A mother accused of killing her five-year-old daughter after the girl’s body was found in the family’s restaurant was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges.
Mingming Chen was initially been charged with murder, but Stark County prosecutors lessened it to involuntary manslaughter as part of a plea deal.
The 30-year-old also pleaded guilty to evidence-tampering, corpse abuse, child endangerment and obstructing justice.
Her daughter, Ashley Zhao, was found dead and hidden in the family’s restaurant, Ang’s Asian Cuisine, in North Canton, Ohio, after she was reported missing in January.
Mingming Chen, pictured right in court in October, was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges
Chen, left, was initially charged with murder and accused of killing her five-year-old daughter Ashley Zhao, right, after the girl’s body was found in the family’s restaurant
The report sparked a state-wide manhunt and police combed the nearby area looking for her. Her body was found the next day, still inside the restaurant, near the kitchen’s freezer.
Her husband Liang Zhao pleaded guilty earlier this year to attempting to revive Ashley and then helping to hide her body when he realized it was a lost cause
Both parents were arrested after the grisly discovery.
Authorities claim Chen repeatedly hit the girl, causing fatal brain injury, and that her husband tried to revive her before helping hide the body.
County Prosecutor John Ferrero said evidence and interviews in the case indicate Chen didn’t plan or intend to kill her daughter and that it was a tragedy ‘committed in a fit of anger by a mother who had never bonded with her child.’
Defense attorney Richard Drucker disagreed with that characterization, saying that Chen is apologetic and takes responsibility for her actions.
He also said that if the case had gone to trial, they would have argued that Chen’s husband, Liang Zhao, was violent toward both the girl and Chen and that he also bore responsibility in the death.
Zhao pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges including obstructing justice and corpse abuse, tampering with evidence and endangering children and agreed to testify against his wife. In exchange. murder charges against him were dropped.
His attorney previously said Zhao maintained his innocence in the child’s death. He will serve 12 years in prison for the guilty plea.
Authorities claim Chen repeatedly hit the girl, causing fatal brain injury, and that her husband tried to revive her before helping hide the body in the back of the family’s restaurant Ang’s Asian Cuisine
Chen, who came to the US illegally from China more than 10 years ago, got married to Zhao because he was an American citizen who was also Chinese, but ended up in a violent household. Had the case had gone to trial, the attorney said they would have argued that Zhao was violent toward both the girl and Chen
It was a sad situation for Chen, who came to the US illegally from China as a teenager in search of a better life, started a family with an American citizen who also was Chinese and ended up in a violent household, Drucker said.
‘I don’t think she’s a monster,’ Drucker said. ‘I think she was a woman that made very poor choices in her life at the time.’
Because she was in the US illegally, authorities say Chen is expected to be deported to China after serving her sentence.
Chen had applied for asylum in the United States in 2009 while claiming she was persecuted by the Chinese government as a follower of Falun Gong, a meditation practice outlawed by China’s government, and federal judges have twice denied her petitions to stay in the US, WEWS-TV reported.
Court records referred to her as Mingming Chen, though lawyers in the case now spell her name as three words instead of two.