The “fake mom” charged with snatching a newborn from a Manhattan hospital 23 years ago may have only reared the girl after someone else did the kidnapping, her lawyer said today.
“We don’t deny she raised her,” said Ann Pettway’s public defender, Robert Baum. “The question is whether she was kidnapping her or whether the baby was given to her.”
Baum said he’s trying to find a woman who five witnesses said was wandering around Harlem Hospital in a nurse’s unifrom around the time of Carlina White’s 1987 abduction.
He said police accepted the woman’s alibi, based on when it was believed Carlina disappeared, but that the presumed time may not have been accurate.
Baum also said defense lawyers hoped to speak soon with Carlina, who returned to Atlanta after her miraculous reunion her real parents last month.
His comments came after a brief, but dramatic, court hearing at which Pettway came face-to-face with real mom Joy White for the first time since her Jan. 23 arrest.
Joy White broke down in tears after watching Pettway plead not guilty to kidnapping, then ducked into a bathroom with several relatives to compose herself.
Joy White — who sat side-by-side in court with Carlina’s dad, Carl Tyson — refused to answer any questions after she emerged, saying only: “No comments.”
But older sister Lisa White said she locked eyes with Pettway during her four-minute court appearance.
“She looked like she has no remorse,” Lisa White said. “She don’t care about no one. That woman is dangerous.”
She also disputed reports that Carlina had turned on her parents in a dispute over the $750,000 settlement they got from the city over her abduction, saying the media “twisted” comments Joy White made on the “Today” show earlier this month.
Pettway said only two words — “Yes, sir” — after Manhattan federal Judge Kevin Castel asked if she was pleading not guilty.
Pettway, 49, faces up to life in prison if convicted.
She was busted after Carlina — who she told had been given to her by a drug-addicted woman — found a baby picture of herself on a missing-children Web site and was re-united with her real parents.
The FBI said Pettway confessed to swiping Carlina, saying she had suffered several miscarriages while trying to have a child of her own.
With AP