New York mother who brutally neglected little boy before his death put on trial for manslaughter

The Manhattan mother charged in the death of her burned and malnourished 4-year-old son was ordered held on bail at her arraignment Wednesday — with prosecutors revealing the little boy weighed just 19 pounds when he was deceased.

Authorities have charged Nytavia Ragsdale, 26, with one count of second-degree manslaughter and three counts of endangering the welfare of a child for allegedly letting toddler Jahmeik Modlin die slowly starved, according to a complaint filed in Manhattan Criminal Court.

“This child’s weight doesn’t even show up in the growth percentiles,” Assistant Prosecutor Heather Buchanan said in court. “He is below any measurable percentile compared to other children his age. The child had almost no fat in his body.

“This illness was chronic,” she continued. “This is not a situation that happened over a short period of time. This is a prolonged period of deprivation endured by this child.

The prosecution requested his pre-trial detention; her lawyer, Naomi Oberman-Breindel of the Neighborhood Defenders of Harlem, requested that she be released under supervision or placed on $5,000 bail.

Instead, Judge Jay Weiner set his bond at $100,000 cash, $300,000 insurance bond or $300,000 partially secured bond.

The boy’s father, Laron Modlin, 25, was also charged with the same crimes following the disturbing death of his young son on October 14.

Modlin called the cops the night before around 7:45 p.m. and told them one of her children had passed out.

When police arrived at the apartment on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard near West 144th Street, they found little Jahmeik in the back of an ambulance with his mother.

Emergency Medical Services took him to Harlem Hospital, but doctors said the boy was severely malnourished and “would likely die in the next few days,” the complaint states.

Medical staff at the hospital also noticed a burn mark on the child’s chest and added that he was suffering from hypothermia, police sources said.

He was then taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital for end-of-life care — and he died around 5:50 a.m. the next morning, according to the complaint.

Although both parents say they never withheld food from Jahmeik or their three other children, the boy weighed only 19 pounds when he died, 80 pounds less than his mother believed.

She also said he had been throwing up his food for months — then eating his own vomit, according to the complaint. She therefore only fed him “small portions at a time, because he cannot keep food down and has diarrhea several times a week,” she told police.

The father, Laron Modlin, told police he always gave his children food whenever they wanted it.

And he said he “must not have noticed his son’s condition because he is often playing video games or on his phone,” according to the complaint.

Doctors who examined the other children – aged 5, 6 and 7 – said they were also suffering from “severe malnutrition”, like their deceased brother.

Three of the four children are Modlin’s, the complaint states – only the 7-year-old is not his, although he says he considers him a son and cares for him as such.

None of the children were ever vaccinated or attended school, the complaint states.

The three surviving children are in the hospital receiving IV drips because they can’t eat real food, Buchanan, the prosecutor, said in court.

“They’re not able to support solids at the moment,” she said.

The judge also granted prosecutors a child restraining order, which limits parents’ contact with their children to phone calls only.

Ragsdale’s next court date is October 18.