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Mother, grandparents of starved boy sentenced to prison

MERCER, Pa. (AP) - The mother and grandparents of a 7-year-old boy who was so malnourished that one doctor said he looked like a Holocaust survivor have been sentenced to prison.

The boy's mother, Mary Rader, 28, of Greenville, was sentenced to 5½ to 15 years in prison Thursday by a Mercer County judge.

His maternal grandmother, 48-year-old Deana Beighley received five to 10 years, while 58-yeear-old Dennis Beighley received 22 months to five years.

"This is the first photograph I've had to turn away from," Mercer County Judge Christopher St. John said, referring to a picture taken when the boy weighed just 28 pounds. St. John has spent 30 years in criminal law, 19 as a public defender and the last 11 as a judge.

The judge had previously ruled the boy's step grandfather wasn't directly involved in the boy's care at the home they all shared about 75 miles north of Pittsburgh, which is why he pleaded guilty to a less serious charge last month and received a lighter sentence.

Dennis Beighley pleaded guilty Feb. 6 to endangering the welfare of a child while the women pleaded guilty to the more serious charge of aggravated assault for failing to seek medical care.

District Attorney Robert Kochems has argued the adults purposely withheld food from the boy at his grandmother's urging because she didn't like him and ruled the roost. The boy's siblings were well-fed and healthy, the DA said.

"I was controlling, I made most of the decisions," Deana Beighley acknowledged at sentencing. Asked by the judge what happened if her husband or daughter crossed her, she said, "I'd become upset. I'd yell or make things harder."

Asked by the judge why she didn't call 911 to report her son's condition, Rader said, she feared her mother.

Still, the adults have continued to maintain that the boy wasn't purposely starved and had some sort of eating or metabolic disorder. They have acknowledged he should have been taken to a doctor sooner. He weighed just 25 pounds when county caseworkers removed him from the home in June - four days before his 8th birthday - after a neighbor saw him outside and reported a "walking skeleton" to authorities.

The boy was taken to Greenville Medical Center, where a doctor reported: "The young man is so emaciated he looks like a Holocaust survivor," police said. Another doctor said the boy was one month from dying.

Deana Beighley's attorney, Neil Rothschild, acknowledged the boy appeared normal just three weeks after being placed with a foster family. Rader's four other children, including one she bore while jailed in this case, are also in foster care.

"The only thing this child needed was to eat," Kochems said.