Addison sitter sentenced to 6 months in jail for baby's 1995 injury
Nearly 15 years after trying to avoid prosecution, an Addison woman accused of violently shaking a 3-month-old boy was sentenced Friday to six months in jail for violating her bail bond.
Rosa Tellez faced sentencing only for skipping out on court proceedings after prosecutors dropped the original aggravated battery charge. Tellez, 43, did not have a criminal record.
The police probe began just before noon Sept. 13, 1995, when an unresponsive 3-month-old boy identified only as Juan was rushed to Elmhurst Memorial Hospital.
Doctors listed Juan in critical but stable condition with brain injuries and retinal bleeding. The baby also showed signs of earlier brain trauma.
Police and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services were notified.
At that time, Tellez told officers she was baby-sitting Juan in her apartment on the 0-100 block of Church Street in Addison when she noticed he was not breathing properly and appeared purple in color, according to court records. Police said Tellez admitted shaking the baby, but only to try to revive him.
Tellez, who was acquainted with the baby's parents, began watching the child and an older sibling about one month earlier.
Police arrested Tellez after an investigation. She was set free after posting $1,000 bail. After Tellez failed to appear in court one month later, a warrant was issued for her arrest.
When police went to her apartment, they found a note on the door, signed by Tellez, in which she claimed to have fled to her native Mexico for fear authorities would take her biological children away from her. Tellez also blamed Juan's father in the note for inflicting the injuries, court records said.
The case languished until May 28, when police stopped Tellez while she was driving a green 1995 Ford near Mill and Lake streets in Addison. She was ticketed for disobeying a traffic signal and driving without a license. Police also discovered the 1995 warrant.
Tellez, who authorities originally believed had fled to Mexico, was in Addison at another location the entire time. The boy, now 15, lives out of state and has made a full recovery.
DuPage Circuit Judge John Kinsella also placed Tellez on three years' probation. Kinsella said he would have imposed a harsher sentence for the bail bond violation if prosecutors were forced to drop aggravated battery allegations based on Tellez's flight, but they told the judge the time delay was not a factor.
"Obviously, the defendant should not be rewarded for her absence," Kinsella said, "but I cannot consider that in any way if the state's case was not dismissed because of this."