A woman in Michigan has been sentenced to 30 days in jail after pleading guilty to running over her 9-year-old son after he refused to go to school.
In Dec. 2018, 36-year-old Tiffany Kosakowski dropped her son Julian off at his elementary school in Belmont, Michigan. Instead of going inside with the other students, Julian walked to the parking lot and stood alongside his mother's vehicle. According to surveillance footage, Julian grabbed on to the side of Kosakowski's car as she knowingly backed out of her parking space while her son was holding on.
According to court documents, Kosakowski began accelerating the vehicle and shifting the steering wheel from right to left. "Kosakowski admitted to moving the steering wheel from left to right, then accelerating the vehicle knowing [her son] continued to be next to the vehicle,” the filing reads.
Julian managed to hang on briefly before he rolled underneath the car and was run over by the rear passenger's side tire. Although the boy survived the incident, he suffered severe injuries including a fractured skull, traumatic brain injury, and broken bones, People reports.
During her hearing, in which she faced child abuse and reckless driving charges, Judge Curt Benson told the defendant that her actions were "simply inexcusable." Kosakowski told the Kent County Circuit Court that she must "live with this for the rest of my life."
Leading up to the hearing, 30 people wrote letters in support of Kosakowski. However, the judge told the defendant that he's unsure their support would remain intact if they had seen the security footage of the day Julian was injured. "Of the 30 people who wrote the letters, I’ll be quite blunt with you — I am not sure all of them would be as supportive, if they, like I, watched the security footage of this incident," Benson reportedly said.
However, Kosakowski clarified that her only concern right now is the health of her son. "All I care about is being there for my son as he recovers and supporting him every day as I have been doing," she told the court.
