I am definitely not of the lock ’em up and throw away the key mentality, but this sentence seems extraordinarily lenient. Perhaps the parents who sold their child will receive a harsher penalty for selling their baby:

A woman from Missouri who illegally bought a baby from a couple in Kewaskum has received a sentence that will not include prison time. Denise Novotny will not spend any time behind bars. She has to serve two years probation. The charges against Novotny were reduced to two misdemeanors for neglecting a child and not providing birth information to authorities.

Novotny, who already had six children, bought a baby girl in 2004 after she was born to Angela and David Schmidt. Novotny, who has a criminal record for identity theft, apparently tried to disguise the crime as a fake surrogacy agreement. Her attorney claimed Novotny thought that what she was doing was legal.

The judge wasn’t buying it. “Going through the surrogacy is the way they felt they would have to complete their family,” said Defensive Attorney Barbara Privat. “They thought this process was legitimate.” “There is no doubt in my mind, whether you had the surrogacy agreement or not, you knew this was not a surrogacy situation,” said Washington County Judge Andrew Gonring. That girl, Rachel, was taken into protective custody. A couple has adopted her, and she is doing OK.

The Schmidts were to be sentenced at the end of May.