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No Jail Sentence Recommended for Marion Hedges Shopping Cart Pusher

By DNAinfo Staff on January 17, 2012 8:59pm

A sketch of the boys accused of pushing a shopping cart off of a Harlem parking garage, critically injuring philanthropist Marion Hedges.
A sketch of the boys accused of pushing a shopping cart off of a Harlem parking garage, critically injuring philanthropist Marion Hedges.
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Jane Rosenberg

MANHATTAN FAMILY COURT — A 12-year-old boy who admitted tossing a shopping cart onto philanthropist Marion Hedges at an East Harlem mall, knocking her into a coma, should not get jail time as a part of his sentence, the Department of Probation decided.

The move comes as the judge decided to free the boy temporarily on Wednesday to see his ailing grandfather — the first time the boy or his 13-year-old accomplice have been allowed to leave juvenile detention since the Oct. 30 tragedy at East River Plaza.

In a Department of Probation report, read from in court Tuesday agency supervisor Verdel Dent during a sentencing hearing, the agency recommended "intense probation" for the child but did not endorse juvenile incarceration for the boy.

However, the judge gets the final say in the sentencing and can decide to keep him and the other boy in a juvenile detention center until they turn 18.

The 12-year-old, whose name is being withheld by DNAinfo because of his age, has been held in a juvenile detention facility since his Oct. 31 arrest but was granted a pass to leave the facility for the first time on Tuesday to visit his grandfather in the hospital.

"[The grandfather] had a stroke and his health is deteriorating. I don't know the prognosis but it is certainly not favorable," the boy's attorney, William Nicholas argued as the boy and his mother cried in court.

"We don't know how long he has. He's 84," his tearful mother told the judge.

Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Susan Larabee, who has been adamantly opposed to releasing either this boy or his 13-year-old co-defendant, said she would let him out on a supervised three-hour trip on Wednesday.

Both boys pleaded guilty to assault in connection to the Oct. 30th incident that shocked the city.

Hedges, an Upper West Side mom and avid philanthropist, was permanently disabled and nearly died according to reports.

She spent several weeks in Harlem Hospital after the incident before she was released. Prosecutors have not discussed the extent of her injuries.