BURLINGTON, MASS. (WHDH) - A former Burlington day care operator who once faced life behind bars for causing the death of an infant in her care was sentenced Friday to up to four years in state prison.
Pallavi Macharla, 44, was initially convicted of second-degree murder in connection with the shaken baby death of a 6-month-girl. In August, a Middlesex Superior Court judge reduced the verdict to involuntary manslaughter.
Macharla expressed remorse at the sentencing hearing, telling the court, “I loved Ridhima so much, dearly as I loved my daughter. I did not cause any harm to her.”
Macharla, a physician in her native India who ran a daycare out of her Burlington home, shook Ridhima Dhekane in March 2014 so violently her brain bled.
During her trial, prosecutors suggested Macharla was frustrated by Ridhima’s crying and that she shook the baby to the point of death.
The defense said the baby became unresponsive after vomiting on applesauce. Macharla took the stand in her own defense to describe how she heard the baby gurgle and saw her eyes close.
Prosecutors were seeking a sentence of 10-15 years in prison. Macharla’s defense argued for a sentence of less than a year over deportation fears.
“The sentence was not a harsh one. It was — in the eyes of many people — lenient,” defense attorney J.W. Carney Jr. told reporters. “We thought that the judge should have gone either further.
Dhekane’s family opted not to speak following the hearing.
A spokesperson for Macharla told reporters that she “doesn’t deserve to be in jail” and that the “prosecution is trying to punish the innocent in the name of protecting children.”
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