A Pennsylvania woman who disguised herself as a nurse before she kidnapped a newborn baby from a hospital was sentenced Tuesday to up to five years in prison.
Breona Moore, 21, apologized to the court as the Allegheny County judge sentenced her to two-and-a-half to five years in prison, the Associated Press reported.
"No mother should have to go through that heartbreak," Moore, of East McKeesport, said according to Reuters. "All I wanted to do was to love someone."
Moore admitted to the abduction that occurred in August 2012 at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC in Pittsburgh. Dressed in hospital scrubs that she purchased, Moore abducted a 3-day-old baby from its mother's room and walked out the hospital, Reuters reported.
Police found Moore and the baby, unharmed, six hours later in a janitorial closet in an office building in downtown Pittsburgh.
Moore was able to take the newborn by telling the mother her baby needed to have a medical test done, investigators said.
"This was not an impulse or spur-of-the moment thing," Deputy District Attorney Janet Necessary said according to the AP. "The defendant made a detailed plan."
Moore apparently kept a charade going by telling her friends she was pregnant in the weeks leading up to the kidnapping, prosecutors said. But her family did not believe her story and alerted police once they heard news that a baby was abducted.
Blaine Jones, Moore's defense attorney, said his client suffered from mental health issues and became depressed when she found out she was unable to have children, according to Reuters.
"She was remorseful from the moment she was able to get mentally better," Jones said. "Breona knew that she had done wrong."
Moore originally faced up to 60 years in prison. The judge sentenced Moore to 10 years of probation in addition to prison time.
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