MOM TO BE SENTENCED IN BOY'S DEATH

Author: MATT GRYTA - News Staff Reporter

Jessica Vitale-Elgie has admitted that her lack of action contributed to her son's death, and she will be punished for that this week.

But Vitale-Elgie has cancer, and her lawyers will argue that because of her illness, her sentence should not include prison time.

Vitale-Elgie, 38, pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide in the death of Casey "C.J." Elgie, who was 5 when he died Sept. 1, 2000, a day after he swallowed a detergent solution while she was disciplining him in her Amherst home.

Vitale-Elgie has acknowledged that she let her son suffer for hours before he was taken to Children's Hospital, where he died the next day.

Under the negligent-homicide charge, she could face a state prison term of up to four years. Her lawyers have said she agreed to plead guilty to the charge mainly to spare her daughter, Marissa, from court testimony. Marissa was the only eyewitness to many of the events that led to Casey's death, defense lawyer Michael S. Taheri said.

Taheri and co-counsel Peter J. Todoro Jr. said they hope State Supreme Court Justice Penny M. Wolfgang imposes a nonjail sentence when Vitale-Elgie returns to court for sentencing Thursday. Wolfgang has agreed to consider the request.

Spokesmen for the Erie County district attorney's office declined to comment.

Currently suspended with pay from her Buffalo teaching job, Vitale-Elgie taught in the Buffalo Public Schools from January 1987 until October 1997, when she left because of a high-risk pregnancy, both attorneys said.

Vitale-Elgie has been treated for lymphoma for the past seven years, Taheri and Todoro said.

"She's being closely monitored by her physicians, and she would like to teach again, but she's got to get through this present situation before she decides her next steps," said Taheri.

Taheri said he and Todoro are concerned that because of Vitale-Elgie's need for "ongoing medical monitoring" and her great potential for infections, she would physically deteriorate behind bars.

e-mail: mgryta@buffnews.com