Ex-Jail Guard Gets Prison Time For Behind-Bars Affair With Convicted Cop Killer Ronell Wilson
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A former jail guard who admitted to a behind-bars affair with a man convicted of killing two New York City police officers has been sentenced to one year in prison.
Nancy Gonzalez, 30, received the sentence on Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn.
As WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reported, Gonzalez was in tears as she begged federal Judge Brian Cogan to show her mercy.
She asked to be spared prison time, saying she wanted to be free to visit a baby son, Justus, fathered by the convicted killer in 2012.
A tearful Gonzalez asked for "a chance to pick up the pieces of my life and mend it for Justus' sake.'' Her lawyers described how she had sought psychotherapy and taken other steps to overcome a troubled upbringing and win back custody of her child, who is in the care of relatives.
Cogan said Gonzalez's offense went beyond having an impulsive tryst with an inmate. He cited evidence that she deliberately allowed the man, Ronell Wilson, to impregnate her to try to win him sympathy, and that she enabled him to create "medieval'' conditions in his cellblock that put other guards and inmates at risk.
"This is not a person who understands all the things that are wrong with her. --- I just don't think she's connected to reality,'' he said.
By adding an extra day to the one-year term, the judge qualified Gonzalez for time off for good behavior. She also must serve three years of probation once she completes her sentence.
Gonzalez pleaded guilty in July to charges of unlawfully having sex with Wilson in 2012 while working the night shift at a federal jail in Brooklyn. She became pregnant a few months into the affair and had a baby.
Wilson was convicted in the 2003 shootings of undercover officers Rodney Andrews and James Nemorin in a gun sting gone awry on Staten Island. He was sentenced to death last year at a retrial.
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