11/30/17
by News Department on 11/30/17Serious charge dropped...
A Schuylkill County woman, who had been facing charges in the death of her granddaughter, will go to jail, but the most serious charge against her has been thrown out.
Judge William Baldwin explained on Wednesday that he threw out a third-degree murder conviction because prosecutors did not provide sufficient evidence to say she did it with malice and instead sentenced that grandmother to the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.
Pietrina Hoffman was sentenced for involuntary manslaughter in the death of her granddaughter, Nevaeh Doyle who was found dead on the floor of her home on West Centre Street in Mahanoy City in 2016.
Hoffman had already been sentenced to 16 to 32 years for that third-degree murder conviction. That sentence has now been drastically lowered.
Hoffman now faces five to 12 years behind bars.
The district attorney's office plans to appeal the ruling within the next few days.
