Mom Who Dumped Newborn Charged

A young woman was charged Friday with second-degree assault of a child, accused of injuring her newborn son before dumping him in a trash can at a Tukwila restaurant parking lot last summer.

Jean C. Yi, 21, of Kent, is scheduled for arraignment Feb. 3, said spokesman Dan Satterberg in the King County prosecutor’s office. If convicted, she would face a maximum penalty of 31 to 41 months in prison.

Yi remains free on personal recognizance and ordered to have no contact with the baby, now named Timothy Yi, or other minors.

The baby recovered from a skull fracture and is doing well in foster care, court records said.

“His long-term prognosis is unknown, however,” said charging papers. “Such injuries can manifest themselves as severe learning or developmental disabilities as the child grows older.”

Yi was arrested at the University of Washington, where she was a pre-med student, hours after the baby was found in a plastic bag June 24. A restaurant patron had noticed her acting strangely, jotted down her license number as her car left the parking lot, and called police.

Officers found the baby about 90 minutes after his birth.

Yi told police she had not known she was pregnant. It was her second pregnancy, she said - the first baby was given up for adoption. She attributed the infant’s injuries to his birth in the parking lot, saying the baby’s head must have struck the pavement as he left her body.

The infant’s skull fractures appeared to involve the kind of force “likely to occur in a car accident or a fall from a one-story window - or the infliction of a powerful blow,” said probable-cause documents.