A 39-year-old Tri-Cities mother is heading to prison for 18 months after prosecutors say she severely beat her 4-year-old son.
Lisa M. Foster was sentenced recently following a plea agreement in Benton County Superior Court.
She beat her son with a metal fan after he made mess in the kitchen.
The beating broke both bones in his lower left leg, forcing him to crawl because he could no longer walk, said prosecutors. Still, Foster waited a month to take the boy to an emergency room.
She told investigators that she waited to get him medical care because she thought he was faking the injury, according to court documents.
Foster and her mother took the boy to a free-standing Kadlec Emergency Room on Jan. 4, 2023.
"Medical staff advised that the child would have been in a great deal of pain and the defendant should have known (the child) was injured and needed medical attention," according to court documents.
Foster, who suffers from a substance abuse issue, gave multiple different accounts of how he was hurt, according to investigators.
She told her mother she slipped in the bathroom, told doctors she fell onto the child while installing security locks and told police she fell off a chair while installing hooks, said court documents.
Later, the boy told an interviewer that his mom got mad at him for making a mess in the kitchen and hit him multiple times in the leg with a "white heater," according to court documents. Police found a white fan in Foster's bedroom.
Child Protective Services had previously found she had hit the boy in 2019 after a bruise shaped like red hand print was discovered on his lower rib cage.
Foster also had a different child permanently removed from her care in the past, according to court documents.
In this case, Foster pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal mistreatment. She stopped short of admitting that she committed the crime, instead agreed to take advantage of a plea agreement, according to court documents.
The charges would normally come with a sentencing range in Washington state of six month to a year in jail, but the plea agreement came with an agreement for a sentence above the standard range.
Judge Joe Burrowes said he was troubled by the description of Foster's crime and didn't know if the exceptional sentence was long enough.
"I am disturbed that it's only 18 months," he said. "I'm not sure this is going to be enough punishment."
Defense Attorney Karla Kane pointed out that Foster disputes what happened and is working on dealing with her substance abuse problem.
"If it truly is an addiction, you need to get it under control," Burrowes told Foster and ordered the 18-month term.
He also reluctantly agreed to allow a dependency court to decide if Foster will get a chance to reunite with the boy once her sentence is finished.
