A Cincinnati woman convicted of abusing her stepson was sent back to prison on Monday, Nov. 2, after her attorneys withdrew a request to suspend the rest of her sentence before the hearing began, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. Amy Rodriguez, 49, was led out of a Hamilton County courtroom in handcuffs by two deputies, according to the Enquirer.
More than 40 people packed the courtroom for the hearing on Rodriguez’s request to have a judge suspend the remaining balance of her prison term, the Enquirer reported. Prosecutors had argued that a motion for judicial release is only available to someone currently serving a prison term, so Rodriguez would have to be in prison to file it, according to the Enquirer.
Rodriguez’s attorneys told the court they will refile the motion for judicial release once she is again housed in a state prison, the Enquirer reported. A hearing on that motion is set for Dec. 7 before Common Pleas Judge Alison Hatheway.
The case has taken an unusual path through the courts. Rodriguez was convicted in 2023 of child abuse charges involving her then-stepson and sentenced to three to four and a half years in prison, of which she has served just over a year, according to court documents cited by the Enquirer. In January 2025, a state appeals court threw out her conviction, and she was released in February 2025.
In July of this year, the Ohio Supreme Court reinstated the conviction, but Rodriguez was not immediately sent back to prison, the Enquirer reported. By Nov. 2, she had spent about 21 months free, and her attorneys said she had reconnected with her family, including two previously estranged children, according to the Enquirer.
Prosecutors said in court documents that Rodriguez abused the boy over four years, beginning in 2018 when he was 10 years old, and that it stopped only after she was charged in 2022, the Enquirer reported. Prosecutors said she forced the boy to lean against a wall by his fingertips for hours and stand in place for entire days, played loud music in his bedroom and intentionally malnourished him, according to the Enquirer. In January 2021, the boy was brought to Cincinnati Children’s severely underweight and malnourished, with hypothermia and a body temperature around 91 degrees, prosecutors said, according to the Enquirer.
What happens next: Rodriguez returns to state prison to serve the balance of her sentence while her attorneys prepare the new judicial-release motion, with the next hearing scheduled for Dec. 7 in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court.