Grand jury indicts woman in '87 baby abduction

Ann Pettway is charged with one count of kidnapping
in the abduction of Carlina Renae White, now 23.

A woman suspected of snatching an infant from a New York hospital in 1987, has been indicted on federal kidnapping, according to court papers released Thursday.

Ann Pettway was charged with one count of kidnapping in the abduction of Carlina Renae White, now 23, who was reunited with her biological mother in January. According to court documents filed in the case last month, Pettway allowed to take the girl out of a Harlem hospital after suffering multiple miscarriages.

Pettway said the grand jury "knowingly" seized the baby, according to a copy of the indictment by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Pettway turned himself in last month at the FBI office in Bridgeport, Connecticut, FBI spokesman William Reiner said. She faces up to 20 years to life in prison and a fine of up to $ 250,000 if convicted.

White tracked down her birth family in early January, said she had a nagging feeling throughout her life she was raised by a family where they do not belong. Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said White's suspicions grew after the woman who raised her was unable to produce her birth certificate.

White's mother, Joy White, told the New York Post last month that she last saw her daughter when she was 19 days old. They took her to a hospital Harlem on August 4, 1987, because the baby had a high fever, a New York police official said. Carlina was admitted to the hospital, and her mother went home to rest. When she returned, the baby was gone.

"That was a big part of my heart that was just torn," Carlina White's biological father, Carl Tyson, told the Post in relation to her disappearance.

Pettway is scheduled for a hearing on February 24.