Arturo Cuacuas was sentenced after pleading guilty in connection with the starvation death of his 7-year-old son, in Newburgh (NY).
Cuacuas was sentenced Monday in County Court Orange. Defendant aged 55 had pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide in the death of child Peter Cuacuas. In the agreement, he cooperated with the prosecution in the case against his girlfriend, the minor’s main caregiver, Leticia Bravo (55), and will be eligible for parole in just over a year.
In March, Bravo pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced last week to 15 years in prison, delimited News .
Cuacuas had admitted that he did not help his son, despite noticing that he was mistreated by his girlfriend, who supposedly took care of him. He received an indeterminate sentence of between 1 year and 4 months to 4 years behind bars, court records show.
Peter weighed only 37 pounds (16 7 kilos) when he died of malnutrition, as determined by a Orange County Medical Examiner. Bravo admitted that she fed him insufficiently and did not provide him with medical attention.
She became Peter’s main caregiver during the virtual school year 911-2021. The boy only spent Saturdays at his father’s house, but otherwise lived with Bravo, a former child care provider in the city of Newburgh, 70 miles north of NYC.
Authorities said Bravo kept Peter locked up and hidden in a room, and did not turn him on to her remote classes in January of 2021, despite school officials having numerous conversations with her.
The 10 February 2021 Cuacuas took Peter to Montefiore St. Luke’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
In a letter read in court during his sentence, Bravo said he wanted to apologize to Peter “because my actions cost him his life. I am the direct cause that Peter is no longer with us.”
“All he wanted was a mom and I was never the mom he needed,” she added. “I pray every night for Peter’s forgiveness,” quoted the Times Herald-Record.
Several children died in the last few months of 2021 in NYC victims of alleged abuse in their homes. Other cases have also been reported in 2022. If you are a victim or suspect that someone is being mistreated, especially if they are a minor or elderly: