Caregiver pleads guilty in starvation death of 7-year-old boy

A caregiver has pleaded guilty to charges in the starvation death of a 7-year-old boy Newburgh boy.

News 12 Staff

Mar 16, 2022, 4:35 PM

Updated 997 days ago

Share:

A caregiver has pleaded guilty to charges in the starvation death of a 7-year-old boy Newburgh boy.
Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler tells News 12 that Leticia Bravo pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of Peter Cuacuas. Bravo was the girlfriend of the boy's father and was his primary caregiver. She was accused of starving the boy and locking him in a room in the days before his death last February.
Sentencing is set for June 21. The DA is recommending 15 years in state prison.
Hoovler say Cuacuas weighed 37 pounds when his body was discovered. Cuacuas was enrolled in online learning in Newburgh during the pandemic and had missed weeks of school before he died. Hoovler said the boy's plight tragically went unnoticed. "Another aspect of this case that's so difficult to deal with is Peter would be alive today if we did not have COVID, we did not have the situations we had with online learning. There is a system in place that would've caught this case, and he would be here today."
Caucuas's father, Arturo Cuacuas, was accused of turning a blind eye to the abuse. He pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and is awaiting sentencing.