New Mexico mom sentenced for tossing baby in trash bin

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press

A New Mexico teenage mother has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for tossing her newborn son into a trash bin behind a shopping center. Alexis Avila was sentenced Monday in state district court after being convicted in April of felony child abuse involving great bodily harm. The judge suspended two years of the sentence, citing mental health concerns and Avila’s age. She was 18 when she threw the boy into the bin. People looking through the trash container found the baby hours later and he survived. Avila told the judge she regrets that the first hours of her son’s life were traumatic and that she does love him.