A man was sentenced Tuesday for failing to take care of his sickly mother, who died of a blood infection and was found with rotting bedsores and maggots on her body.
Brian White, 33, of Cincinnati, was sentenced to five years' probation and the three months in jail he has served since his arrest in Jorene White's July 23 death. He pleaded guilty last month to one count each of reckless homicide and failure to provide for a functionally impaired adult.
The bedridden woman, who had debilitating arthritis, was "being eaten alive by maggots," Hamilton County prosecutors have said.
Judge Jody Luebbers told White that he got "a heck of a plea deal" from prosecutors and that she wouldn't have been so generous, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
The judge warned White that she would send him to jail for the maximum sentence of 6½ years if he violates probation.
When she asked White why he sat around the house for seven years without working and didn't care for his mother, White said he wished he would have done more.
"I just wasn't thinking," White said.
Luebbers called the case a "disturbing" one, adding that White had a moral and ethical obligation to care for his mother.
Assistant Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier said that Jorene White suffered horribly and that Brian White "doesn't appear to care about that."
White's father was convicted of the same charges last year and received the same sentence. The judge presiding in that case also ordered psychiatric treatment for Darrel White, 65.
