Queens Babysitter who chugged cough syrup and slept while 11-month-old drowned sentenced to prison

Kristal Khan, 30, a Queens babysitter who put down shots of NyQuil and passed out while an 11-month-old boy she was watching drowned in a bucket of water, was sentenced Monday to three years in New York State Prison.

According to police reports, Khan fell asleep on a couch after taking the cold medicine in 2009, while James Farrior crawled into the mop bucket to get a yellow rubber duck that had fallen inside.

Khan discovered the tragedy when her own 4-year-old son woke her up and said the baby boy had fallen into the bucket, which contained six inches of water.

Khan called the episode a "horrible accident" she would live with for the rest of her life.

"I did love baby James and my children did also," Khan told the judge in a halting voice. "I did take care of him to the best of my ability. I did demonstrate poor judgment in taking NyQuil If I had noticed it [the bucket] I would have moved it immediately."

Khan was convicted last month of reckless assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter ordered Khan to undergo psychiatric counseling while she serves  her sentence, away from her own two children.

"Her children will be waiting for her when she gets out but what is the end for the parents of this baby?" Buchter said. "This baby deserved better care. This baby deserved a better fate. He should not have been treated as if his life was unimportant."

The boy's mother, Chrisann Josiah, told the judge she questioned her own judgment for leaving her only child with Khan, who ran the daycare center out of her brother's Richmond Hill home.

"I was a zombie," Josiah said, wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with her son's photo. "I cried day-in and day-out."

"This was not an accident," Josiah said, choking back tears. "It was neglect ... .The utter lack of respect she showed my family was disgusting. We want justice for baby James. We just want her to understand the degree of her poor judgment and the only way she can understand that is by sitting in a jail cell."
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown called it an extremely "sad case."

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