Wichita mom sentenced to probation for leaving baby in hot closet

A Wichita mother convicted of misdemeanor child endangerment for leaving her infant son in a hot apartment closet while she took her husband to work has been placed on probation.

A Sedgwick County judge ordered Destiny Lee to serve one year of probation after she pleaded guilty to the charge Wednesday, the same day she had been set for bench trial.

The sentence carries an underlying jail term of six months, said Dan Dillon, spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office. That means if Lee violates the terms of her probation, she would be incarcerated.

Lee, 18, and Donivan Turner, 19, were each charged with one count of misdemeanor child endangerment after a maintenance crew discovered the couple’s infant alone and shut in a bedroom closet at Twin Rivers Apartments on May 7. The crew was in the third-floor apartment because the air conditioning had gone out; police said at the time the temperature in the closet had reached 90 degrees when the boy was found.

Turner pleaded guilty on Aug. 27, court records show. He was given the same sentence as Lee, Dillon said.

This story was originally published October 9, 2014 at 6:58 PM with the headline "Wichita mom sentenced to probation for leaving baby in hot closet."