he wasn't sure he could legally require Zalewski not to get pregnant in the next nine years, but said it would be a wise move. He made his comment after learning that she had become pregnant for a third time while the neglect case was pending.

Her attorney, Steve Kohn, said he would not object to such a condition. He had explained to Conen that after an emotional meeting with his client and her mother a few days ago, Zalewski had decided to end that pregnancy.

It is the height of irresponsibility for Zalewski to have become pregnant again. Unbelievable! She was awaiting her sentence in the death of her daughter, Lola, and she gets pregnant.

Zalewski's attorney told Judge Conen that poor Zalewski "decided to end that pregnancy."

So she ended this child's life, too. She aborted the life of her third baby before the little one took its first breaths. Of course, that's a decision, not a crime.

Conen recommends that Zalewski not get pregnant in the next nine years. Really? That recommendation is utterly meaningless. It wouldn't be meaningless if Conen had sentenced her to nine years in prison.

"That, too, is to a large degree an offshoot of this tragedy that she'll have to deal with the rest of her life," Kohn said.

How is Zalewski's most recent pregnancy "an offshoot of this tragedy"? What does that mean? What does it have to do with the death of Lola?

I don't get the feeling that Zalewski will be mourning her two dead babies for the rest of her life.

It seems that she's thinking of herself first and not concerning herself with the consequences of her behavior and its impact on others.

Zalewski told Conen she loved her daughter and would never have done anything to harm her intentionally. She also said she feared how going to prison would affect her 7-year-old son, who has been raised by her parents.

Zalewski isn't raising her 7-year-old son. He's lucky.

It's difficult to believe that she's worried about him at all. If she couldn't muster up enough responsibility to properly care for Lola, I don't buy that she's thinking about her son and how her prison sentence would hurt him.

James and Lois Zalewski each tearfully told Conen how their daughter had struggled with anorexia, depression, fibromyalgia, stunted maturity, addictions and other psychological problems.

...Before he imposed the sentence, Conen talked about the dangers of doctors recklessly prescribing opiate painkillers, and how the pharmaceutical industry's sales pressures on doctors were partly to blame.

Although Zalewski admitted her responsibility, she never specified exactly what happened. Conen said he believes she was on several drugs herself and just thought a little methadone would calm her restless baby.

Conen is bending over backwards to blame Lola's death on everything and everyone but Zalewski.

The "pharmaceutical industry's sales pressures on doctors were partly to blame"?

WHAT?

No. That's a ridiculous statement.

The pharmaceutical industry?

Give me a break.

The pharmaceutical industry didn't cause Zalewski to put methadone in her baby's bottle. It's such a stretch for Conen to blame what Zalewski did on the recklessness of doctors.

Zalewski is responsible for the death of her daughter.

How can Conen say that Zalewski "just thought a little methadone would calm her restless baby"?

A LITTLE METHADONE?

Justice was not done in this case.