SAN DIEGO (CBS 8/ CNS) - The mother of a 4-month-old boy who died after being left in a hot car for 14 hours outside their El Cajon apartment was convicted Thursday of felony child abuse and drug charges.
Sentencing for 24-year-old Jessica Quezada is scheduled for July 20.
Jessica Quezada was found guilty of:
Child Abuse
Possession of a controlled substance
Possession of drug paraphernalia
The jury was hung on the great bodily injury or harm charge.
The baby's father, 32-year-old Israel Soto, was acquitted of a child abuse charge, but a federal hold remains on both parents.
"We charged him the same because we believed that he was just as culpable as her, but the jury decided he wasn't," said Deputy District Attorney Carlos Campbell.
During the trial Campbell said the infant was "completely abandoned" as his parents slept in the morning of July 27, 2013.
Authorities said the baby's body temperature was 107 degrees when he was discovered.
Campbell said the defendants, along with Quezada's brother and his girlfriend, arrived home to their apartment on North Mollison Avenue about 10:30 p.m. on July 26. The four adults had gone shopping at Walmart because Soto, Quezada and their four young children had moved into the apartment a week earlier, Campbell said. Quezada's brother closed the back door to the parents' car before coming inside, and neither Soto nor Quezada checked on the baby, despite the fact that Quezada and her brother smoked marijuana 6 feet away from the car, Campbell alleged.
The next day, Quezada was awake for 30 minutes before asking about her baby's whereabouts, according to the prosecutor. Campbell said Quezada's brother found his nephew unresponsive in a hot car, and Giovanni died despite efforts to revive him. Officers later found methamphetamine in Quezada's purse and she had meth in her system at the time, Campbell told the jury. Quezada's attorney, Bart Sheela, said leaving the baby in the car was not an intentional act by the defendants.
Quezada faces up to 12 years and 8 months in prison.