UPPER MARLBORO, Md. — A man responsible for the death of a young child he was baby-sitting has been sentenced to 20 years in prison by a judge in Prince George’s County.
In August of 2015, Osman Sesay was baby-sitting his girlfriend’s 23-month-old boy, Ahmed Jalloh, at their apartment in Riverdale. An autopsy showed Ahmed died from blunt force injuries to his head and torso and also suffered a lacerated liver.
In September of last year, a jury found Sesay, now 29, guilty of first-degree child abuse resulting in death, second-degree child abuse and second-degree assault.
Calling the boy’s injuries “horrific,” Judge Sheila Tillerson Adams handed down a sentence at the top of the range set forward in a pre-sentencing report. That report had called for between 12 and 20 years incarceration. Prosecutor Donine Carrington had said the incident was so egregious, it “begs for a sentence at the top of the guidelines.”
Carrington also spoke to the boy’s mother after the sentencing. ”She indicated that she was ok with the sentence,” Carrington said. ”She, of course, will never have her child back again.”
Before his death, Ahmed’s mother had given him a toddler’s basketball set, and Carrington said the mother believes Sesay may have been angered by the noise the child was making with the toy.
One of Sesay’s lawyers, William Porter, had asked for a sentence on the low end of the guidelines. In court he called the incident a “snapshot” of a man whose life overall showed he was “not a monster.”
