A 29-year-old Clinton Township woman pleaded no contest to second-degree murder for allowing her 2-year-old son to starve to death.

Sierra Pearl Zaitona entered a plea to the murder charge and second-degree child abuse Tuesday in Macomb County Circuit Court for the March 2023 death of the boy, who was found deceased in his crib, according to court records. She agreed to serve 24 to 50 years in prison.

The plea and sentencing are identical to those agreed upon late last year by her co-defendant, Jonathon M. Cheek, 26, her boyfriend and the boy’s father.

Her sentencing is scheduled for April 9 by circuit Judge Anthony Servitto.

She will receive credit against her sentence for about two years of time served. The sentenced for the child-abuse charges was not included in court records. It carries a maximum of 10 years in prison and would run simultaneously.

The child was found unresponsive in his crib March 16, 2023 by Zaitona at the couple’s home in the River’s Edge mobile home park between Garfield and Hayes roads and Metropolitan Parkway and 17 Mile Road, county prosecutors said previously. Cheek was at his mother’s house at the time of the call, according to his defense attorney.

A medical examiner determined the cause of death was starvation, prosecutors said.

The child had been in foster care prior to being returned to the parents.

The incident was the second starvation case in Macomb County within a recent three-year period. Shantavia Hayden, 32, of Warren, was sentenced to 27-1/2 to 50 years in prison in November 2022 by Macomb Circuit Judge James Biernat Jr. for the 2020 death of her 7-week-old son, A’mir Griffin. She was convicted by a jury of the same charges to which Zaitona and Cheek pleaded, second-degree murder and second-degree child abuse.