Woman convicted of abusing stepson sent back to prison after Ohio Supreme Court reinstated conviction
Editorial illustration — Press Pass USAA woman whose conviction for abusing her stepson was overturned and then reinstated by the Ohio Supreme Court was sent back to prison on Monday, November 2, after a hearing in a packed Hamilton County courtroom.
More than 40 people filled the courtroom for a hearing on Amy Rodriguez's request to have a judge suspend the remaining balance of her prison term. But her attorneys withdrew that request before the hearing began, and Rodriguez, 49, was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs by two deputies.
Prosecutors had argued that a motion for judicial release is only available to someone currently serving a prison term — so Rodriguez would have to be in prison to file it. Her attorneys said they will refile the motion once she is again housed in a state prison. A hearing on that motion is set for December 7 before Common Pleas Judge Alison Hatheway.
Rodriguez was convicted in 2023 of child abuse charges involving her then-stepson and sentenced to three to four and a half years in prison. She has served just over a year of that sentence.
In January 2025, a state appeals court threw out her conviction, and she was released in February 2025, according to court documents. In July 2026, the Ohio Supreme Court reinstated the conviction — ruling, in State v. Rodriguez (Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-2573), that the trial court's instructions and verdict forms were legally sufficient — but Rodriguez was not immediately sent back to prison. By November 2, she had spent about 21 months free, and according to her attorneys had reconnected with her family, including two previously estranged children.
Prosecutors said in court documents that the abuse spanned four years and began escalating in 2018, when the boy was 10, and that it stopped only after she was charged in 2022. They said she "has never expressed even the slightest remorse for the things she did" to him. In January 2021, prosecutors said, she brought the boy to Cincinnati Children's Hospital severely underweight, malnourished and suffering from hypothermia, with a body temperature around 91 degrees.
Sources: The Cincinnati Enquirer, "Woman in torture, abuse case sent back to prison after Supreme Court ruling" (Nov. 2, 2026); Supreme Court of Ohio, State v. Rodriguez, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-2573 (decided July 9, 2026).
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