SIOUX CITY, Iowa (Iowa Media Wire) — A Sioux City woman who pleaded guilty to the endangerment of her five-year-old child has had her judgment deferred.
Ashley Lafave, 33, had her guilty plea accepted on Monday, June 3, according to court documents. However, she did not receive a formal sentencing, and a Woodbury County judge deferred her judgment.
In the meantime, she will serve two years’ probation. As part of the deferred judgment, if she violates the terms of her probation, she could face a sentencing.
Lafave entered a guilty plea on April 17 for one count of child endangerment, an aggravated misdemeanor. As part of the plea agreement, she could have faced up to two years in prison and $8,540 in fines.
Lafave was originally charged in June 2023 with two counts of neglect of a dependent person, which is a felony. Under the plea agreement, the first count was amended to the lesser child endangerment charge, and the second was dismissed.
An investigation originally began when a lost child, later discovered to be Lafave’s five-year-old, was found at an elementary school on March 27, 2023. He had allegedly walked there himself.
When officials eventually took the boy home, they reportedly found that the apartment was “in great disarray.” Among other things, they found that the carpet was dirty with food and “possible” rodent feces, bugs were crawling on the filthy brown walls, the kitchen smelled rotten, and the refrigerator was allegedly filled with alcohol, according to court documents.
Lafave allegedly told officials then that the five-year-old had run away several times in the last few months and that he kept “showing up at neighbors’ houses or the school saying he’s hungry.”