Former Warwick woman sentenced to 18 years in daughter's death, neglect of other children
PROVIDENCE — For years Michele Rothgeb kept the eight children with special needs she adopted hidden away from the world, a prosecutor said Wednesday, depriving them of food, clothing, medicine and normal social interactions while posting their “photos and sob stories for all the world to see in order to leech off” good people.
Zha-Nae Rothgeb, 9, paid the ultimate price for Rothgeb’s “narcissism and greed,” Assistant Attorney General Laura Nicholson told a Superior Court judge Wednesday.
More: Former Warwick woman admits to manslaughter, cruelty in 2019 death of 9-year-old daughter
The neglected girl, who had cerebral palsy, died on Jan. 3, 2019, naked and face-down in a bathtub while Rothgeb went to Walmart, leaving a 15-year-old boy with autism to care for the other abandoned young children in the Warwick house.
“These children were neglected and suffered mental and emotional abuse,” Nicholson said. “When they should have been learning and playing with friends in community and school environments, they were hidden away, zipped up in mesh beds, covered in feces.”
On Wednesday, Judge Daniel A. Procaccini agreed with Nicholson’s characterization of Rothgeb and sentenced her to serve 18 years in prison: 15 for manslaughter, followed by another three for eight counts of neglect and cruelty of a child.
The sentence represented the maximum imprisonment he could impose under a plea agreement reached between the state and Rothgeb, 58. She pleaded no contest to the charges this summer.
In making his decision, Procaccini said he reviewed police reports and an investigation by the state child advocate, who found the state’s child welfare agency ignored concerns raised by community members and even their own front-line staff about Rothgeb’s ability to care for the children.
Nicholson said Rothgeb became the “go-to person” the state Department of Children, Youth and Families relied on to place children with complex special needs.
Meanwhile, said Nicholson, as Rothgeb basked in the admiration of social-media followers who praised her for taking in difficult children, she was using those same children to satisfy her greed.
Rothgeb would post pictures of Zha-Nae on social media, knowing "the more sickly she looked, the more sympathy she would receive, the more community support by the way of gifts, even a fund raiser to fix [Rothgeb’s] van.”
State Child Advocate Jennifer Griffith had described Rothgeb’s Oakland Beach Avenue home as a “house of horrors.”
As Procaccini read into the record some of police investigators' findings, several people in the courtroom — DCYF workers, along with foster parents who’ve taken in the children — wept.
Police reported the house reeked of urine and feces. They found the house strewn with garbage, bugs on the ceiling and a pile of soiled diapers on the floor of Zha-Nae’s bedroom. One bed in that room “had been soiled with feces and urine and appeared not to have been changed in many months.”
And Procaccini said investigators also found an unresponsive and emaciated dog that a veterinarian “believed had been poisoned by Rothgeb.” (Rothgeb pleaded guilty to animal cruelty as well.)
The records, said the judge, “Clearly establish that for over 10 years, Miss Rothgeb lied, deceived, obstructed and ignored the obvious everyday needs of the children in her care and custody.”
Her conduct was criminal, narcissistic and manipulative, Procaccini said, resulting in the “cruel and neglectful death of Zha-Nae and years of cruelty and neglect” for the other children, ages 2 to 15.
In evaluating Rothgeb’s chances of rehabilitation, Procaccini said he reviewed conversations and interactions Rothgeb had had with representatives of the DCYF, police and school officials. He found “disturbing patterns in which she either portrays herself as a victim or believes she has all the answers, or she manufactures excuses for everything or never accepts responsibility.”
“She has lived a life of manipulating those in authority, he said, and has “demonstrated little in the way of sincere remorse or responsibility for the lethal, cruel and neglectful conduct” that endangered her children.
Her chances of rehabilitation were “poor,” he said.
Prior to receiving her sentence, Rothgeb addressed the court with shackles dangling from her ankles.
In a muffled voice, and weeping through her COVID mask, Rothgeb said, “I loved my children. All my children. But I’m ashamed.”
Rothgeb said she just couldn’t say no when the DCYF called saying they needed a home for another child.
“They pulled me in,” she said. “They knew how many beds I had, [but] they said we don’t have a home. And I’d say, ‘Bring them over.’”
“I didn’t say, ‘No.’... I failed Zha-Nae and she died. And the other children. I thought I was doing better but I wasn't doing better.”
Background: Former Warwick woman admits to manslaughter, cruelty in 2019 death of 9-year-old daughter
Previously: Michele Rothgeb, charged in death of a child, now held without bail pending contempt hearing
Email Tom Mooney at: tmooney@providencejournal.com
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Michele Rothgeb gets 18 years in death of daughter, neglect of others
