Mother Pleads Guilty To Neglect

Child neglect is one thing we can all agree is terrible. Well, A Joplin woman pleaded guilty recently to a reduced charge of child abuse involving a failure to get her daughter to a doctor in time to prevent potentially severe vision loss in one eye due to an inflammatory eye disease. The woman, 37-year-old Raeann M Cully, plead guilty at a hearing Monday in Jasper County Circuit Court to an amended count of firs-degree child endangerment. This was done in a plea agreement which dismissed an unrelated charge of forgery.  Cully had been looking at a more severe felony count for child abuse, which might have landed her up to 15 years in prison. Circuit Judge Gayle Crane ordered a sentencing assessment of Raeann M Cully for Dec 7.  Allegedly, Cully failed to keep an appointment with her daughter and it was believed to have failed to make another with any eye doctor until July 2018. When the girl had to be referred to an eye specialist in Springfield, they reported it as “one of the worst cases” of the disease she had seen after practicing more than 20 years. The girl was pronounced legally blind in one eye due to the negligence.