A Florida woman has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for kidnapping a baby from a hospital nearly two decades ago and raising it as her own child.
Gloria Williams learned her fate in a Jacksonville courtroom Friday nearly four months after pleading guilty to taking Kamiyah Mobley on July 10, 1998.
“There are no winners and losers in this case. It’s a very sad case and many people have suffered, including Ms. Williams,” Fourth Judicial Circuit Judge Marianne Aho said during the sentencing, WXJT-TV reported.
In addition to the kidnapping sentence, Williams, 52, will serve five years concurrently for custodial interference. The sentencing is another episode in the saga where Williams posing as a nurse entered the hospital room of Mobley’s biological mother and secretly left with the newborn girl.
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Williams then raised the child as Alexis Manigo in South Carolina until her arrest in 2017 after detectives received an anonymous tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about the kidnapping.
Williams didn’t tell the girl about her identity until the then teen learned she couldn’t get her driver’s license because she didn’t have a valid birth certificate or Social Security card.
Since finding out about her true identity, Kamiyah has legally changed her name and reconnected with her biological parents, Shanara Mobley and Craig Aiken, according to reports.
“I believe now that this is over, we can continue on our journey of healing together as a family and support our daughter on her decision making,” Aiken told reporters after the hearing.
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Last month, Shanara Mobley testified that Williams took advantage of her being a teenage mother who gave birth.
“She preyed on a child with a baby. We wouldn’t be here right now if I was a grown woman. Because I was young she came in and preyed on a child,” she said.