Shiprock Woman Sentenced for Federal Child Abuse Conviction

ALBUQUERQUE – Angela Sloan, 30, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who resides in Shiprock, N.M., was sentenced today to two years of probation for her child abuse conviction.   Sloan has been in a half-way house for the past three and a half months and will be spend up to an additional six months in the half-way house as a condition of her probation.

Sloan was arrested in May 2014, on a criminal complaint alleging that on May 9, 2014, she endangered the lives and safety of two children, a nine-month-old infant and a nine-year-old child, by driving under the influence of alcohol while the children were unrestrained in the back seat of her vehicle.  The children did not suffer seriously bodily injury when Sloan crashed the vehicle into a wooden fence and a parked vehicle.  She subsequently was indicted and charged with committing child abuse by placing the children in a situation that may have endangered their lives or health.

On July 21, 2014, Sloan entered a guilty plea to the indictment and admitted driving under the influence of alcohol, with a blood alcohol content of .23, and losing control of the vehicle in which the two children were unrestrained passengers. Sloan admitted placing the children in a situation that endangered their lives by crashing into fencing and a parked vehicle.

This case was investigated by the Farmington office of the FBI and the Shiprock office of the Navajo Nation Division of Public Safety and was prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney David Adams.