Couple sentenced in baby's 2011 drug-overdose death
Couple was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to killing 9-month-old Milton Galarza-Rojas by injecting him with drugs.
THE PHILADELPHIA couple charged with causing the 2011 death of a 9-month-old boy by injecting him with cocaine and heroin, pleaded guilty yesterday instead of selecting a jury.
Milton Galarza-Rojas had needle track marks on his hands and feet on July 26 when paramedics found him unresponsive inside an apartment on North 7th Street near Wingohocking, where the couple was baby-sitting him.
Although Milton was pronounced dead at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children within 30 minutes of being found, it would be months before toxicology tests confirmed that he had died from being given drugs.
Viameri Santana-Berrios, 30, a cousin of the child's mother, and her boyfriend, Oscar Sanchez-Rivera, 26, were charged with third-degree murder and related counts.
Under terms of plea agreements negotiated with the District Attorney's Office, Common Pleas Judge Steven Geroff sentenced Santana-Berrio to 10 to 20 years in state prison and Sanchez-Rivera to 15 to 30 years.