An Indian woman accused of throwing her
18-month-old daughter into the Hudson river here and then jumping in has been allowed by a Manhattan judge to be released, without bail, for
attending a day-long psychiatric counseling at a hospital.
33-year-old Devi Silvia had claimed immediately after both she and her daughter were pulled out of the river following the incident in May that she had wanted the child to die so she could get revenge on her husband, who had
hopscotched the family around the US since moving them here from India a couple of years ago.
Now, the woman is claiming that it was not revenge but she was hearing voices, which the prosecutors insist is a fabricated story, according to 'New York Post'.
However, Silvia, facing an attempted murder case, was allowed to be released without bail to attend an outpatient psychiatric programme.
The judge's decision on Friday,
rendered over the strong objections of prosecutors, will allow Silvia to go home to her husband and get day-long counselling at Elmhurst Hospital while awaiting the disposition of the attempted murder case brought against her
after the baby's horrific near-drowning, the paper said.
"What she did was obviously an extremely disturbing matter," said Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lewis Bart Stone. "But at the end of the day ... I don't know if there would be a conviction or if the sentence would be on the high end, given her history," he was quoted as saying.
Ultimately, he said, it remains to be seen, "whether this is truly a case for criminal punishment or medical treatment."
Devi pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges and asked Justice Stone to release her in her husband's care until she faced trial.
Silvia, who has a Master's degree in Math, earlier taught high-school students in Tamil Nadu.
She and her husband J Prithiviraj have lived in New York, California and Illinois after their arrival in the US.
Prithiviraj now works for Oracle Corp, a California based software company.
The troubled mother had reportedly told her husband that she wanted to return with their two children -- the baby Jessica who was thrown into the river and her six-year-old sister -- to India but had been advised to wait.
Seema Iyer, Silvia's lawyer, indicated that
yesterday's decision by the judge could release her -- albeit without possession of her passport -- as early as this weekend, the paper reported.
Silvia, who is not allowed to leave the country, is being held in a locked psychiatric jail ward in Elmhurst Hospital and has also been barred from any contact with the baby.
She had thrown her daughter into the water from a pier at West 70th Street and then jumped in. Prosecutors said she told authorities at the time that she was "sad, lonely and angry at
her husband" when she did it.
After the incident, Silvia was charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child.
The couple's children -- both the baby and her elder sister -- have moved back to India to live with their father's sister.