Woman sentenced in baby’s death

A 20-year-old Drexel Hill woman who pleaded no contest to a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the death of her newborn son will spend 21 1/2 weekends in jail.

Judge Patricia Jenkins imposed a sentence in the standard range on Mia Sardella at a hearing this morning in Media. Jenkins said that aggravating and mitigating factors canceled each other out in the case.

The judge also imposed a two-year period of community service that will be served through a California agency called Project Cuddle. The group's mission is to reduce the number of baby abandonments and killings of newborns.

Sardella was sentenced two years after police pulled a dead newborn male from a duffle bag in a Drexel Hill car trunk. Police said Sardella, who was a Drexel University freshman at the time, concealed her pregnancy and gave birth while she was home on Christmas break. She hid the infant's body in the trunk of her Volkswagen Beetle, according to police.

Sardella initially faced a first-degree murder charge after Delaware County Medical Examiner Fredric N. Hellman concluded in May 2007 that the baby was alive at birth and died of asphyxiation.

In October 2007, the District Attorney's Office backed off that finding and withdrew the first-degree murder charge.

She pleaded no-contest in December to involuntary manslaughter, abuse of a corpse, and concealing the death of a child.

Sardella is the granddaughter of Albert E. Piscopo, chief executive of the Glenmede Trust Co., an investment firm that manages high-end portfolios, including the assets of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Sardella's ability to keep her pregnancy a secret raised questions about whether she experienced "denial of pregnancy syndrome," a condition in which women convince themselves that they are not carrying a child. Her grandfather testified that she told him she did not remember giving birth but recalled wrapping the body in a blanket because the infant was dead.

Police were contacted on Jan. 22, 2007, after Sardella's mother, Stephanie Piscopo Leone, borrowed her daughter's car and found the corpse stuffed inside a pink bag in the trunk.