Thursday, September 20, 2012
A judge has nearly halved the state prison sentence for a western Pennsylvania woman who tried to steal a fetus by knocking her pregnant neighbor unconscious with a baseball bat and cutting her abdomen in 2005.
Armstrong County President Judge Kenneth Valasek on Wednesday reduced 45-year-old Peggy Jo Conner's sentence to 12 1/2 to 31 years in prison. The Manor Township woman had been serving 22 to 50 years in prison for the attack on Valerie Oskin. Oskin and her unborn baby survived.
Valasek reduced the sentence after agreeing with a defense attorney that Conner was wrongly sentenced under a section of the attempted homicide statute that includes "serious bodily injury." Valasek agreed that was incorrect and resulted in a more severe sentence than necessary.
Conner pleaded guilty in 2007 to the attack against 31-year-old Oskin on Oct. 13, 2005
