Las Vegas mother gets prison after death of son
Amber Scott said Thursday that she made the "poorest decision ever" not leaving her boyfriend before he killed her 4-year-old son in 2007 and staged a car accident to cover up the death.
"I pay every day I wake up that my son's not there," a sobbing Scott told District Judge Douglas Herndon at her sentencing in the death of Trenton Quick.
Herndon sentenced Scott, 26, to three to 10 years in prison on one count of child abuse and neglect with substantial bodily harm under the terms of a March plea agreement she reached with prosecutors.
In what is called an Alford plea, Scott did not admit guilt but acknowledged that prosecutors could prove their case.
Herndon told Scott that if he wasn't bound by the plea deal, he would have sentenced her to more prison time for failing to walk away from her "piece of (expletive) boyfriend," Trevor John Carter, and turning a blind eye to his prolonged child abuse against Trenton and her other children.
The boy's grandparents, Richard and Carol Quick, both testified emotionally that they blamed an indifferent Scott for allowing the fatal abuse to occur.
Marshals handcuffed Scott and escorted her to the Clark County Detention Center immediately after her sentencing. Earlier this year, Herndon sentenced Carter, 24, to 17 years to life in prison. He had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder by child abuse and three counts of child abuse.
Carter crashed his car in the desert near Losee Road, about a mile from the Las Vegas Beltway, one week before Christmas 2007. He told officers he crashed while racing Quick to the hospital after noticing blood in the boy's mouth following an outing of target shooting.
North Las Vegas police doubted Carter's story, and an autopsy confirmed the suspicions. The coroner ruled Quick died from blunt trauma to his abdominal area and had been a victim of prolonged child abuse. He was dead before the crash.
The coroner ruled Quick had 35 injuries on his body, many of which were caused before the crash.
In 2009, Carter admitted in court he struck Quick with belts and his hands. In one incident, he pushed the boy off a ladder.
Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.
