Victoria Hawkins listens as her attorney, Walter Ritchie, talks to Judge Anthony Donofrio of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Tuesday. She pleaded guilty to felony child endangering and misdemeanor domestic violence charges and will be sentenced later. Staff photo / Ed Runyan

YOUNGSTOWN — Victoria L. Hawkins, 33, and Jhanette Shipp, 29, both of Westminster Avenue in Austintown, pleaded guilty to felony child endangering and misdemeanor domestic violence charges Wednesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

The women “cruelly” abused a child between November of 2019 and November of 2022 — three years — when the child was 7 years of age or younger, according to the defendants’ indictments.

Both women were indicted on two counts of child endangering, but the more serious count was dismissed in exchange for their guilty pleas.

Prosecutors are recommending that they each get three years in prison, though their attorneys can argue for probation at their sentencing hearing, which is set for 2 p.m. July 11.

Both women entered guilty pleas to their two offenses during the same hearing before Judge Anthony Donofrio of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. The three-year sentence is the maximum each woman could get on the felony child endangering.

The indictments for each woman allege they did “torture or cruelly abuse” the child.

Caitlyn Andrews, assistant county prosecutor, said the abuse was worse than a normal misdemeanor child abuse case.

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