March 27, 2012 By Christian Murray
A Woodside woman who killed her new-born baby by dumping it in the trash faces 10-years in prison and deportation.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown announced yesterday that Dawa Lama, a 24-year-old woman from 65th Street, who had given birth in a hospital bathroom last May has pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter for having thrown her infant girl in the trash and leaving the premises without alerting anyone.
“Today’s guilty plea is a just and fair disposition to a sad case involving a very troubled young woman,” Brown said yesterday. “The defendant has been held accountable for what was a serious but avoidable crime. New York’s Safe Haven law allows a parent to anonymously surrender their unwanted newborn infant to personnel in a safe place – such as a hospital, a police station or a fire station – and not have to worry about getting in trouble.”
Lama, who was arrested on the day of the incident, appeared yesterday before Queens Criminal Court Judge Lenora Gerald and pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter.
Sentencing has been scheduled for April 16, 2012, at which time Judge Gerald indicated that she would sentence Lama to ten years in prison. Lama, originally from Nepal, is presently being held in jail in lieu of $250,000 bail.
Lama, in her guilty plea, admitted that she went to Elmhurst Hospital on May 10, 2011, to register for prenatal care. After registering at the front desk, she experienced a strong pain in her abdomen and back and needed to use the restroom. While in the restroom, Lama went into labor and delivered the baby – who was later named Mingmar Gurung.
Lama then detached the baby from the umbilical cord, threw the baby in a garbage bin and left the bathroom. Before exiting the hospital, Lama went back to the front desk and retrieved her identification card. Mingmar, who was born alive and full term with no obvious deformities, was placed on life support but died seven days later.
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9 Comments
You are ignoring history – none of these problems are new or have anything to do with modern views of birth control. Post-postpartum has been a reality for thousands of years. Believe what you will, but do not assume that you’ve figured out the human condition and expect everyone else to buy it.
@anonymous
Your compassion is admirable but yes, she is a monster. A monster created by the culture of death that has prevailed the last 4 decades. The culture that puts a woman’s convenience, ambitions and sexual promiscuity above the right of the unborn to live – to the point where we can legally exterminate them at will and toss their dismembered remains in a dumpster and dismiss the barbaric act as merely, a “choice.”
She’s not a monster, she is someone with some real problems. Her act was horrific, no doubt; she she must have lost control. Sure, she should be punished, but we should show some compassion. Does anyone know her? Is this how she always was? Or did something snap? I think we should all realize that there were probably many factors: hormonal, cultural, economic, mental – who knows? Feel bad about it but let’s not have evil thoughts. We are all struggling and some of us will slip and fall. We are in this together and let’s leave judging and punishing to the guy upstairs. Only He knows what really happened, we can only speculate.
Think about it. Could any of you hold a newborn baby in your hands and dump it in the trash?
Any person with a shred of humanity would want to hug and protect that infant.
Only a monster could do what this evil woman did.
A very sad case. The woman was in a hospital and New York has a Safe Haven Law. She could have delivered there and left the baby there. Infants are defenseless.
This woman could have safely delivered in the hospital and given the baby up for adoption. She made the worst possible decision and now a baby is dead and she faces years in prison. We need to support the Safe Haven Law for infants and support crisis pregnancy centers which would have helped her. Instead, the city under Bloomberg persecutes crisis pregnancy centers because they offer an option to abortion and Planned Parenthood.
This woman is a cold-blooded, remorseless sociopath. She should be sterilized.
I’m glad you were not her judge.
Ten years plus and eternity in hell for this baby-murdering garbage.