Woman Sentenced For Caging Stepson

Severe neglect led to 13-year-old boy's death

A Gary woman was sentenced to 35 years in prison Tuesday for neglect of a dependent.

Kimberly Leona Kubina, 47, kept her stepson, 13-year-old Christian Choate, in a dog cage for the last year of his life.

The boy's body was found in a shallow grave in 2011, two years after he went missing.

His father, Riley Choate, was sentenced to 80 years in prison last month to felony charges of neglect of a dependant causing death.

Kubina pleaded guilty in May and had agreed to testify against her former husband in exchange for serving 25 to 35 years in prison.

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