Inset: Tiffany M. Lesueur (Franklin County Sheriff's Office). Background: The Ohio children's hospital where Lesueur allegedly injected a foreign substance into her child's IV (Nationwide Children's/YouTube).
A 35-year-old mother in Ohio will avoid prison despite admitting that she tried to poison her infant son by injecting human fecal matter into the boy's intravenous port while he was being treated in the hospital for suspected abuse.
Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Mark Serrott on Wednesday ordered Tiffany Marie Lesueur to complete three years of community control and to comply with all conditions of her ongoing child services case as a result of her actions. Serrott handed down the sentence after Lesueur pleaded guilty to one count of endangering children, records show.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the incident took place earlier this year at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, which is about 140 miles southwest of Cleveland. The juvenile victim was admitted to the facility on Friday, Feb. 6, due to injuries suffered from suspected abuse.
That same day, a hospital staffer saw Lesueur use a syringe to inject an unknown substance into her child's IV port, according to a report from Toledo ABC and CW affiliate WTVG. The medical staff subsequently notified the Columbus Police Department about the incident, reportedly emphasizing that whenever Lesueur returned to visit her child, the staff would monitor her interactions with the patient.
While going through surveillance footage two days later, hospital staffers allegedly saw Lesueur again try to contaminate her child's IV with a "foreign substance," the Columbus Dispatch reported.
The footage reportedly showed Lesueur entering the hospital bathroom at about 8:45 p.m. on Feb. 8 carrying a specimen cup. When she exited the restroom, the cup appeared to be filled with fecal matter, according to local ABC and Fox affiliate WSYX. Lesueur allegedly mixed the fecal matter with a liquid before using a syringe to inject the mixture into the IV line attached to the child's left hand.
Police arrested Lesueur and hospital staff immediately began treating the infant. The hospital has not released any information on the victim's condition due to federal privacy laws.
A judge initially set Lesueur's bond at $250,000 and prohibited from having any unsupervised contact with minors, including her child.