A Manhattan couple who kidnapped their eight kids from a Queens foster-care center have copped a plea deal that cuts more than 199 years off their possible prison term, their lawyer said yesterday.
Mom Shanel Nadal, 27, and her partner, Nephra Payne, 34, had taken the kids out of the facility on Sept. 19 during a family visit and fled on a three-state jaunt before they were finally tracked to Harrisburg, Pa., living out of a filthy van.
The pair yesterday pleaded guilty in Queens Criminal Court to two counts of custodial interference, while the more serious charge of kidnapping was dropped. Each of the eight counts they had been facing carried a maximum of 25 years.
Under the deal, they were sentenced to 90 days.
“It’s a huge victory — they were facing 200 years,’’ said their lawyer, Norman Steiner.
“There was no kidnapping, no felonies,’’ he insisted of his clients’ actions. “They took the kids out of foster care.”
Steiner said the kids have since returned to the three homes among which they were split.
Nadal and Payne now plan to try in Family Court to get them back.
The pair said they had taken their kids — ages 11 months to 11 years — because they feared that some of them were being abused.