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Bed-Stuy Mom Pleads Guilty to Leaving Daughter Alone Before Fatal Fire

By Ben Fractenberg | October 21, 2016 6:42pm | Updated on October 24, 2016 9:45am
 Leila Aquino, 21, took a pleaded guilty to leaving her two-year-old daughter alone in their Bed-Stuy apartment before a fire killed the girl.
Leila Aquino, 21, took a pleaded guilty to leaving her two-year-old daughter alone in their Bed-Stuy apartment before a fire killed the girl.
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BROOKLYN — The mother of a 2-year-old girl killed in a Bedford-Stuyvesant fire pleaded guilty Friday to criminally negligent homicide in exchange for a non-prison sentence, officials said.

Leila Aquino, 21, was facing criminally negligent homicide, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child charges after she left her daughter, Kaleenah Muldrow, alone in their Monroe Street apartment before a fire ripped through the home.

“This case is a tragic example of how dangerous it is to leave a child home alone," a spokeswoman for the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office said in a statement. "The defendant, who will never get her daughter back, has now taken responsibility for her criminal actions.” 

The mother admitted to leaving her daughter unattended. 

“I left my daughter home alone,” said a teary Aquino in Brooklyn Supreme Court before Judge Deborah Dowling, the New York Daily News reported. “When I came home there was a fire and she passed away."

As part of the plea deal Aquino will complete a program with the Women’s Prison Association and then serve three years probation.

Her lawyer was not available for comment.